How does the BBC portray him? The usual patterns quickly surface.
1) Sneer at his faith. So, being a serious Christian makes one illegitimate to govern? The whole article is shot through with this kind of anti-christian bias. Former NY Times reporter, now conservative pundit, Cliff May reports on his recent BBC interview re Ashcroft:But the TV interviewer essentially took the position that perhaps Mr. May is correct to claim that there has not been a single terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, and maybe John Ashcroft had something to do with that (or it could be an odd coincidence, hard to say, sticky wicket and all that), and maybe it’s true, as you assert, Mr. May, that violent crime is down to a 30-year low.
But, Mr. May, it’s also true, is it not, sir, that John Ashcroft has been known to conduct prayer breakfasts?
Yes, yes, yes! I confess! It’s true! It’s all true! Oh, the scandal! The horror! The shame!
Christians, who needs ’em?
2) Repeat unsubtantiated rumour. I refer to the bogus ‘naked statues’ story which flew around the MSM and has now become urban legend. Leave it to the BBC to resort to this kind of pettiness.
3) Overlook principled behaviour and imply illegitimacy.
The BBC states: Mr Ashcroft was chosen by Mr Bush after failing to win re-election as US senator for Missouri in November 2000. That was despite the fact that his opponent, Governor Mel Carnahan, had died in a plane crash three weeks earlier. Mr Carnahan’s widow, Jean, accepted appointment to the Senate in her husband’s place.At face value, the people of Missouri elected a dead man over Ashcroft. Ashcroft suspended campaigning for the final week of the election and a last-minute Democratic ‘sympathy vote’ plan took effect. And don’t forget Ashcroft’s refusal to dispute the election in the face of strong vote fraud evidence and late poll closings in Saint Louis. Mr Ashcroft ran the gauntlet of Senate confirmation in a hostile atmosphere on Capitol Hill and was approved. The reporter stacks the deck in failing to report the whole story. It’s all too familiar a pattern.
4) Impugn his motives and good faith efforts to do his job. Michelle Malkin answers this one as well as I’ve seen: He was the most underappreciated, most maligned, most ridiculed, and most demonized member of the Bush cabinet. He endured a brutal, vicious nomination process. After 9/11, he was damned for doing his job too aggressively, and damned for not doing his job aggressively enough. He withstood the secular Left’s assaults on his deeply-held faith, and devoted himself to his tasks to the point of exhaustion. In short, he bore all of the blame for the War on Terror’s shortcomings, won little credit for its successes, and earned undeserved and largely uninformed scorn on both sides of the aisle. It will be the same way for whomever replaces him. God bless Mr. Ashcroft. And God help his replacement.
The BBC just doesn’t get it. Will they ever?
UPDATE: Just noticed this piece de-bunking the NY Times treatment of Ashcroft. I think the shoe fits the Beeb perfectly.
BBC to cut thousands of staff ??? Including big cuts at BBC News and Current Affairs ?
http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/14598771?source=Evening%20Standard
The implication with the prayer breakfasts is that it, by it’s very nature, excludes non-Christians. If Ashcroft holds prayer breakfasts for himself and his Christian staff and participation or non-participation does not effect the job, then there’s nothing wrong with that.
However, if it was the case that prayer breakfast people were more likely to be promoted or non-Christians were more likely to be shunted out of the department, then it would be wrong.
In my own workplace there is a regular prayer meeting of Christian staff. But it is not organised or led by the Chief Executive, it’s organised by a middle manager. That way, there’s no perceived work benefit to attending, and no perceived detriment to not attending, no-one feels excluded and everyone’s happy.
Prayer meetings at work. Are you in the UK? I’d be quite dubious if a gang of my colleagues got together like that every morning – all sounds a bit masonic.
Can’t they just pray on their own in the stationary cupboard like the Muslims?
Yes, in the UK, it’s a monthly thing, not any more regular, but it’s not controversial. It helps that the guy running it is the most inclusive evangelical Christian I’ve ever met (he doesn’t want to burn me at the stake, which is a good thing)
Prayer breakfasts are part of the Washington landscape and are widely viewed as bipartisan affairs, quite ecumenical too. Those who do not wish to attend are well-protected under the law. That the BBC sees this as remarkable demonstrates how far removed they are from the subjects they report.
To be fair Kerry, it would be viewed as unusual here (eg, look above for the reaction to the idea that a UK public sector employer has prayer meetings), also the UK is more diverse religiously than the US so it would appear more noteworthy here.
I suppose it’s no different from an office clique going down the pub at lunch regularly.
I had no idea it was so common in the US. Scary but educational.
What’s scary about the concept of a prayer meeting? It’s an overtly christian country.
The UK is more religiously diverse than the US?
Christianity is scary to Liberals, much scarier than Islamofascism. BTW depending on how ‘ecumenical’ they are non-christians may attend as well.
(Non fundamentalist) Christianity is infinitely less scary that Muslim fundamentalism for anyone outside the completely bonkers, however the Muslims do tend to desist from ringing my doorbell during Goals on Sunday to ask if I’m interested in finding out about Jesus.
I’m genuinely curious about this.
I presume prayer meetings happen outside standard work hours otherwise there must be bleating of the ‘how come smokers get loads of paid 10 minute breaks and I don’t’ variety?
Why on Earth would non Christians attend a prayer meeting unless they were paraniod about it otherwise affecting their promotion chances?
What is a fundamentalist Christian? As far as I’m concerned I don’t care, each to his own, as long as it doesn’t effect my life or society in a negative way. Fundamentalist muslims have altered everyones lives through their murder and destruction, fundamentalist christians might as well not exist they have so little impact on me.
I have to say that I can’t think of an example of Christians acting to the detriment of my life other than irritating doorstepping so you’ve won yourself a convert.
Having said that I can’t think how the actions of fundamentalist Muslims have had any impact whatsoever on me personally either, given that their murder and destruction seems to have missed Crouch End thus far.
“Why on Earth would non Christians attend a prayer meeting unless they were paraniod about it otherwise affecting their promotion chances?”
This may come as a surprise to you THFC but non-christians like Jews and Buddhists pray too.
P.S. So basically you’re saying mass murder doesn’t concern you unless it happens in your immediate neighborhood?
Prayer breakfasts are usally ecumenical events. Nothing to get het up about.
Actually Roxana, now I’ve looked it up there’s not as much difference as I originally thought.
In both cases this data excludes those that either didn’t answer or didn’t have a religion (and the 0.1% of the British population that claimed to be a Jedi)
United States 2001
Click to access pop.pdf
Table 79
Christian 95.4%
Jewish 1.7%
Muslim 0.7%
Buddhist 0.7%
Hindu 0.5%
Other 1.2%
United Kingdom 2001
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=293
Christian 93.2%
Muslim 3.5%
Hindu 1.2%
Sikh 0.7%
Jewish 0.6%
Buddhist 0.3%
Other 0.5%
BTW THFC I’m not sure if it’s in standard work hours or not as I wouldn’t be going to one. It’s a hospital though so the term standard work hours is a little redundant.
More on Ashcroft’s prayer meetings.
“Ashcroft’s aides responded to the criticism by pointing out that many of his top staffers – including the chief of staff, the deputy chief of staff and the communications director – have never attended the devotional meetings. They told the Post that the sessions are open to all Justice employees, whether they are Christian or not.”
http://www.mcjonline.com/news/01a/20010514a.shtml
“Shimon Stein, a Justice program analyst and an Orthodox Jew, said he finds the meetings fascinating from a theological perspective.”
Sorry about the Anon. I posted above about Ashcroft’s meetings.
Roxana,
I read about mass murder in the papers. Not sure if that constitutes an ‘impact’ on my life in the way that running out of wine or the football team losing does, on the basis that it doesn’t particularly change my mood or actions. It’s more background noise.
So would an attack on your country killing three thousand of your fellow citizens ‘change your mood’? If you’re American you’ve already answered this.