War on Terrorism

The New York Times continued its annoying, Winston Smith-like habit of rewriting history in virtually real time yesterday. Helene Cooper's original Monday afternoon report on Chuck Hagel's sacking as Secretary of Defense is no longer available at the Times. However, since I anticipated that the paper would conduct a comprehensive cleanup yesterday when I posted on the paper's original coverage,…

As is the case with so many executive changes in both the public and the private sector, there is vagueness in the circumstances surrounding the end of Chuck Hagel's stint as Obama administration Secretary of Defense. While it's not unusual for an exec to be asked to resign to avoid being formally fired, which was apparently the case with Hagel, the higher-ups involved are usually smart enough…

New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan reluctantly waded into the paper's coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in her latest Sunday column, relaying criticism from both sides before throwing up her hands and defending her paper as fair and balanced. But anyone who's read Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren's coverage knows that's a sad joke.

CNN's Don Lemon refreshingly devoted air time on Monday's CNN Tonight to an ongoing atrocity being committed by Islamic extremist group ISIS – their sexual enslavement of hundreds of Yazidi girls and women. Lemon brought up the radicals' war crime during a segment with CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.

CNN's Chris Cuomo expressed his nagging doubt on Monday's New Day about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Co-anchor Alisyn Camerota boasted, "I find it satisfying to hear about his last seconds – I got to say." Cuomo initially agreed with his co-anchor, but then reversed course: "Actually, I don't know that I do. I don't like the idea of anybody having to lose their life, but that gets into a…

The Metropolitan Opera in New York City is hardly a site for hundreds of angry protesters. But they have erupted over their current selection, an opera called “The Death of Klinghoffer.” Leon Klinghoffer was the 69-year-old paralyzed New Yorker who in 1985 was aboard the hijacked cruise ship Achille Lauro, then executed by Islamic terrorists because he was a Jew. The  terrorists forced the ship's…

The Esquire blogger thinks the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage of the Parliament shootings was excellent because the CBC is taxpayer-funded, unlike U.S. news networks, which have to pander to their audiences to keep those advertiser dollars coming in.

Asked to comment on the recent ax attack in NYC by an apparent lone wolf jihadist that left a rookie cop critically injured, Republican congressman Peter King had some very tough words for the New York Times. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, King condemned the Times for having "smeared" the police and spread the feeling that "the police are an occupying force, that they're profiling Muslims,…

On her MSNBC show today, Alex Wagner found it "surprising" and "distressing" that some were seeing the attack on the Canadian Parliament by a Muslim convert as a "terrorist act."  Wagner was joined by CAIR's Nihad Awad who said that anyone claiming "that there is an islamic component" in the attack shows either "ignorance or hostility" toward Islam. Another guest claimed the attack was "much…

Talking to a Canadian member of Parliament on Thursday, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell wondered about the threat of bigotry in that country's reaction to a terrorist shooting. Comparing Canada to the United States, she worried, "But do you fear, do you worry that there is going to be this reaction as, frankly, we had after 9/11?" 

Here's the first sentence from an Associated Press dispatch relating to a breaking news story out of Israel: "OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli police say they have shot a man whose car slammed into a crowded train stop in east Jerusalem, in what they suspect was an intentional attack." ("OCCUPIED JERUSALEM"" Really? — Ed.) The story goes on to note that nine people were wounded.

Sandwiched in between two domestic terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists in Canada during the past three days, USA Today ran a Tuesday op-ed which appeared in Wednesday's print edition by Mary Zeiss Stange called "Beware the Christian Extremists." With all due respect, ma'am, we've got bigger worries. But in Ms. Stange's world, Christian "religious extremism taken to potentially lethal ends"…

Paul Waldman claims that the GOP likes to whip up fear, and that “you couldn't come up with a better vehicle for creating that fear than a deadly disease coming from countries full of dark-skinned foreigners.”

Those who see Leon Panetta as a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton just got some more ammunition for their argument.  Last week, Panetta helped distance Hillary from President Obama's foreign policy failures by blasting Obama for mistakes in Syria and Iraq. But today, discussing the foreign policy issue on which Hillary is most vulnerable--Benghazi--Panetta suddenly became very forgiving. …