I'm not a stickler for the Sunday morning news shows. I thought ABC's Jake Tapper did a great job as a temporary host on This Week, but I generally don't watch them -- I just read the transcripts later. I didn't watch this weekend, so I have no idea whether or not the show's new host, Christiane Amanpour, did a good job. Still, Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales' hatred of her is just weird. Eric Boehlert points out that Shales, in attacking Amanpour as "globe-trotting fancypants," (previously "little miss politics") suggested that she sympathized with the Taliban during her debut:
Perhaps in keeping with the newly globalized program, the commendable "In Memoriam" segment ended with a tribute not to American men and women who died in combat during the preceding week but rather, said Amanpour in her narration, in remembrance of "all of those who died in war" in that period. Did she mean to suggest that our mourning extend to members of the Taliban?
In case it needs mentioning, the minute and a half segment contained the names of U.S. servicemembers, but not Taliban fighters or even Afghan civilians -- and an acknowledgment of the sacrifices made by the latter would be entirely appropriate. In disbelief, Boehlert asks, "Are you kidding me?" The answer is very likely no, given that Shales, who was last seen going after Amanpour's hairstyle, also previously suggested that Amanpour, who is of Iranian descent, would be unable to cover Israel or Iran objectively.