this picture on the BBC site (or on The World’s Rudest Home Videos). But I wonder if this is what the Beeb meant by ‘standing ovation’ for John Kerry? Here’s the accompanying caption:
War veterans Jere Hill, middle, from Warham, Mass., and Robert Gibson, right, from Lexington, Ky., stand with their backs turned during Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news – web sites)’s speech at the 105th Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004. Man in foreground is unidentified. Kerry received a polite if not overwhelmingly positive reaction from the VFW. But there was a clear divide, with scores of veterans sittings with their arms folded while others clapped. (AP Photo/David Kohl)
Hat Tip: The Kerry Spot and B-BBC commenter PJF.
UPDATE: Interestingly, I just came across this as well. It doesn’t quite fit the BBC version of the event.
CAN’T BUY ME LOVE
Sen. John Kerry is said by several advance staffers to have been visibly upset at the reception he received at the VFW convention on Wednesday in Cincinnati. “He was upset after the speech, visibly upset when he was out of public view,” says a Kerry adviser, confirming the story.Kerry was greeted by polite applause in the large auditorium, with many VFW members sitting with their arms crossed and not applauding at all. A few VFW members stood in the rear of the room with their backs turned to the dais.Kerry appeared thrown by the reception, giving a flat, sometimes-meandering speech that was intended to be a strong rebuttal of President Bush’s announced troop pullback in Europe and Korea. Two things apparently changed Kerry’s aggressive stance. First, before going onstage, Kerry was informed that NATO officials in Brussels had essentially backed the Bush proposal as being sound and in line with NATO’s own troop deployment plans. Second, according to an advance staffer, the candidate had been told that he would be received at the very least warmly, based on feedback the campaign had received from VFW officials.
“He’s not used to not getting a warm reception,” says the advance staffer. “He can handle the Bush hooligans we get, but when he’s told he’ll be greeted well, he expects that to be the case.” Apparently Terry Kerry’s money can’t buy the candidate that kind of love.
BBC Newsnight item about UK pensions.
In the report section of this item , ‘Immigration’ was presented, without any attempt at justification or lack of certainty as some kind of ‘solution’ to the UK pensions crisis.
Migrationwatch UK have plenty of evidence that mass immgration is at best neutral as regards economic benefit to the host population. Indeed the post-report discussion amongst UK politicians mentioned the difficulty UK citizens who are aged just 50+ have of obtaining employment, often due to still perfectly legal age discrimination. No attempt was made to point out that allowing 200000 non -EU immigrants per year to enter the uk on work permits may have a detrimental effect of thier chances of finding work , and hence having to rely on state benefits!
To be fair to them, I did notice that in a filmed package in the programme they did say that immigration wasn’t the answer to the problem – because, IIRC, we’d need to increase the population to 136 million (from just under 60 million now!) by 2030 (I think) – and that this would have to continue to grow because the immigrants would get old too.
What they didn’t, but perhaps should have mentioned, was the possibility of breeding our way out of age related issues (less pension funders, less people to provide care, etc.) – e.g. by incentivising people to have more children, perhaps through tax breaks for those able and willing to reproduce – 1.7 children per couple just ain’t enough to go round.
Hmmmm, I wonder why he wasn’t received warmly by the VFW. Could it be his testimony before Congress calling these same guys rapists, murderers, torturers, baby killers, etc.?
What did he expect? Some people have long memories.
I’ll give him this: He has more testicular fortitude™ than I had previously credited him.
It’s been a long time coming, but – Ta Da!
Vietnam dominates Bush-Kerry fray
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3581900.stm
Oh, but the spin, the dizzying spin (it’s all Bush’s fault).
As others in the blogoshpere have noted, the mainstream media are now mentioning the story because Kerry has effectively given permission by mentioning it himself.
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StinKer, not to mention his voting against every modern weapons program that came along. He voted against the M1 Abrams, Bradley, MX missile, Kevlar armor for troops, etc.
When Kerry insists he supports the military maybe we need to ask him exactly who’s military he supports?
No mention of Christmas in Cambodia, of course. Kerry already confirmed telling porkies on that one.
.
The second ad by the Swift Boat Vets probably holes Kerry below the waterline. Lots of signs from opinion polls that his whole campaign is imploding – largely as a direct result of the swift Boat vets story that the goodie-twoshoes media like the BBC, NY Times etc have largely ignored.
The Internet has been a-buzz with these stories for three weeks now – and the vets book is a sellout even before it is available. 45% of the US public saw their first ad, vets in particlular are switching their vote.
But still virtually nothing from the BBC. This is by far the biggest issue so far in the campaign, blithely ignored or at best misrepresented by the Beeb.
I’m quite happy actually; this is the best proof of BBC (and other “non-partisan” media) bias we could ever have asked for.
The direct comparison between this and how they covered the Bush ANG story should be enough to convince any neutral onlooker we have a good case.
Jim,
Not to mention his proposals to gut the intelligence services and the FBI. This after the first attacks on the WTC, two bases in Saudi, the embassies in Africa and the Cole bombing. Even his buddy Ted Kennedy voted against those. Some of his proposed cuts never even got out of committee.
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When the Bush campaign pointed out his poor attendance at the Senate Intelligence committee his spokesperson denied it and pointed out that he (Kerry) was vice chair of the committee. The vice chair of the committee was Bob Kerrey, not John Kerry.
It’s quickly becoming a flustercluck. 😆