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?
May
14
2013
Heritage Immigration Scandal Proof That…Both Sides Do It?
By 2 Comments
The controversy over Heritage's dubious immigration report led Bill Keller of the New York Times to write a column about the big lessons of this scandal. And the first lesson? Think tanks on "both sides" are up to no good.
May
10
2013
When Libyans Die From NATO Airstrikes, It's Not Benghazi
By 13 Comments
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.
May
08
2013
Iron Man 3 and the Art of Missing the Point
By 10 Comments
Hollywood's latest superhero movie has a political message that's not particularly hard to decipher. Yet fail to decipher it New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis evidently did.
May
06
2013
Those Who Send Innocents to Prison Are Not Like Innocents Who Are Sent to Prison
By 11 Comments
It shouldn't be necessary to spell out, but apparently it is, that sending the Central Park Five to prison for a crime they hadn't committed was wrong because they hadn't committed the crime.
May
06
2013
What's the Standard on Reporting Israeli Airstrikes?
By 12 Comments
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.
May
03
2013
FAIR TV: Syria Sarin Skepticism, Tom Friedman's Sick Madness, Darkening the Tsarnaevs
By 7 Comments
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.
May
02
2013
NYT's Beat Sweetener on New Interior Secretary
By 4 Comments
"Beat sweetener" was written all over John Broder's April 30 New York Times profile of new Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, "a woman of untamed energy, competitiveness and confidence in the boardroom and on a mountain trail."
May
01
2013
How Dare Hamid Karzai Take Our Money!
By 8 Comments
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams had a most peculiar reaction to revelations that Afghan president Hamid Karzai receives regular deliveries of cash from the Central Intelligence Agency.
Apr
29
2013
The Sick Madness of Tom Friedman's Culture
By 34 Comments
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?
Apr
26
2013
Reporting 'Says' Rather Than 'Says It Believes' Could Make a War of Difference
By 9 Comments
The front page of the New York Times had a very definitive headline on Syria and chemical weapons–but when you read the actual story, a much more ambiguous picture emerged.
Apr
22
2013
Don't Quote Me by Name, But My Friends the Koch Brothers Respect the Hell Out of Press Freedom
By 12 Comments
The New York Times finds anonymous sources to assure us that the Koch brothers are not trying to buy the Tribune newspapers in order to "destroy the other side." But Mother Jones finds an actual person who explains how the Kochs actually treat media outlets whose reporting they don't like.
Apr
19
2013
Democrats Can't Blame Guns for '94 Losses
By 2 Comments
There are perhaps plenty of lessons in the (most recent) Senate failure to pass even modest new restrictions/regulations on gun ownership. But one lesson needs to be resisted: The idea that passing a more expansive gun control law in 1994 came back to bite Democrats in the midterm elections.
