, the BBC cauldron continues to bubble and burp with a ‘story’ on Bush administration ‘corruption’. (Hint: if you give to GW’s re-election fund, you’ll be sure to get in on the ground floor in Iraq.) As one aptly named myth-buster notes here, the study on which the ‘story’ is based is just plain horsefeathers.
Here is an email sent to Glenn Reynolds in response to his post on this which encapsulates the kind of frustration and discrediting this kind of BBC messing evokes.
So, I am in Kazakhstan, forced to watch BBC World as because aside from the Cartoon Network it is the only channel in English. And as I am reading Instapundit’s blurb on THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY, who should appear on TV for an interview but a representative from THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY. First hardball question from BBC World Anchor : “So this report is
pretty devastating for the US administration, isn’t it ?” More similiarly probing questions follow, all answers sound like ‘blah blah blah Halliburton blah blah blah halliburton’Having been forced to watch BBC World for two weeks has been a depressing, enligtening experience. I have lived in Europe and was always fortunate enough to be able to switch to something else and not have to watch BBC. Anti-Americanism is all pervasive on this horror of a channel, the only english language news many people get in many parts of the world. I can’t watch it for more than a half hour without some wild anti-american slur, distortion or lie wanting me to throw something at the TV.
The BBC finds this kind of non-story hard to resist as it fits so neatly with its jaded view of American motives in Iraq (or anywhere for that matter). Daniel Drezner and Stuart Buck provide a thorough de-bunking as well. (Via InstaPundit)
UPDATE 4 November: The BBC, all too willing to parrott the party line, should have a look at Professor Daniel Drezner’s dismantling of the ‘study’ by the Center for Public Integrity in Slate. Someone needs to go back to school.
If you go to the “Center for Public Integrity” website and look at their 2000 annual, Americans can immediately get a “feel” for that organization’s tilt on the political spectrum. The first page had an endorsement quote from that well known zealot for objective journalism (sarcasm)Bill Moyers and then for a laugher, the next page includes an endorsement letter from that Kennedy era liar and lefty Arthur Schlessenger. HA, there’s even a quote from the…wait for it…The Guardian!
Don’t expect much from the Beeb. If you wrapped a hard left bottle of rat poison in the word “study,” the BBC would swollow it whole without looking under the wrapper.