Networks Defend Obama as ‘Critics Pounced’ and Took ‘Too Literally’ His ‘No Strategy Yet’ Remarks on ISIS

On Friday morning, the major broadcast networks were out in full force to defend President Obama after his remarks at a press conference Thursday afternoon in which he said that “we don’t have a strategy yet” in how to militarily address the Islamic terrorist group ISIS in Syria.

Leading the way was NBC’s Today, where co-host Matt Lauer told NBC News political director and moderator of Meet the Press Chuck Todd that “[c]ritics pounced” when Obama made that remark and wondered if they took “his words too literally.”

Chuck agreed with Lauer’s assessment, but said that “[t]he White House certainly is trying to spin back the President’s words saying hey, you know, yes, they were a little blunt” and “they wish he would have worded it differently.”

After Lauer said in the show’s tease that “[t]he President taking heat for saying his administration has yet to develop a plan to deal with ISIS militants in Syria,” Lauer first spoke with NBC News foreign correspondent Keir Simmons, who took a completely different angle. Simmons told viewers that, while the President “urged calm,” he said “there is no sign of that this morning” in the Middle East and Ukraine, where Russian forces have crossed the Ukraine-Russia border to aid Russian-backed fighters in eastern Ukraine against the Ukrainian military.

Over on CBS This Morning, co-host Gayle King observed the following during the show’s first segment on the President’s remarks: “This morning, many Republicans are accusing the President of having no plan to deal with the terror group.”

Finally, on ABC’s Good Morning America, substitute co-host David Muir declared in that Obama is coming “under fire, facing tough questions this morning about his plan to deal with” the crisis of ISIS in Syria (and Iraq).

ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz said that Obama yesterday was “toning down his language substantially” against ISIS while he sought to, inference to another propaganda released by ISIS after Obama’s press conference, “tamp down the emotional response to scenes like this and the execution of James Foley.”

In the final seconds of her appearance, Raddatz then finally chose to admit: “You know, the President did say he does not yet have a strategy for Syria and that is creating a lot of concern given that ISIS has been gaining strength for years now.”

The complete transcripts from the two segments on President Obama from CBS This Morning on August 29 are transcribed …

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