VIDEO: On CNN, Obama U.N. Ambassador Pressed On Failure Of Obama Policy In Middle East.

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice Claims “Substantial Improvements” In Relations With The Muslim World Under President Obama. CNN’S CANDY CROWLEY:  “Why would one not look at what’s going on in the Middle East now and say that the president’s outreach to Muslims which began at the beginning of his administration in Cairo and elsewhere has not worked because, yes, this video sparked it, but there is an underlying anti-Americanism that is very evident on the streets so, why would we not look at it and think that this outreach has failed.” AMBASSADOR SUSAN RICE:  “For the same reason, Candy, when you look back at history and we had the horrible experience of our facilities and our personnel being attack Beirut in 1982. We had the attack on kobar towers in the 1990s. We had an attack on our embassy in Yemen in 2008. There have been such attacks. There have been expressions of hostility towards the west.” CROWLEY:  “It was a reset, was it not? It was supposed to be a reset of U.S.-Muslim relations? RICE:  “And indeed, in fact there had been substantial improvements.” (CNN’s “State Of The Union,” 9/16/12)

VIDEO: On ABC, Obama Administration Pressed On Failing Foreign Policy And Obama’s Flailing Response.

Obama U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice Pressed On Obama Administration’s Middle East Foreign Policy Failures. ABC’S JAKE TAPPER: “Look at this map if you will, there have been protests around the world over the last several days. President Obama pledged to repair America’s relationships with the Muslim world. Why does the U.S. seem so impotent and why is the U.S. even less popular today in some of these Muslim and Arab countries than it was four years ago?” AMBASSADOR SUSAN RICE: “Jake, we’re not impotent. We’re not even less popular to challenge that assessment. I don’t know on what basis you make that judgment.” TAPPER: “It just seems that the U.S. government is powerless as this maelstrom erupts.” RICE: “It’s actually the opposite. First of all, let’s be clear about what transpired here. What happened this week in Cairo, in Benghazi and in many other parts of the region –” TAPPER: “Tunisia, Khartoum – ” RICE: “Was a result, a direct result of a heinous and offensive video that was widely disseminated, that the U.S. government had nothing to do with, which we have made clear is reprehensible and disgusting. We have also been very clear in saying that there is no excuse for violence. We have condemned it in the strongest possible terms. Let’s look at what’s happened… quite the opposite of being impotent. We have worked with the governments in Egypt. President Obama picked up the phone and talked to President Morsi in Egypt and as soon as he did that the security provided to our personnel and our embassies dramatically increased.” TAPPER: “It took two days for President Morsi to say anything about it.” (ABC’s “This Week,” 9/16/12)

VIDEO: NYT’s Jeff Zeleny: Obama’s Cairo Speech Now Looks Naïve And Quaint.

The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny Questioned Obama’s Reset With The Muslim World. FOX NEWS’ CHRIS WALLACE: “Jeff, do you think, because I must say I find it astonishing myself the idea that they would say this is all about the video? Do you think that they really believe that, or do you think they see that as an easy out, and as I suggested to Mike Rogers, now they don’t have to answer questions about policy, because it has nothing to do with policy?” THE NEW YORK TIMES’ JEFF ZELENY: “I’m not sure if they believe it or not, but they are certainly doubling down on it so they are leaving us every. It looks like they believe it, and I mean, even privately, even in conversations I have had over the weekend with senior administration officials about this, no one is leaving open the possibility of hey, that this is just the line we are giving as we look into it further. It seems to me that they are opening themselves up to or they are leaving themselves very vulnerable here. Once more answers are known, I think, as Chairman Rogers was saying, he was giving a very sort of even handed response, I think, saying look we still don’t know the answers to a lot of the questions of what happened over there. So if this administration – if it turns out a month from now that there was a major intelligence failure, I think this is going to look pretty irresponsible and silly right now to say this is all because of a trailer for a video. But look, I was at that speech in Cairo in June of 09, and I’m just struck by how much has changed and how much it looks, some of those comments sound I don’t know if naive but quaint given everything that happened with the Arab Spring and things, and it’s certainly not really irrelevant. I mean, I think there is time for a reset of that reset, and we haven’t heard the president talk about his policy a lot since then.” (Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday,” 9/16/12)

VIDEO: NYT’s Helene Cooper: Obama’s Actions This Week Show His Lack Of Influence In Egypt.

The New York Times’ Helene Cooper Said The Loss Of American Influence Under Obama In The Middle East Is “Really Disturbing." MSNBC’S CHRIS MATTHEWS: “Let’s talk about the most important country over there, Egypt. Where the government is not an ally exactly of ours. Morsi, but the president, our president, has been trying to talk to him into quelling things down.” THE NEW YORK TIMES’ HELENE COOPER: “That’s what’s been sort of one of the more amazing things about this past week, is, what happened in Libya was a horrible, horrible tragedy with the killing of four Americans there. But at the end of the day, what’s far more important is what happened and what didn’t happen in Egypt. Because Libya is not the center of American national security interests, Egypt is. Egypt is the linchpin of everything that we’re trying to do in the Middle East, particularly keeping it going with the Camp David peace accord between Egypt and Israel, and what you saw in Cairo was president – a new president, President Muhammad Morsi who is of the Muslim Brotherhood and who the Obama administration has been trying for the last 18 months to sort of encourage the Arab street and encourage the democracy movement there and has backed this brotherhood – even against our own allies. But you saw president Morsi stop and take forever, he took 24 hours, before he criticized the attack on the American embassy. That’s a really long time and when he did it he did it on Facebook. That really infuriated the Obama administration. President Obama ended up calling him from his hotel room in Colorado where he was campaigning and sort of read him the riot act. And that’s really disturbing when you see – when you see the loss of sort of American influence and American leverage in a place that for 30 years has sort of been one of our staunchest – no matter what you say about the word allies, one of our staunchest allies.” (NBC’s “The Chris Matthews Show,” 9/16/12)