Mar
19
2013

Scarborough Remembers Some Iraq Words–But Not His Own

scar

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough's commentary looking back at the Iraq War took aim at some politicians and media outlets who were supportive of removing Saddam Hussein from power. But somehow he forgot to include his own words.

Mar
18
2013

Howard Fineman Looks Back on Iraq

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Howard Fineman–formerly at Newsweek, now at Huffington Post–tries to come to terms with his Iraq War failures, seemingly with good intentions. But he falls short of addressing a record that shows a remarkable level of enthusiasm for the job of advocating for Bush's "eyes-on-the-prize decisiveness."

Mar
12
2013

'What Palestinians Said Was Israeli Aggression': The Death of Omar al-Masharawi

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A new report from the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights tallies the extent of the death and destruction from Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip last November. But the headlines generated by the report focused on one child in Gaza, 11-month-old Omar al-Masharawi, and the claim that he was not killed by Israelis.

Mar
12
2013

Killing a Citizen: NYT, Awlaki and 'Muddying the Moral Clarity'

Anwar Al-Awlaki (Al-Malahem Media/screenshot: Magharebia)

The Obama administration has not wanted to explain in any great detail how it justified killing an American citizen in Yemen. But there were apparently plenty of current and former officials willing to explain their case to the New York Times.

Mar
08
2013

FAIR TV: Hugo Chavez in U.S. Media, Time's Path to Iran War, Keystone XL and the TV Left

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This week on FAIR TV: Hugo Chavez was loathed by the U.S. press–and that didn't change when they reported his death. Plus Time magazine provides a look at the "Path to War" with Iran–omitting a key fact along the way.

And the Keystone XL pipeline is back in the news. But when it came up on ABC's This Week, "left" pundit James Carville had a curious message.

Mar
08
2013

Time's Ticking Clock on War With Iran

time-iran

Nowhere does Time's Massimo Calabresi mention one rather inconvenient fact: There is no evidence that Iran is actually pursuing a nuclear weapon. Regular inspections have failed to turn up any evidence of that.

Mar
04
2013

Ten Years Ago, the Truth About Iraqi WMDs Was Published–and Ignored

Hussein Kamel

Ten years ago, a major American magazine published a bombshell report about the non-existence of Iraq's WMDs. But it was hardly noticed by a corporate press corps too busy hyping the threat from those non-existent weapons.

Mar
01
2013

FAIR TV: Sequester Spin, Iranian vs. U.S. Propaganda, Stop & Frisk Factcheck

Janine Jackson on FAIR TV

This week we take a look at how the Washington Post challenges some sequester spin. And CBS pokes fun at Iranian claims about Argo–but are the Iranians right that Argo is fiction? Plus George Will has some thoughts about stop-and-frisk policing.

Mar
01
2013

Republican Pals and Their 'National Security' Passion

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Time magazine has a profile this week of Senate Republican buddies John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and one passage really stands out–not for what it reveals about them, really, but about the media. Michael Crowley writes: Graham and McCain have been friends for more than a decade, a partnership born of their shared passion for national security (McCain was a Navy pilot, Graham is still an Air Force Reserve lawyer), a willingness to poke their party's base in the eye and an uncanny knack for attracting the media's attention. More surprising and quotable than bland party leaders like Mitch McConnell [...]

Feb
26
2013

Oscar Rights Some Historical Wrongs, Creates Some New Ones

Ben Affleck in Argo

Many have exposed the fictions of Argo; Salon's Andrew O'Hehir described the film as "a propaganda fable." But when the Academy chose Argo and almost ignored Zero Dark Thirty, I cheered.

Feb
26
2013

Iranians and Their Clunky Propaganda!

Iran-oscars

I suppose we might ignore that the first lady of a country appeared at an awards show, flanked by members of the military, to present a prize to a film about the heroism of U.S. intelligence. No, the real problem is Iran's Photoshopping.

Feb
19
2013

Friendly Oil–Not the Venezuelan Kind

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With the Keystone climate protests in Washington bringing climate change back into the media, we're hearing a lot about how the Keystone pipeline will, at the very least, mean that we'll be getting our oil from a nice country.

Feb
15
2013

Are Iranian Magnets the New Aluminum Tubes?

wapowarrick

In the run up to the Iraq War, the New York Times famously reported on an Iraqi scheme to procure special aluminum tubes that could only have one purpose: Iraq's secret nuclear weapons program. The claims were false–Iraq, as it turned out, had no nuclear program–but still hugely influential.