The national media watch group
What should we make of the so-called "trifecta" of scandals hitting the Obama White House? And what questions should we ask about the IRS/Tea Party story? Also this week: Chris Matthews wants Obama to take charge–just like the union-busting Ronald Reagan. And the Newseum decides two Palestinian journalists shouldn't be considered part of their tribute to journalists who died reporting the news.
Benghazi, the Justice Department seizing AP phone records, and the IRS targeting Tea Party groups: Much of the Beltway press corps–which has pushed the Benghazi story for months–is seeing the Obama presidency in a state of near free-fall. But what's actually happening?
Benghazi isn't the scandal that Obama's critics make it out to be, the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl writes. But the real point of his column is to protect the legacy of the Bush White House's Iraq claims.
A memorial for journalists who died while reporting the news wouldn't seem to be the kind of thing that would attract controversy, but that's exactly what's happened with an exhibit at the Newseum.
This week on FAIR TV: CBS Evening News looked like it was covering an immigrant rights rally– but it was merely a set up to talk about chaos at the border. Time's Joe Klein goes after the "gun lobby" by saying… both sides are at fault? And Cokie Roberts hears the public doesn't want to start a war with Syria. Why does she think that's "dangerous"?
The controversy over the attacks at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, is a great test of the right's tired claim that the corporate media have a liberal bias. If that were true, then this "scandal" would exist almost entirely on Fox News Channel and conservative talk radio.
There's another Libya story that should be getting attention. It's not, and never really has, because the dead are Libyan civilians, killed by U.S./NATO airstrikes.
The claims made about Israeli airstrikes against Syria could be true, or not. What is certain is that the assessments of the airstrikes are being shared anonymously by governments involved in carrying them out, a scenario that cries out for more skepticism.
This week on FAIR TV: Do the claims about Syria's chemical weapons hold up? Tom Friedman's column about the "sick madness" of attacking innocents. The Week magazine turns the Caucasian Tsarnaev brothers into non-whites.
If Guantanamo prisoners are being held without charge, and there is no available evidence to charge them with any terrorism-related offenses, why is the Washington Post talking about the possibility that they may "reengage in extremist activity"?
The pundits' message on Barack Obama's talk of a "red line" on Syria is that they are concerned about the credibility of the president's threats of violence–much more so than about the credibility of his evidence.
When someone says they "broke" with George W. Bush over the Iraq War, you might be inclined to think that they did that sometime before 2006 or so, which is about when Bush strategist-turned-TV pundit Matthew Dowd is saying he left.
What is going on in our community that a critical number of our columnists believe that every American military action in the Middle East is justifiable?
