Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
Bookmark the permalink.
dumbcisco
‘ the balance of judgements anti-Republican’
The Supreme Court very rarely hears cases that are political in nature and that clearly reflect party political differences.
In Bush vs Gore they did. The court divided along party lines. The Republicans won.
You make the elementary mistake of confusing judicial conservatism with political conservatism. There are many shades of the textualist, strict constructionist, judicial restraint vs. judicial activism argument and the court represents a number of them. (Me, I’m with Scalia on this, though leaning towards Roberts since his confirmation hearing performance.) This isn’t chiefly a party political matter.
Since you probably don’t know: Alan Dershowitz thinks Roe vs Wade was a dodgy call too.
Only a blinkered ideologue like you sees everything in partisan colours. The real world is more nuanced.
One of the many arguments that Justice Stevens of the US Supreme Court was making up the Constition as he goes along – again. And that the Supreme Court may actually have been ultra vires in even hearing the case, as Congress had restricted any hearting to the Court of Appeal for the DC Circuit – excluding the Supreme Court from conducting any such hearing :
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzZmOTBhMzFlY2VlMzI5NjYyNzMzZWVlNTAwNzZhMWM=
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/06/common_sense_at_war_in_hamdan.html
Exactly the sort of arguments we won’t hear on the BBC when its “expert US legal commentator” on the law is rabidly anti-Bush.
reith
The Supreme Court judgment has been seen by everyone as a challenge to the president’s authority as CinC, and by many to the law which Congress passed only last year restricting such cases to the DC District Court of Appeal. This case is slap bang in the centre of US politics. It is fatuous of you to suggest it is not.
For you to pretend this is not political is silly. And you still produce no reason why the BBC should call on a rabidly anti-Bush lawyer to be the “US legal expert”.
It was wrong of the
reith
Are you suggesting Dershowitz isn’t partisan ?
Like the BBC isn’t biased, is that ?
BBC trying to link the Somme Horn of Africa and yes you’ve guessed it Iraq into one article and then letting the anti US messages get published. One twit called the US UK France and China the world’s arms producer. He forgot Russia for some reason…..the biggest supplier to terrorists for 60 years and even now their chief supplier!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/5102512.stm
One chap:
“Douglas Haig commanded all British forces on 1 July 1916, and gave the order that sent these men over the top to their doom. He knew nothing of the enemy’s defenses, or of the non-effect of his artillery preparations; or what was happening to them on the bloody battlefield. For he did not accompany them. He knew politics. He knew how to get appointed as their commander. And he knew also how to avoid the blame. Is this history important? You bet your life.
Jac Radoff, New York City USA”
My reply – wonder if it will get added?
Nice of Jac Radoff to try and teach us British history and show his total ignorance of it….
Haig had little choice as he HAD to support the French forces who were losing heavily and force the Germans to keep their forces on the Somme. Many post war historians now agree that he did not deserve the ‘Butcher’ tag and indeed the Somme was the battle that did ultimately lead to the end of the war. The commanders, not just Haig, did a remarkable job while facing tremendous challenges. They had to create a huge army from ordinary civilians in a short space of time. They also learnt new tactics and used new weapons as they became available. They took as much care of their men as they could and relations between officers and men were good.
Defenders of Haig point out that few people made these criticisms at the time of the war.
They also point out that British losses at the Somme were not excessively high compared to the losses suffered by German, Austrian, Russian or French forces. All of these countries had fought major land wars in Europe in the previous 100 years and knew that war led to heavy casualties. In contrast, most of Britain’s wars had been in its empire or at sea, where casualties were usually relatively small.
The Somme was the first time in history that a British army took the leading role in the main area of a European war against the main enemy. The German army was probably the best in the world and Haig realised that attacking it would lead to heavy losses. Look outside the politically inspired ‘lions and donkeys’ theme and you get a totally different picture.
Even my 4th year class agreed after research that there were two sides to the story!.
Quite how Somme = Iraq/Iran War etc is beyond me…..the fact that we use trenches nowadays was the pitiful link…
test
dave t
And we are forced to pay for such claptrap as that article
Max and Archduke
Such a charming blog it is to.
“A new twice-weekly in which we round up the diverse bloggers desperately trying to viciously beat some common sense into the thick skull of that useless [deleted] whom we all know as Polly Toynbee. Or [deleted]. Your choice.”
Edited By Siteowner
Remember how many times the BBC has said “Bush has slumped in the polls…..lowest ever public support ……” They carried on with this mantra even after the pols started to turn round again.
His figures have improved by about one-third in recent weeks. A dranatic bounce-back. Not a single word on this from the BBC.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/archive/?poll_id=19
And the US economy is surging ahead, Bush expects to clear the deficit THREE years early. Wot? No report on the Beeb about this?
Unlike Gordon, our Own Dear Leader in Waiting who has given away the family gold, hocked the entire welfare system to pay for votes, and will rely on the Central Belt Tartan Mafia to keep him in power in London.
dumbcisco
I am honestly not trying to pick on you but almost every time I am moved to comment here it is in reaction to some distortion or misrepresentation on your part.
This one takes the biscuit – and unlike those occasions that depend in part on subjective interpretation, this is a clearer numbers thing.
In your 5.22pm post you say:
“{President Bush’s} figures have improved by about one-third in recent weeks. A dramatic bounce-back. Not a single word on this from the BBC.”
You link to RCP’s poll page…….where the figures simply DO NOT SUPPORT what you say.
For instance, let’s take the FOX NEWS poll.
On 3rd May Fox had the President’s approval rating at 38%.
A one-third increase on that would be a rise of 12.7 points.
Okay, you said ‘about one-third’ so let’s call it a round 12 points.
That would mean the President should stand at 50% now.
And does Fox report the President at 50% in its most recent poll on 28th June?
No, it has him at a mere 41%
So NO ‘one-third increase’ or ‘dramatic bounce back’ there then.
How about CBS News?
On the 17th May, they had the Prez at 35%
In their most recent reported poll at RCP (11th June) they have him DOWN 2 points at 33% !
Alright …..maybe when you said ‘in recent weeks’ you meant a longer time period than May/June. So let’s track a longer stretch.
The Rasmussen Poll on 25th March had Bush at 44%.
A one-third increase on that would take Bush to a super, soaraway 58.7%
Has that happened?
Er…..no. Rasmussen on 28th June had him at 43%……one point DOWN on their late March figure.
Lies. Damned lies. And dumbcisco.
reith
The BBC was quoting Bush’s figure when the fell to around 30%.
And the RCP page I posted was showing an average of about 30% not long ago.
It is now 40%.
Which is a one-third increase.
This Harris poll is an example of Bush’s approval rating falling below 30% :
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/05/11/bushs-approval-ratings/
You can cherry-pick all you like – it is your method. But you can’t deny that Bush’s figures slumped to around 30%. And you can’t deny we kept hearing about his falling poll support from the BBC.
So where are all the BBC reports about his rising support ? Rising by ONE-THIRD from the level when they were crowing about low poll support ?
Here is another poll, USA Today/CNN/Gallup, showing Bush falling to 31% :
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-08-bush-approval_x.htm
Here is Fox showing a sharp fall to 33% :
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192468,00.html
Here are two polls at 31% :
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0511/p01s04-uspo.html
That took 5 minutes to find on google.
reith – try checking your facts before you dive in.
2. The BBC is REQUIRED BY CHARTER not only to air the views of sensible people, but also those of moonbats and wingnuts too.
John Reith | 30.06.06 – 4:16 pm
What’s the point of having trained repoerters if they are not allowed to filter out moonbat nonsense? We should be able to expect beeb reporters to use their expertise to filter out the noise and bring us the signal and do so without bias.
Most people hearing frei would assume that he thinks Gitmo is comparable to a gulag when he says what he does without adding “… but those views are idiotic and over the top.”
Many people around the world think Bush is an intelligent, good leader and can cite evidence to demonstrate that. Why doesn’t frei quote them if he is obliged to give all views, even ones he doesn’t believe?
Many people in the UK think blair is a serial liar (eg Andrew Rawnsley and many other political reporters). When is Nick Robinson going to start expressing that viewpoint so plainly and insultingly?
John Reith,
dumbcisco
I am honestly not trying to pick on you but almost every time I am moved to comment here it is in reaction to some distortion or misrepresentation on your part.
I guess that would explain why you ignore so many requests for genuine debate by others on this site. You’re too busy going after dumbcisco.
You know very well, or you should know, what Frei is doing when he publishes the opinion of anonymous hordes that Gitmo is a gulag. Frei is no objective observer standing aside and presenting the opinions of both sides on this issue. He is firmly in the Gitmo = gulag camp.
And in the highly unlikely event of anyone being able to prove that he isn’t, still, his job as a journalist is not to blindly report any old load of emotional propagandist crap that is spouted by anyone but to weigh issues and produce informed and balanced comment.
The BBC has produced some fine journalism by fine journalists. Alistair Cooke with his Letter to America is one. I was impressed by his evident depth of knowledge, his dry humour and his fine turn of phrase. It was not evident, even after listening to him for some time, which side of the political spectrum he was on, if any. He had a great talent for peeling away the superfluous layers and getting to the core of an issue.
Just as well that Cooke is no longer around to see the steady deterioration brought about by today’s BBC hacks with their blinkered political correctness and their insistence on inflicting their pet hates on a gullible public.
dumbcisco
You are still distorting like Billy-O.
In your last post you linked to a USAToday/Gallup poll in May showing Bush at 31%
By your own admission a one-third increase means USAToday/Gallup should have Bush at 41% now.
But they don’t. They have him at 37%
So NO one-third increase there either.
YOU linked to Real Clear Politics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com…ive/? poll_id=19
They track pretty well all the significant polls. I’m not cherry picking. You won’t find any evidence there to support your distortion.
The next one you cite above is Fox on 19th April showing Bush at 33%. Any sign of Fox having Bush at 44% now (one-third increase). NO.Just another one of your tricks whereby you post a link to a site implying that it supports your case, but actually it destroys your case.
Your last link to the Christian Science Monitor cites the same Gallup 7th of May poll. But no matter how many times you cite it, you just can’t get the most recent Gallup figure up beyond the 37% mark where it stands.
You are simply falsifying the clear figures.
Caught bang to rights. And thoroughly fisked. Admit it. Or show me a series of polls (enough to suggest a trend) on the RCP page YOU CITED that show a ‘one-third increase’ in ‘the last few weeks’. You can go back to March. I doubt if you’d find a SINGLE poll, let alone enough to require the BBC to report a trend.
Reith….
How does Guantanamo compare with the Gas Chambers or Gulags?
Several Hundred detainess, with no executions or murder……vs……10s of Millions of people slaughtered on an industrial scale…..
The BBC seems to think that Gitmo is as bad…..I say the BBC is sick in the head, as are its increasingly dellusional supporters….
You don’t half look a fool…..lol.
JR
“in the tropical island of Cuba lies the detention camp that is seen by many around the world as America’s gulag”
Why did he not say “in the tropical island of Cuba lies the detention camp that is seen by many around the world as as the right response to acts of terror”
Both statements are true, but could you ever really imagine the second coming from Frei?
“The BBC is REQUIRED BY CHARTER not only to air the views of sensible people, but also those of moonbats and wingnuts too.
John Reith | 30.06.06 – 4:16 pm”
interesting. i look forward to Ayaan Hirsi Ali getting more coverage on the BBC.
reith
You are unfamiliar with the RCP poll summary page. It WAS showing an average of about 30% in Bush’s poll ratings. That is when the BBC was saying his ratings were at a very low ebb. And it does not keep all the results in its summary page – some of them get dropped.
You cite Fox at 33%. That was NOT the low point, as the link I posted above shows. Fox was down to 31% and has risen to 41%. That is a 32% increase in Bush’s approval rating.
USA Today/Gallup has shown a 32% increase from the low of 29%.
USA Today Gallup is only a 19% improvement. ONLY.
I posted a link to show Harris was as low as 29%. I have seen no recent figure from Harris. Do you want a bet that its next poll will be anywhere near that level, that there has not been a very sharp improvement ? It was already back up to 33% early in June. If it moves up to say 37% (most of the polls have been improving) that would be about 28% improvement from the low.
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=5&issue=20060609
CBS/
CBS/New York Times have not reported for several weeks. They were as low as 31%. Wanna bet the next figures will be down at that level ?
You are still ducking the main point. Bush’s approval ratings have been showing substantial improvements. The BBC is not reporting that – but it was repeatedly reporting his low ratings.
reith
I have cited polls that show a very sharp improvement. So you have not fisked me – you have fisked yourself by focussing on this.
As usual.
Some minor improvement at the BBC. The excriable article:
“Israel’s army and national psyche”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5129410.stm
Has been updated with a little more detail. Notably they mention that Hezbollah “captured” (I.e kidnapped) Eliezaer Elhanan in Dubai and then took him to Beirut.
It seems that the BBC has the same problem with the K-word as they do with the T-word.
Still no detail about which group of of palestinian “militants” killed Nachshon Wachsman, 19.
Hint, it starts with an H and ends with s.
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/israeldiary/His_Name_Was_Nachshon_Wachsman.asp
Frei could have said
seen by many to be inhumane
seen by many to be a breach of international law
seen by many to be self-defeating
but no, he deliberately chose to use an un attributable statement in which the words Gitmo and gulag were linked. It’s pretty basic word association. It does not really matter what the context of the sentence was, just get the gitmo/gulag association in. Why did he do this? No sensible person, Frei included, could really make such a comparison. No, Frei disapproves of Gitmo and wanted to get this opinion across in his report. Gitmo /gulag gitmo/gulag keep hitting the message. And here you are defending him JR. Oh dear, its visceral as someone once said.
reith would say a skunk doesn’t smell if it was a BBC skunk
putting the boot into blair:
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2006/06/putting_the_boo.html
@TheCuckoo: In re
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5132514.stm
“At least 20 other targets included an office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah group, militant training camps, a weapons storage facility in Gaza City and sites used by militants to fire rockets at Israel.”
Is there a photograph of this weapons storage facility? I seem to recall a rather striking photo myself.
It seems that the quality of palestinian rockets has improved since the BBC no longer describes them as “crude” or “clumsy”.
“Earlier this week the body was found of a young Jewish settler seized by Palestinian militants earlier this week was found dead near Ramallah. ”
Fascinating, what was the cause of death? Lead poisoning? And still the BBC has trouble with the K-word.
bush approval rating : 41%
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0606300130jun30,1,5263525.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
and, on 30th may 2006
“With a 33% approval rating, the lowest for any president in 25 years,”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5030694.stm
he dipped to 29% earlier in may
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/05/11/bushs-approval-ratings/
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060512/nyf066.html?.v=51
41 minus 29 = 12. so a 12% rise since May.
@Market Participant
That story has been changed now, and the ‘reality’ reference has been removed.
Good. :o)
In re
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5132932.stm
“The crisis brought together a professional humiliation for the Israeli army with a desire by the Israeli government to deal with the constant bombardment of the Israeli town of Sderot, Mr Peretz’s home town.”
The kidnapping of a soldier isn’t a “professional humiliation”. It’s operational event that the Israeli’s take very seriously.
“In quieter times, the Israelis might have held their forces back, made loud noises and negotiated in secret – but these are not quieter times”
And what happened in those quieter times. Ahh the good old days. Israel has always taken kidnappings deadly serious. See also Nachson Wachsman, for what happened last time. Israel has always pulled out all the stops when hostages are involved.
“The firing of missiles from Gaza is seen by Israelis as symptomatic of Hamas’ inability or unwillingness to rein in militants both among its own ranks and in Islamic Jihad.”
How about the active participation of Hamas in the manufacture of these rockets? The constant use of the evasive passive voice is very telling. Note the implied separation of a military and political wing.
“The two have brought about a powerful incentive for Israel to take punitive measures against Hamas.
Some of those measures, such as the bombing of a power station in Gaza, have brought international criticism and questions as to whether this attack violated Article 48 of the addition to the Geneva Conventions in 1949:
“In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” ”
Who has offered the international criticism? Have the Palestinian rocket attacks followed the Geneva conventions? What about suicide bombings.
Powerstations and the like are military objectives. Did the RAF spare german powerplants in WWII?
“Israel argues that the power station in the circumstance of Gaza was a military target in that it directly aided the captors of their soldier.
In addition, Israel can argue the case that the original attack on their base outside Gaza on Sunday was a violation of their sovereign territory.”
So after an attack on sovereign terrortory which ends with two soldiers killed, and third soldier kidnapped, israeli is suppost to just sit back and whistle?
—–
While this article does do better job than usual of describing the israeli side of the equation, the constant attempts to dilute the article by bringing up irrelavent nonsense like the Geneva Conventions detracts mightily from it.
typo above – i should have said a 12 point rise, which, i think , the generally agreed way of reporting poll rises/falls.
@TheCuckoo:
Fascinating, its like Asheri never existed at all.
Yet again Ingsoc makes good use of the memory hole.
“While this article does do better job than usual of describing the israeli side of the equation, the constant attempts to dilute the article by bringing up irrelavent nonsense like the Geneva Conventions detracts mightily from it.”
indeed. the Geneva Convention wasnt brought up in the reports on the murder of that 18 year old Israeli teenager.
And they probably wont be if that kidnapped Israeli soldier is killed.
In re:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5130510.stm
“Israel also hit three bridges in the territory rendering the structures impassable to vehicles.
Palestinian leaders accused Israel of collectively punishing the Palestinian people.”
Why did israel destroy the bridges?? Hint: Jpost will tell you, but the BBC wont.
It’s to prevent the soldier from being smuggled out of gaza and also to prevent the palestinians from moving weaponry around.
“For now, Palestinians are continuing to receive Israeli power supplies – the source of the other half of Gaza’s supplies – but the shortages continue.”
And did you know that Palestinian’s have not paid thier electric bills for the past?
—–
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3208477,00.html
Palestinian Authority owes Electric Company NIS 220 million in unpaid bills; Israel’s national electricity company demands government action
‘”With any other costumer we would have switched off the switch,” a senior official in the Electric company said. ‘ Not surprising if you run up a bill of $47 million.
—–
The IEC has been giving the palestinians electricity ex gratia for several years. All of this involuntarily paid for by the Israeli ratepayer.
Hmmm. The Palestinian ‘government’ doesn’t appear to have signed up to the Geneva Convention.
http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/party_gc
Anyone know why not?
dumbcisco
STOP! you have made a few errors on this poll stuff – you need to backtrack and take reith on on different grounds or just concede this one.
your first mistake was to take a Gallup poll showing Bush at 31 and a Fox poll with him at 41 and conclude there had been a recovery of one-third. you just can’t do this. with polls you have to put like with like – Fox with Fox and Gallup with Gallup. They have different baselines and benchmarks and comparisons between polls mean nothing.
You also say that the realclearpolitics site was showing Bush with an average of around 30% some time back. I’ve looked at nearly all the polls in recent months and just cannot see how that can be true. Bush dipped below 30 in only one poll – the WSJ-Harris one you mention which was spun as the worst ever blah blah blah. That was in May and realclearpolitics has the details of three or four other polls taken the same week which have him at 35 or thereabouts. To get an average down to 30 you’d need to have a shedload of polls in the 20s. I can’t find any trace of them on Google. in fact the Harris one looks like a solo rogue.
then you say Fox had Bush at 31. I cannot find that anywhere. The link you provided says 33…and says it was a record low.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192468,00.html
the overall picture is a mixed one with some polls showing Bush rising slightly, with others static or even, as reith highlighted, some falls. take those together with the ‘disapproval rating’ remaining in the range 55-60 steadily all the way through from March and you just can’t claim a big recovery.
anyhow 41 – and that’s the best on offer – isn’t good. i remeber back in january when they were around 42 the msm were calling them ‘dismal’.
archduke
A 12 point improvement from 29% woul equate to a 41% rise.
But the polls were not the same, so I am not claiming as much as that.
I am saying that the RCP poll averages have improved from about 30% to 40% so far.
And that various individual polls that have reported recently have shown this scale of improvement.
The main point remains – the BBC reports bad news for Bush, but not the bounce-back. Too busy talking outright crap about gulags, I suppose.
What is so stupid about Frei comparing Guantanamo to gulags (even if he uses the BBC trick of saying someone else was saying it) is that it is only a short while since a senior Senator got in very hoit water for doing exactly the same thing. Dick Durban was widely castigated for making the absurd comparison – surely Frei can remember that ?
Everything bad that was said about Durbin using the comparison can be attached to Frei.
Brilliant, BBC. How much lower in the gutter can your guys get ?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050616-121815-1827r.htm
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/lbutler_20050620.html
And Durbin was forced to go to the floor of the Seanate to apologise.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160275,00.html
Will Frei apologise ? Fat chance.
Amnesty International also used the gulag tag and collected a lot of fierce criticism:
http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2005/06/attention_amnes.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E4DC1F39F932A05756C0A9639C8B63
As US correspondent Frei must know that to use the gulag tag is a no-no.
But he still uses it.
Is he plain stupid ? That is the charitable excuse.
Or malevolent ?
Malevolent.
That last one was me.
The Anon posts at 9.37 and 9.49 were by me.
dave P
I have NOT been trying to compare figure from one poll with figures from another. Please retract that.
I have been trying to cite low and high figures from specific polls. Yes the low figure for Fox was 33% (not 31%) but I compared it with the more recent higher figure for Fox, not with a Gallup figure.
I look at the RCP figures pretty well every week. ( have frequently linked to the RCP site from here.) My clear memory is that the RCP average dipped down to about 30%. They drop figures out of the list, not necessarily in date order.
I have cited very large increases in SPECIFIC polls. There has been a flurry of story in the US about how Bush’s poll figures have been improving. Not a squeak from the BBC, who were very frequently mentioning his low figures.
USA Today/Gallup for example went from a low of 29% to 38%. On this and other polls, people have been reporting the improvement. But NOT the BBC.
dave p
You suggest that apart from the very low poll of 29% there were no figures that could have pulled the RCP average down to about 30%.
That is rubbish. I don’t know how they work out their average, and when or why they drop particular sets of results out of their table – but I have cited above polls that showed approval ratings at 31%.
archduke
You seem to have been taken in by dumbcisco’s dishonest accounting methods.
You linked to this Chicago Tribune story putting Bush’s approval rating at 41%:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0606300130jun30,1,5263525.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
Read the last para of the story and you’ll find:
” Bush’s 41 percent approval rating represents an increase .. from his 39 percent showing in April.”
So this (Times Bloomberg Poll) does NOT show a 12 point increase since May. It shows a 2 point increase since April. If, as dumbcisco insists, Bush’s ratings have gone up by one third, then instead of 41%, the latest figure should be 52%. But it just isn’t, is it?
So dumbcisco is just making it up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/06/gaza_stories.html#commentsanchor
See the BBC justify their value judegment using language in the Middle East. And then see 90% of the comments pick flaws. Oh they joy 🙂
yeah – but the tribune doesnt mention that bush went down even further in May – to 29%
i linked to that May source above
here it is again:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/05/11/bushs-approval-ratings/
i have to say, thats a bit of bounce back – i do remember the low poll rating stories from around May time.
by the way – it is irrelevant whether the polls are accurate or not – the point is , is that the media reports on them.
all dumbcisco is asking is – where are the Bush “bounceback” headlines on the BBC? Its a simple question.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/06/gaza_stories.html#commentsanchor
superb post at no.59 – i’ve reposted it here:
**************************************
Vocabulary is one aspect of the problem, but the coverage, “context” and justifications given in your reports are more important.
1. Gazan terror groups have shot 1000+ rockets at Israeli schools and homes in the Sderot are since Israel left Gaza, but you don’t regularly cover these daily, brutal, deliberate terror attacks on Israeli civilians the way you do the difficulties of Palestinian civilians in the WB or Gaza. Your stories about Israeli responses are therefore inherently out of context, and you can’t fix this by briefly mentioning the rockets in your reports devoted to showing how the responses are causing problems for Palestinians.
2. You rarely publish names, pictures or stories of Israeli victims of terror, which means that nobody gets to know or identify with these victims. But you do publish the names, pictures and stories of unfortunate Palestinians who are stopped at anti-terror roadblocks or who die after a dud explodes on a beach. You are missing half of the picture about this conflict. Isn’t Israeli pain and anger worth discussing in focused, devoted stories and columns? Apparently not.
3. You use very strong imagery (“Fear and Terror as Israel’s Army Gears up”) in very Pal-slanted headlines, whereas headlines about Israeli positions are couched in skepticism and negatives (“Israel has denied that…”). I’m not even sure you realize that you’re doing this.
4. You hold Israel to a much higher standard than the PA, in all areas. I’m sorry, folks, but having legitimate grievances NEVER makes it okay to deliberately shoot rockets at elementary schools full of kids any more than it would if the school were in your own neighborhood in the UK.
(Would the rocket crews be “terrorists” then, or just “activists” or “militants”?). It never makes suicide bombs okay. But you continue to “balance” your coverage to give a “fair voice” to those who call for the deliberate murder of civilians. By doing so, you have played a major role for decades in stifling Palestinian voices calling for more peaceful, creative approaches, and your reputation provides credibility to a fictitious “balance” between terrorism and responses to terrorism.
These flaws in your coverage are far more serious than using the word “militant” vs. the word “terrorist”. Many of them may even be unconscious. The question is, do you have the will to change this situation?
If you regularly depict Israelis as human beings instead of a war machine, you WILL be criticized by anti-Semites. But you will ultimately be contributing to better understanding of the region by your readers as a whole, even if it takes a while. Right now you are simply contributing to the dehumanization of Israeli Jews, with all of the results that follow.
reith
I have cited specific figures for specific polls showing substantial improvements.
You are cherrypicking. As usual. You are not comparing with the lowest for specific polls.
The nadir for Bush was about end-April/early May. Not just on the approval rating, but even more so on the spread – the right-hand column in red on the RCP table.
The BBC was reporting the lows for Bush.
It is NOT reporting the improvements.
The LA Times/Bloomburg poll did not report at the nadir period, around end-April.
Newsnight’s idea of a serious discussion about nuclear power – get Joan Ruddock on.
Trivialising the news.
John Kerry is starting again on the Swift Boat Vets – presumably he wants another run in 2008.
The BBC avoided the Swiftees as much as they could in 2004, as Kerry was their man for the White House. So they won’t be reporting the nasty things his backers are doing :
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060629-090431-9290r.htm