[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]
On 15 October 2015, CNN's John Berman took aim at a claim by President Obama moments after he announced that thousands of American troops would remain in Afghanistan. Berman highlighted that the President "did make clear he is not a president who has ever supported endless war," but continued that "if Afghanistan, at this point, is not an endless war, I'm not sure what is." Liberal historian Douglas Brinkley seconded the anchor's take: "It kind of is an endless war."
Brinkley added that "he [Obama] would like to call it, I think, something more of a police action – a security force being left behind," and underlined that "the President can't checkmark this off as something that was fully achieved on his watch." Correspondent Jim Acosta then surprisingly admitted that "the President saying...I do not believe in endless war...is right out of the rhetoric of the progressive base of the Democratic Party." Acosta also tried to find the silver lining for liberals in Obama's announcement: "While this might sound like endless war...what you do hear from people inside the administration...is they will point to what happened after the Cold War."