FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank (12/6/09) thinks there’s something wrong with left-wing critics of Barack Obama. As his lead put it: Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet. Milbank starts with Michael Moore, who wrote an open letter urging Obama not to escalate the […]
Time columnist Joe Klein (12/3/09) was not altogether impressed by Obama’s announcement of a 30,000 troop escalation in Afghanistan (an “iffy proposition,” as Klein put it). But Klein’s main point was that Obama should have justified the war differently: “Once you have made the decision to go, or to redouble your efforts, you must lead […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin120409 Norman Solomon and Robert Naiman @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin120409.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan at the ‘fastest possible pace,’ President Obama has declared, are in our vital national interest. The Washington Post called it a strong but carefully calibrated to Afghanistan and Pakistan, describing the plan as “a counterinsurgency strategy […]
In this world, it’s the public that’s skeptical of an endless pursuit of victory, with a majority of respondents in recent polling saying they oppose the war.
A meeting of the minds between NBC host Chris Matthews and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius (Chris Matthews Show, 11/29/09): IGNATIUS: The long period of analysis, very deliberative, robs this of passion. This is–he was going to be a wartime president now, and he has to sell the country on the idea that our young […]
The Washington Post reports its latest polling on the Afghanistan war, and once again have managed to put together a baffling question that seems intended to muddy up the debate over a troop surge. The lead and headline (“Poll Finds Guarded Optimism on Obama’s Afghanistan Plan”) stress the idea that the public still seems to […]
Afghan activist and politician Malalai Joya has been in the U.S. to discuss her book A Woman Among Warlords. As noted by Eric Garris at Antiwar.com, Joya’s was treated very differently byCNN than by CNN International. Specifically, Joya’s mention of the military occupation of her country seemed to offend CNN host Heidi Collins (10/28/09): Again, […]
The Obama administration, having increased the number of troops in Afghanistan by 21,000 in March, is engaged in a contentious internal discussion about whether to send an additional 40,000 more. There is growing anger over Afghan civilian deaths, and July and August were the deadliest months for U.S. soldiers since the U.S. invaded in 2001 […]
Dick Morris was on the O’Reilly Factor the other night (10/28/09) advocating a troop escalation in Afghanistan—and his argument was characteristically peculiar: Listen, terrorist gangs like Al-Qaeda are like HIV virus. They swim in your bloodstream. They don’t make you sick. When they latch on to a cell, a nation state, and they use the […]
Mark Weisbrot had a good column in the London Guardian (10/23/09) about the highly circumscribed “debate” over the Afghanistan War (FAIR Action Alert, 8/25/09). He breaks down the lineup of a recent Meet the Press (10/11/09): Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former Army general and drug czar (under President Clinton) turned defense industry lobbyist. In a […]
“U.S. Deeply Split on Troop Increase for Afghan War” is the headline on the Washington Post‘s October 21 report about its latest polling on Afghanistan. The paper reports that “Americans are evenly and deeply divided” over sending 40,000 extra troops: “47 percent of those polled favor the buildup, while 49 percent oppose it.” If you’ve […]
Politico (10/14/09) published a list of top topics on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show, based on a search of Nexis transcripts since the show’s January 2009 debut. It’s instructive to look at the placement of some individuals, groups and places in the news as an indication of Beck’s sense of whom and what his audience […]
Disapproval and despair over the lost standards of journalistic objectivity are trotted out only for reporters whose opinions are at odds with official views.
In most policy debates, the media preference is for a solution in the “center,” whatever they define that to be. A Los Angeles Times headline today on the Beltway debate on Afghanistan reads: “Obama mulls middle ground in Afghanistan war strategy.” Like the healthcare debate, the media’s version of “the middle” usually means something well […]
In the new issue of Time magazine,a debate on Afghanistan is listed in the table of contents this way: What Should We Do Now? Two Views Is it time for the U.S. military to turn Afghanistan over, or is time for our troops to stay the course? The “stay the course” view is presented by […]
USA Today ‘s left/right op-ed feature today is a doozy– a “debate” on escalating the Afghan War between regulars Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel. The headline gives it away: Time to Dig In, Not Bail Out Forget left or right. Forget politics. Think “war on terror.” Bob and Cal agree that now is not the […]
Of deteriorating governmental control in Afghanistan, Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, 9/8/09) says that “a stale witticism calls Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai ‘the mayor of Kabul.’ Now, not even.” He points to the “corrupt, inept and–with massive election fraud–now illegitimate” administration as a “notable work product” of “those who believe in making war”: After 30 years, […]
Editor & Publisher‘s Joe Strupp (9/4/09) has an update on U.S. papers’ “mixed reaction to the controversial Associated Press photo distributed today of a Marine who died in combat in Afghanistan last month.” The picture’s inclusion in “a group of images taken by AP photographer Julie Jacobson” predictably was “blasted” by Secretary of Defense Robert […]
In his Time column this week, Klein writes: So what should Obama do about Afghanistan? His dilemma isn’t as stark as has been posed in recent press accounts, with screamers on the right demanding slavish devotion to the military’s wish list and screamers on the left demanding a withdrawal. The U.S. military has become far […]
The Washington Post had another “Topic A” feature on August 31, headlined “Is the War in Afghanistan Worth Fighting?” A crucial debate, to be sure; the Post found one person (Andrew Bacevich) to argue that it is not, which is probably a position close to the majority view of the American public. That position is […]
