War on Terrorism

Paging the MSNBC PC police! On his All In show this evening, Chris Hayes used some indubitably un-PC language to dismiss concerns that ISIS or other terrorist groups might be infiltrating across our porous southern border. Huffed Hayes: "in the years since September 11, there have been occasional stories of this type. Sort of, a kind of girl talk mash-up of the fear about the border and the fear…

U. of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne thinks that whether you’re talking about ISIS or the Vatican, “there is no ‘true’ religion in the factual sense, for there is no good evidence supporting their claims to truth.” He also says that “you can cherry-pick the Qur’an as easily as you can the Bible, for both are filled with calls for violence and genocide.”

Charles Pierce thinks the campaign against ISIS may cause a spike in the national “derangement” that started on 9/11, and Jonathan Chait sees neoconservatives making the same mistakes now as they did more than a decade ago: “The hysterical threat assessment, the simplistic conflation of mutually antagonistic strains of Islam, and the complete lack of concern for the possibility of overreach.”

Phyllis Bennis is a defender of Iran and its nuclear ambitions, and wants Israel wiped off the map, to be replaced by a single Palestinian state. So naturally she's a Melissa Harris-Perry fave. Appearing yet again today on Harris-Perry's MSNBC show, Bennis put her radical views on display, arguing that many US soliders aren't truly volunteers, but are "forced in by poverty and lack of other…

On Friday, the editorial board of The New York Times warned that allowing the president to escalate military action against ISIS -- the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – without Congressional approval would set “a dangerous precedent” in a move the board also called “unjustifiable.” Meanwhile, "The cowardice in Congress, never to be underestimated, is outrageous."

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed President Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice during Thursday’s edition of The Situation Room and neglected to bring up the second anniversary of the tragic attack in Benghazi, Libya that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty dead. Instead, the nearly eight-and-a-half-minute…

On Thursday’s NBC Nightly News, senior White House correspondent Chris Jansing provided not only spin favorable to President Obama a day after his prime time speech on ISIS, but also suggested that this could help the President in the midterm elections. At the conclusion of her report, Jansing told viewers that: "It's a war the President inherited with decisions made now shaping his legacy and…

On Hardball, Chris Matthews describes himself as a "skeptic" about President Obama's ISIS strategy.  Matthews argues that since the president has excluded American boots on the ground, we will be forced to rely on foreign partners to hold territory, yet there are no such viable forces available.

Mark Sumner argues that ISIS “represents no threat to the United States," and that America has long suffered from “shaking-in-our-boots cowardice” over terrorism which has caused us to give terrorists “exactly what they want”: a massive military response.

A frequent tipster has informed me that on today's episode of "The Five" on Fox News, Bob Beckel actually said that he likes current White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest better than his predecessor James Carney because Earnest "looks better." Far be it from me to render a judgment on relative male handsomeness. But one thing I can say about Earnest is that, at certain times, when he gets a…

On Thursday's New Day, CNN's Kate Bolduan hounded Senator John McCain to back President Obama's new strategy to combat the Islamist terrorist group ISIS and help him gain congressional support: "We talk about how you are a critic of the administration. But now that there is a strategy, Senator – now that there is going to be action...how are you going to help the administration succeed now in…

On Thursday's NBC Today, several hours after NBC chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel ripped President Obama's strategy to combat ISIS as being "wildly off-base," correspondent Peter Alexander promoted the commander-in-chief's Wednesday primetime address: "President Obama announced that he would lead a broad coalition to destroy ISIS....The war will be more like those in Yemen and Somalia,…

President Obama is a great leader.  Really.  Just ask him. Seemingly ignored in the coverage of the president's ISIS speech last night was the moment when President Obama claimed that the ISIS threat was being met with "strength and resolve," then boasted that his strategy—and by extension he himself—represented "American leadership at its best." Can anyone imagine truly great American leaders--…

Qatar-owned network avoided Hamas ‘terror,’ Israeli casualties.