When considering BBC bias, I am reminded of this old Sherlock Holmes story.
“Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention? said Inspector Gregory”To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” said Holmes”The dog did nothing in the night-time.” said Gregory “That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
Now then, the BBC has been fawning over Barack Hussein Obama as the new messiah, I guess that figures since he is even further to the left than Hillary Clinton. So the question is WHY has the BBC kept mute over the startling revelations that Obama both met with and indeed raised funds at the home of two US terrorists – William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. These two individuals were part of the “Weathermen” – a terrorist group that bombed U.S. government buildings, and whose leader (a declared Obama supporter) went on record saying he wish he’d targeted more! Apparently this is not news in BBC land? How odd!
Well, to be fair, it’s hardly been headline news anywhere else eiher has it?
Well, to be fair, it’s hardly been headline news anywhere else eiher has it?
MattLondon | 25.02.08 – 1:14 pm
No Matt – but if this was some white supremacist terrorist and the candidate’s name was McCain do you think the MSM would have ignored it? Not in a million years.
“Well, to be fair, it’s hardly been headline news anywhere else eiher has it?”
True enough. The BBC in it’s current arthritic state has probably not even heard of him, but he is definitely one of them, so we’ll soon hear what a wonderful person he is.
By “him” I meant the execrable Ayers.
Matt,
True but what does THAT speak of the MSM? They lok after their own and Obama is their dog in the fight.
this could be a black propaganda stunt (no pun intended) by the Hillary camp.
Anonymous,
You may well be right – Clinton is lower than a snakes belly and is thus capable of anything BUT I want to know why the BBC is so quiet on the subject?
They haven’t mentioned his Kenyan connections either:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/01/obama-islam-and.html
“this could be a black propaganda stunt (no pun intended) by the Hillary camp.”
I hope it is. It discredits both.
I have seen a lot more posted online on American tv news sites
about Obama’s black-radical church pastor than about the Weathermen. Google brings up masses; not sure about posting links to it here.
It is revealing and alarming if true.
if this was some white supremacist terrorist and the candidate’s name was McCain do you think the MSM would have ignored it? Not in a million years
Exactly – stunt or not ( and it seems like a pretty thin accusation to me, there is no suggestion Obama had knowledge of the exact background of these two, and no way to prove it ) the question is why isn’t it being reported by the MSM in general and the BBC in particular ?
Obama can’t even acknowledge his membership of the black nationalist church. To do so is to admit he is a member, and even if he were to leave, it wouldn’t change anything. I think Obama will lose this election. Hello McCain, the candidate of 100 years of war in Iraq. By which he tacitly admits the war will never be won.
Osama….Obama…I guess these terrorists aren’t very bright, and got a bit confused.
HSBC:
it seems like a pretty thin accusation to me, there is no suggestion Obama had knowledge of the exact background of these two, and no way to prove it… the question is why isn’t it being reported by the MSM in general and the BBC in particular ?
Exactly.
What we want is the BBC to be reporting pretty thin accusations with no way to prove them.
Otherwise, they’re, um, biased.
(Note to DV: Is this right?)
Biased BBC: Think Thin
“The Obama-Khalidi Connection”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/13195
Nobody is paying attention to this little incident from Obama’s past because it’s just not enough to get past the collective racist guilt trip being forced upon the US. What’s more, the Leftoid media cannot acknowledge even the tiniest blemish on Obama’s luster. It’s not so much that they want him to win, per se, but because if Obama loses it absolutely must be because of racism. The BBC began its election coverage a few months back with the caveat that everyone was concerned that America may be too racist to elect a Black man. They kept reminding us of that, but have temporarily backed off because they do love Bill Clinton and they don’t want to make it appear that he won because of racism. Yes, I used the correct pronoun there; a win for Hillary is the return of Bubba to the world stage, which is something a couple of BBC talking heads have fantasized about on air. If Obama does turn out to be the Dem nominee, then the racist drum will be beat loudly until November.
To their credit, the BBC has not jumped on the McCain non-story. Probably because they were going to do so, but took too long and the backlash hit before they got around to it. But they are still shilling for whichever Democrat they think will win. It’s all about getting a Dem into the White House, as they have said on many occasions.
The Webb clown is currently telling us that Middle America is going Democrat, and drooling over an article in a Texas newspaper website that lots of Democrats hit the polls in the primary in that state. In his enthusiasm, Justin overlooks the fact that there might be Republican voters in the actual general election.
He doesn’t particularly love Obama over Hillary. Either one will do. But the racist angle is too delicious for any Beeboid, so he’s just as excited about this as anyone in the Corporation.
The thing is, the BBC wins either way, regardless of the outcome of the election. If Hillary wins, then they were right all along, and the world wants Bill Clinton back, it’s the end of what Matt Frei often refers to as “the grim eight years of the Bush Administration”. And what a triumph that the Left has made America see the error of its ways, and elected the first woman President.
If Obama wins, they were right all along, it’s the end of the world’s nightmare of the last eight years. And what a triumph that the Left has made America see the error of its ways, and elected the first Black President.
If McCain wins over Hillary, they were right all along, America is just too sexist to elect a woman, and is still too full of right-wing Christian fundamentalist war-mongers.
If McCain wins over Obama, they were right all along, America is just too racist to elect a Black man, and all those young people were just pretending to support him to make themselves feel better. And America is still too full of right-wing Christian fundamentalist war-mongers.
This is how the BBC has been approaching its coverage for some time now. No matter what happens, the BBC will be quite certain that they were right about America, and will continue to pursue their propaganda goals.
Hillhunt: “What we want is the BBC to be reporting pretty thin accusations with no way to prove them.”
Yet when it’s accusations that the British Army massacred a bunch of unarmed captives in Iraq, you seem pretty happy for the BBC to report it, despite – as Panorama accepted – there is no proof to back that up.
I’m not saying I favour Obama, in fact I am undecided, but I think the comments about him being a muslim (or muslim supporting) black supremacist are frankly bizarre.
He is half white, such a position would be strange at best.
He is a member of the United Church of Christ, a mainline protestant denomination in the US with 1.2 million members, it is a church in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Reformed Church in America through a formal declaration known as the Formula of Agreement, with the Union of Evangelical Churches in Germany, and with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) through an ecumenical partnership.
The church is a founding member of Churches Uniting in Christ and is in dialogue about deeper relations with the Alliance of Baptists.
It is a member of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), and the World Council of Churches.
It is not a sect.
I will take some convincing to believe that he is in reality a muslim black supremacist, that seems more like Clinton smears unless I see some proper evidence.
This does seem to be a very long stretch in the character assassination game. I expect most people will be able to see through it just as quickly as they can the whole “ooh, let’s include Obama’s middle name because it’s Arabic!” schtick that I see Biased BBC is going in for now.
The MSM in general and the BBC in particular don’t have any compunction about the lousy provenance of stories from Pallywood or ineptly faked memos about Bush.
Now it’s one of their own who is being criticised they have suddenly discovered their rigorous layers of fact checking ( which appear and disappear according to circumstances just like the word ‘dictator’ in their magic dictionary )
Well most of the media has ignored the large amount of money being given ot the Clinton’s by the Saudi’s.
Funny that as the BBC leftoids are normally quick to remind us of the “Boosh” family links to Saudi Arabia.
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/12/15/the-clintons-saudi-funded-library/
“The MSM in general and the BBC in particular don’t have any compunction about the lousy provenance of stories from Pallywood or ineptly faked memos about Bush.
Now it’s one of their own who is being criticised they have suddenly discovered their rigorous layers of fact checking ( which appear and disappear according to circumstances just like the word ‘dictator’ in their magic dictionary )
HSLD | 25.02.08 – 6:19 pm”
I couldn’t agree more but it doesn’t make the fact checking bad when they do do it, rather it exposes how bad and biased it is when they don’t do it (which I agree is all too often).
The BBC in it’s current arthritic state has probably not even heard of him
Sian | 25.02.08 – 1:30 pm
Jim Naughtie had a lovely little chat with the terrorist Ayers last year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/listenagain_20070305.shtml
Re above – scroll down to 8.40
I guess the silence from the beeboids on this one is pretty deafening. Cat got their tongue -and Obama seemed such a NICE guy…..it’s not fact checking they’re after, it’s excuse making, what a pathetic gutless crew they are.
Scott:
This does seem to be a very long stretch in the character assassination game. I expect most people will be able to see through it just as quickly as they can the whole “ooh, let’s include Obama’s middle name because it’s Arabic!” schtick that I see Biased BBC is going in for now.
—————————————-
I agree. I mean, the Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali has a Muslim name, yet somehow misses out on all that B-BBC grief. Could it be that he says all the right things?
Moral? Listen to what Obama is saying,what his policies are, not what his name happens to be or what his family background is.
But I must say it’s a novelty to see B-BBC helping Hilary Clinton’s smear campaign along. There’s a turn-up for the books…
David,
Look to your blog for some answers, where you posted the exact same story. Some comments:
“Eagle: I am not doubting it will be an issue, but it seems to be a false one.”
and
“It’s a non-issue as Mahons pointed out”
Or the Washington Post blog
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/obamas_weatherman_connection.html
“The only hard facts that have come out so far are the $200 contribution by Ayers to the Obama re-election fund, and their joint membership of the eight-person Woods Fund Board.”
Gutless and pathetic or simply the BBC exercising its right to not bother reporting every tenuous smear emerging from the nominee race?
And since when did B-BBC become just another place for you to bang on about your own political bugbears? The “BBC bias” connection to your posts becomes more tenuous by the day.
Moral? Listen to what Obama is saying,what his policies are,….
blankfrank | 25.02.08 – 7:11 pm | #
And what are the policies, frank? I have been following the campaign and I have yet to discern one single policy of Obama’s.
Gutless and pathetic or simply the BBC exercising its right to not bother reporting every tenuous smear emerging from the nominee race?
p and a tale of one chip | 25.02.08 – 7:18 pm | #
Actually, I think in this day and age it is a valid news-story to highlight that Obama accepted money from a known terrorist (retired.
The Weathermen’s original aims were to cause maximum carnage against US soldiers, it was only by chance that the nailbomb failed to go off, it was also the own goal of blowing themselves up that stopped the Weathermen from achieving their aims of killing US soldiers and forced a rethink in their tactics.
Obama is a possible future leader of the US, so to say that his accepting of campaign money by one of the leaders of this terrorist group is not news-worthy I find baffling.
What will be interesting to see is whether or not the BBC actually reports that Obama has now been endorsed by the anti-semitic, racist Farrakhan.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-farrakhan25feb25,0,6391391.story
And if they do whether they will also report what Farrakhan said of white people back in 2000.
“White people are potential humans – they haven’t evolved yet.”
Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2000
After checking the BBC’s website I find the following story on Obama:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7263783.stm
————————————
Gutless and pathetic or simply the BBC exercising its right to not bother reporting every tenuous smear emerging from the nominee race?
p and a tale of one chip | 25.02.08 – 7:18 pm | #
So which one is it p and a tale of one chip?, is the BBC being Gutless and pathetic or only reporting selected smears against Obama?.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7263783.stm
At half past six this evening the BBC decided that ” tenuous smears ” are now worth reporting after all.
I wonder if anyone at the BBC reads this blog ? 😀
Whoops, Joe from the Netherlands got there first
“Hilary Clinton’s smear campaign”
You think being a member of a black nationalist church is just a Clintonite fabrication? Obama is a member of a black nationalist church committed to full ecomonic parity between blacks and whites (which means Obama could well support a Poll Tax on white people for being white, ostensibly to pay for past sins..)
“I have yet to discern one single policy of Obama’s.”
Obama the charlatan, he believes being racially mixed puts him in a better position to understand the politics of foreign countries.
Obama the demagogue, in a CBS interview with him and his wife, she said;
“The reality is that as a black man, Barrack can get shot going to the gas station.”
Obama remained silent. He didn’t correct this; how the can a race hustler say “No Michelle, the opposite is the truth.” He permits it. It’s a convenient lie, and demogogues thrive on lies.
Obama the race hustler, who spent the early years of his career as a Chicago ethnic rights advocate and campaigner. He got some asbestos removed from a housing estate. But he wasn’t satisfied with asbestos. He wanted to be the angry black man righteously rooting out predjudice and discrimination but he couldn’t find any. He knows why and it rips him apart.
Obama the Pied Piper: “Change” and “Hope” and of course vapid, but that is the important thing, by leaving those words undefined people fill the blank with their own messianic expectations. It’s the secret of “cool” incidently. He doesn’t sell people a policy, he sells a psychological attitude: accept change, all change. Not all change is good of course, but that requires deciding what is good and bad: discrimination. Nevertheless, moral deriliction seems to be quite charming for many Americans.
” “White people are potential humans – they haven’t evolved yet.”
Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2000″
Reminds me of that shit eating deviant degenerate Martin Amis who believes Muslim states should “evolve” (progress) to a higher level. That is the meaning of Progress with a gun. Amis = Liberal Fascist Filth
p and a tale of one chip: “Gutless and pathetic or simply the BBC exercising its right to not bother reporting every tenuous smear emerging from the nominee race?”
Of all the tenuous smears emerging from the campaign, the fact he accepted a donation from a terrorist would seem one of the more newsworthy, surely. You don’t think that’s interesting? You can show how serious or otherwise the charge is in the story.
“Robed Obama picture ignites row”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7263783.stm
Robed Obama reveals all about the BBC partisanship.
Obama derangement syndrome as Melanie calls it will ensure that even Obama cartoons in the vein of the motoons will be treated as racist and attacked mercilessly by the beeb.
Obama’s past is off limits and frankly if it were to be revealed that Obama was a closet Muslim,it would only do him good.
The BBC would notch up into a higher gear of ODS. He would then become totally untouchable.
Hilary is to become the “evil witch” who will use every falsehood to discredit him.
Fear mongering indeed! In tune no doubt with the beeb’s ‘Power of Nightmares’ which was to be originally shown at the time of the 7/7 bombings
” Obama was a closet Muslim”
He isn’t a closet Muslim, he is an explicit black nationalist.
While I agree with the general observation that a number of Senator Obama’s past assocations remain unexplored by the MSM, I have to say that I think he is getting something of a bum rap on this one.
Keep in mind that Obama was a 34-year old would-be candidate for the Illinois State Senate at the time. And bear in mind also that the two terrorists in question (I’m not disputing the term) were in fact pillars of the liberal academic community which formed an important part of his constituency. To someone of Obama’s age and background, with no direct experience of 1960’s radicalism to draw upon, it would have seemed a bit of a stretch to lump such people in with the Al Queda’s of the world, however similar some of their aims and methods might have been. If blame is to be assigned here, I would assign it first and foremost to the Democratic Party organization which sponsored, or at least facilitated this event, and not to a young, first-time office seeker still fairly inexperienced in the ways of politics.
Perhaps I’m being overly cautious, but I really think that before charging Mr. Obama – or anyone else – with something as serious as knowingly accepting contributions from terrorists, we take some time to reflect on the facts.
Allan@Oslo | 25.02.08 – 7:35 pm |
And what are the policies, frank? I have been following the campaign and I have yet to discern one single policy of Obama’s.
And quite right you are, Allan, to feel you have not been getting the proper information from the media. All we are allowed to know is that he stands for “hope” and “change” and other dreamy platitudes. His supporters have rejected claims that he is no more than empty words.
Obama himself said this in a speech in Virginia:
“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” Mr. Obama said, to applause. ” `I have a dream’ — just words? `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’ — just words? `We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ — just words? Just speeches?”
So on the one hand, we’re supposed to believe that he means what he says when he plays the moderate, acting as if he will move beyond partisan politics and a Far Left agenda. On the other hand, we’re supposed to ignore the reality of his voting record:
The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute shows how Obama’s voting record belies his moderate image. Yes, they’re a basically conservative, anti-abortion group. But they are not lying about his voting record. This is real.
The New York Times said in December that Obama votes “present” on controversial issues rather than taking a stand that might harm his electability.
And in case this isn’t clear enough, the National Journal spells it out for all to see:
Obama: Most Liberal Senator in 2007.
The Leftoid US media and the BBC don’t want you to know this. They only want you to think that everyone wants a Democrat, and since it’s probably going to be Obama, if he doesn’t win it’s because Americans are too racist. Any reality of Obama’s political positions or truth about his actual behavior as a publicly elected official must be suppressed. Obama is being a phony, and the media can’t help him enough. Even the casual observer can see that the BBC is playing the same game.
Obama the demagogue, in a CBS interview with him and his wife, she said;
“The reality is that as a black man, Barrack can get shot going to the gas station.”
Obama’s wife failed to point out that the man likely to shoot her husband would also be black.
Obama is a demogogue yes.
Hope, is something you do when you don’t have any control.
Change. “Some people just don’t like change” a liberal once told me with a wistful voice whilst discussing abortion. Not all change is good you may contend, but to say that is to have missed their point: Accept change, any change. To not accept change is to a certain extent to oppose reality; an ambiguity leftists are quick to exploit for it is part of their agenda to denounce their opponents as insane.
And in that light, the true nature of Obama is revealed.
D’Oh: It is true that the United Church of Christ is a “mainstream” denomination. It is not true that Obama’s church is a mainstream church. Instead, it is, by its own statements, afrocentric. Look up their web site and see what they say for themselves. Their minister has praised Louis Farrakhan, who is both racist and anti-semitic.
That said, it is hard to tell what, if any, religious beliefs Obama himself holds. He joined a church that could be of tremendous help to his political career, and he has usually been vague about what his actual beliefs are.
I’m not quite ready to say that he has no beliefs, like John Kerry. But I do suspect that Obama has just been posing in pews, for political advantage.
p and the tale of one chip: As for the claim some make that Obama did not know about Ayers’ terrorist background, that’s simply implausible, given Ayers’ infamy. And that Washington Post blog entry is out of date, as more connections between the two have been found in the last few days.
Mugwump: “Keep in mind that Obama was a 34-year old would-be candidate for the Illinois State Senate at the time… it would have seemed a bit of a stretch to lump such people in with the Al Queda’s of the world, however similar some of their aims and methods might have been. If blame is to be assigned here…”
But none of these interesting issues can be considered by the viewing public, because the BBC has decided simply not to report the story.
I’m afraid I have to agree that this story is absolute nonsense. And I thought as much as soon as it was clear Vance was chucking in Obama’s middle name to Willie Horton the whole thing. That was just pathetic.
I liked this blog and firmly believe the BBC has a culture of bias, but Vance you are constantly struggling to attach tenuous links to your own political bugaboos. BBC Bias is a solid issue that needs serious criticism. What we don’t need is your repeated nonsense that reads like an hysterical Daily Mail reader.
Obama’s wife failed to point out that the man likely to shoot her husband would also be black.
Allan@Oslo | 25.02.08 – 11:21 pm
Neatly punctured.
What concerns me even more than Obama being president is his wife, still stuck in the concept of a racist America of the fifties, being First Lady.
Interesting to me – as a long-time lurker – that whereas one of the joys of this site used to be the engaging and robust debate between the regulars and JR, Nick Reynolds, David Gregory etc, the “Beeboids” seem not to bothering now.
I rather suspect this is because instead of feeling compelled to respond to charges of bias that may have substance, this blog – and David Vance in particular – is attacking the BBC on what seem to me to be increasingly baseless charges. The other thread – where the BBC is bashed for the content of an interview conducted by RTE, is bad enough, but this is utter nonsense.
When this blog existed to address claims of bias in BBC content, it was interesting. Now that it’s effectively David Vance’s personal blog, in which he and a few others compete to display their Islamophobia, it is clear that BBC staff aren’t bothered by it and have chosen to disengage.
Which, I think, is a shame.
“When this blog existed to address claims of bias in BBC content, it was interesting. Now that it’s effectively David Vance’s personal blog, in which he and a few others compete to display their Islamophobia, it is clear that BBC staff aren’t bothered by it and have chosen to disengage.”
Which, I think, is a shame.
Sheila | 26.02.08 – 10:26 am | #
If you’ve read Hugh Fitzgerald / Melanie Phillips, the most eloquent writers on the subject you would understand that fear of Islam is not irrational, but your general comments on this site, like one or two others recently, are worth thinking about.
Hillhunt ‘s tremendous wit would be better directed towards something. His only function here is to disrupt and sabotage. He’s not a BBC employee, his contributions are devoid of original content. He seems to have nothing to say. Sneering, mocking, taunting and concocting derogatory versions of everyone’s nom de plumes is all very well, but is purely parasitic. The target takes the bait and their tediously pointless arguments whose only purpose is sport for hillhunt, -Tally Ho! – have a negative effect on this site with making people stay away. Even the full stop, alone, just above his signature is annoying. Hillhunt. Attention seeker. Master Baiter.
It is better when John Reith and Co do put in an appearance, because, (I speak only for myself,) knee jerk responses are marginally better than no response whatsoever. Maybe it’s a ‘wimmin’ thing. Don’t like being ignored.
Better without the nasty tone in some, but we do that as well, so can’t complain.
As for David Vance, I said this before somewhere in one of the loose threads that are hanging around overlapping each other and unravelling any possibility of ‘cohesion’ He’s a bit like the curate’s egg. The good parts are there, but the bad bits undermine the whole.
I only bang on about the Beebs demonisation of Israel and its whitewashing of Islam. I think this is the most blatant area of bias and the most dangerous.
“I only bang on about the Beebs demonisation of Israel and its whitewashing of Islam. I think this is the most blatant area of bias and the most dangerous.”
Not to mention their endless and shameless promotion of Global Warming, recently renamed Climate Change. Just as dangerous in my opinion.
I think David Vance’s input has made the blog a bit more ‘tabloid’ which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it makes for some more lively reading… but there’s certainly less in the way of real, properly documented examples of bias now and more of David’s political views with something vaguely BBC related tenuously attached.
Personally I’m completely bored of the Israel/Palestine stuff – it’s nowhere near the most ‘dangerous’ issue of the day. The enonomy is wobbling, there’s a war brewing in Serbia, the Russia situation etc etc etc???!!!