And another thing…
Anyone know why the Beeb’s website has outsourced part of its US election coverage to Newsweek? The latest piece (following others such as these) is – well, just what you’d expect from a left-leaning news weekly – a predictable pre-emptive strike on any floating voters who dare choose McCain. Here’s the writer’s conclusion, imagining the horror of a McCain victory:
Democrats are despairing over the results, fearing they might never view their country in the same light again. Even many Republicans are subdued at the news of McCain’s victory.
Having expected him to lose, they know the GOP has now completed a sorry transition from the party of Lincoln to the party of cynicism. McCain, they’re reasoning, might prove a fine president, but it shouldn’t have happened like this…
… It probably won’t. Millions of people in the rest of the world assume that Barack Obama cannot be elected because he is black. They assume that the original sin of American history – enshrined in our Constitution – cannot be transcended.
I go into next week’s election with a different assumption – that the common sense and decency of the American people will prove the sceptics wrong.
Is it really now that simple? Is the BBC claiming that in any election where one candidate is black and the other white, a vote for the white candidate is, by definition, a racist vote?
Are economic policies, foreign policies, experience, education policies – are all of them now redundant because one candidate is black?
Some questions for Newsweek/BBC:
[1] I am not a racist, but I think McCain’s experience and policies will serve America and the world better than Obama’s. Is that racist?
[2] Swing voters who chose to vote Republican last time did so against a white Democrat candidate: if they vote the same way this time, have they become racists by definition? At which point exactly did they become racists, and how?
[3] Will the media now automatically support any black candidate opposed by a white candidate, to prove its anti-racist credentials? How does this serve democracy? How does democracy benefit from the idea that a party need only select a black candidate to have that candidate’s policies and past left unexamined by the media?
[4] Given that Obama is non-white, is it an act of racism for the Republican Party to put forward a Presidential candidate at all? Or is it merely “cynical”?
[5] Would the media be loudly playing the race card and demanding the Presidency for an African-American if that candidate were a Republican opposed by a white Democrat candidate?
I have never seen the media as a whole behave quite so deplorably in any previous election campaign. It stinks. It really stinks.
Not to go off at a tangent, but his point doesn’t even make sense. Slavery is ‘enshrined in our Constitution’? Huh? Where exactly?
The whole point is that the founders ignored slavery when drawing up the consitution. Doubtless, it would have been better if they stamped on it right away, but slavery was still legal in the British Empire until 1833 so they were hardly uniquely evil in not wanting to pitch their infant state into civil war. As it is, nothing in the constitution could be read as actually supporting slavery.
Response to the thoughtful comments posted by henryflower:
[5] Would the media be loudly playing the race card and demanding the Presidency for an African-American if that candidate were a Republican opposed by a white Democrat candidate?
Such as the Republican [repeat: Republican] Martin Luther King if he were still alive?
Here is a link to a good article by Frances Rice:
Why Martin Luther King Was Republican.
Website: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16500
Umm…another item missed? And even though it features the BBC’s favourite African American General? He endorsed Barak Obama, so he must be a fellow of good judgment, mustn’t he?
Read on:
http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/stevens/story/551875.html
Sorry if this has been posted before elsewhere, but it’s quite telling…
http://basilsblog.net/2008/10/27/obamapalin-08/
DJ | 28.10.08 – 11:30 am
Slavery is ‘enshrined in our Constitution’? Huh? Where exactly?
Slavery was quite well entrenched in the constitution prior to the 13th amendment:
Article I, Section. 2 [Slaves count as 3/5 persons]
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons [i.e., slaves].
Article I, Section. 9, clause 1. [No power to ban slavery until 1808]
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. Article IV, Section. 2. [Free states cannot protect slaves]
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Article V [No Constitutional Amendment to Ban Slavery Until 1808]
…No Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/thirteenthamendment.html
Any word yet on how many non-white leaders have been elected into power in European countries? Or how many have even had non-whites run for election? Or how many non-white politicians European countries have compared to America? Or how many non-white countries have elected white presidents? Etc.
“Anyone know why the Beeb’s website has outsourced part of its US election coverage to Newsweek?”
I expect they must be short-staffed.
Yes, that must be it. I’ve heard the Beeb don’t employ very many people.
“Any word yet on how many non-white leaders have been elected into power in European countries?”
Any word on why we should elect non-white leaders? Of course, by 2050, many European countries will have non-whites in charge because non-whites will be the majority. Any word on why that is a ‘good thing’?
I was taught by my very most excellent American History teacher in high school that though there are clauses in the constitution addressing slavery – as slaves were common at the time – the provision for their eventual freedom was made at inception “all men created equal”, because the fathers foresaw a future nation whose pupopse was for all people to be free: of slavery to religion, government, even to another.
FREEDOM from slavery is entrenched in our constitution, that’s why it eventually happened!
It is sickening to see this blatant kind of twisted logic, the purpose of which is to undermine anything good, and right, and honorable.
It seems that this thread has been ‘moderated’. Does anybody know why?
This guy simply joins all the dots to show that Obama has been closely tied to Marxists all his life.
Has anyone received even a glimmering of this from the BBC ?
With a compliant Senate and House of Representatives, we could soon find the Westerm World is being led by a Marxist – without anyone being warned of it by the BBC and its multi-million pound US election coverage.
http://neoconlatina.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-lifetime-commitment-to-marxism.html
Allan@Oslo:
What was moderated? Because the other day I noticed several posts missing on a thread. One thing I enjoy about this site is no moderator, I hope it doesn’t change
Surely making a deal with Newsweek for content is a far better use of your license fee than busing hordes of Beeboids around creation, while still hiring yet another bunch of media studies monkeys to read Newsweek and then rewrite it into BBC News Online briefs.
I suggested a while back that they should just get rid of Frei and Webb and give all the license fee payers a subscription to the Washington Post instead. I see this Newsweek deal as a step in the right direction.