The BBC’s latest entry from their journalists following the US elections tells us far more about the BBC than it does about the campaign. Gavin Hewitt’s (following Obama- did we scare off Justin Webb?) is a long and lyrical piece including lines like the following:
“What I can attest to, however, is enthusiasm. The kind of enthusiasm that keeps you standing in a queue at a polling station in Franklin county in Ohio today for five hours. The enthusiasm that persuades you to bring your children with you on a beautiful autumn day to the polling station, knowing they will be bored.”
Matt Price meanwhile, following McCain (guess who the senior journalist is between Price and Hewitt so who got the short BBC straw) offers a terse little piece. Its BBC headline was promising- “breaking stereotypes” – so I assumed something a bit different from the usual snide comments. In fact it sets up a video which is pure Obama commercial. It accuses those who are against Obama of racism. It says McCain simply favours the rich. The BBC journalist who is supposed to cover McCain puts forward the argument for Obama from the mouth an apparent middle-American he’s come across. He claims it is “what this election is all about”.
Two BBC journalists, apparently balanced missions. One, and only the One’s, side of the story.
Update: Price video here. “I have a lot of friends that… they’re ignorant, they’re not going to vote for him because he’s black”. Oh yes, breaking stereotypes with the McCain campaign indeed
Catastrophe = Russel Brand
Very apt moniker Russel
disillusioned German— Obama isn’t going to win. The polling services have been getting an 80% hang-up rate all election season.
When one poll has Obama ahead by 13 points and the other has McCain ahead by 2 points, something is seriously wrong.
What’s happening is that the people are simply not talking to the pollsters, for whatever reason. The people they ARE reaching are not a part of the typical “I’m not answering that phone” group, and so are atypical.
Word on the ground is that McCain is going to win– unless there is VERY SERIOUS voter fraud in Obama’s favor.
McCain is going to win, even with some very serious voter fraud on the ground!
Adam:
Catastrophe = Russel Brand
Very apt moniker Russel
Adam | 02.11.08 – 11:07 pm | #
I wondered…I couldn’t decide between “wit” or “twit” 🙂
There are more registered Democrat voters than Republican ones. I think a lot of the polling that has gone on has just been plain wrong.
“…But the drama of Clinton’s slim 39% to 36% victory over Barack Obama in the Democratic primary wrong-footed many in the media who had anticipated an Obama triumph following his comfortable win in the Iowa caucuses just five days before, and reinforced by polling data that showed – without exception – Obama in the lead.
Several polls of Democratic voters gave Obama a double-digit margin over Clinton. One late poll, carried out by Zogby International – which bills itself as “the gold standard in political polling” – put Obama as high as 42% and Clinton lagging on 29%. An average of all the polls in the days leading up to the vote gave Obama 39% and Clinton barely 30%…”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/10/uselections2008.richardadams
mamapajamas writes: “Word on the ground is that McCain is going to win– unless there is VERY SERIOUS voter fraud in Obama’s favor.”
And I most certainly wouldn’t rule that out!
Of course, as in previous US elections, the BBC will remain silent about election fraud perpetrated by Democrats, while moving heaven and earth to find evidence of Republican wrongdoing.
Martin:
And there you have it. Obama will not win, pollsters are biased.
An adage of liberalism is to be the squeaky wheel – the squeaky wheel, as we all know, gets the oil. In this case, the squeak is the attention. The media believe they run the country, really – you talk about it all the time here, the egoism and the arrogance. The BBC, CNN, etc they truly believe they control us, and may at times, or all the time – depending on our person. In your case you are paying for such a …..waste of time – I’d add a ephitat, but can’t think of one strong enough.
And that’s what it boils down to. The BBC
..well…? I was saying they could do such a service, instead they waste our time, and our money, and there are nop rofessionals, only those looking for the glam and the lights and the attention. Very shallow, always, while great events and the course of history is at stake.
Well, I hope you’re right, people.
I consider myself to be a compassionate conservative but I’m definetely not a socialist. I’m not sure what McCain will bring to the White House but he convinced me by choosing Sarah Palin.
I don’t want to appear stupid, but wasn’t McCain the one that saved that skyscraper full of office workers from the evil clutches of Hans Gruber played by the excellent Alan Rickman?
And more recently he saved the entirity of New York from a dangerous cyber attack that could have ended the world.
If so, I think he deserves something for all that work.
I thought McCain was oven chips?! I used to love those as a kid!!
He invented oven chips as well. This man is a hero.
Shame he’s not black as well, as then he’d be the next president.
Here’s the thing about the up coming election.
Webb was only too happy to trot out that over 10million people watched Obama’s famous greek coronation (or was that a greek tragedy?:)). Oh how Webb gloated at every chance, how he rammed that figure down the throats of the Republicans every chance he got when interviewing them…but what was this, Palin got more than Obama AND McCain also got more people watching his speech than Obama?
And while this was happening, there was Webb, trumpeting that there were more registered Democrats!
Secondly, in spite of the near Obamalike blackout last wednesday for Obamapalooza2008, he only managed to rack in 23% in viewers…less than half the numbers that watched any one of the 4 televised debates!
One would have thought that if Obama was really going to get a landslide on Tuesday that he would have got more than 23% watching his infomercial? And those who watched it, overwhelming disappointment (fail).
Finally, the polls are rubbish BUT what I reckon will happen is that all day Tuesday in America you will get the MSM broadcasting stories about massive Democratic voter turn out. The MSM will be doing this on purpose so as to try to keep at home voters who will think to themselves that there is no point because the media is reporting the Dems have won.
Mark my words though, when Obama loses on Tuesday there will be violence in the streets. And where will “The One” ™ be during this violence? Thats right, he will be doing an impersonation of his credit crunch crisis act, ie. he will be AWOL.
Mailman
F8ck me, when did I start sounding like a 9/11 truther! 😉
Mailman
Martin, indeed there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, but the pollsters at CNN, for instance, are weighting their polling data at 41% Dem, 29% Rep, and 30% Indy.
The problem here is that IN ACTUAL PRACTICE, historically the actual voting turnout has been 37-37-24.
You see, some of the Democratic demographic groups are NOT reliable voters, while most Republican demo groups ARE.
And one huge dent in the Hispanic demographic, which tends to go Democratic, is the Cuban-American population in Florida, who tend to be intensely Republican. This year, polling data shows that 52% of Hispanics in Florida are voting for McCain, and they don’t make up 52% of the Hispanics here.
Plus, Florida data also shows that 22% of Blacks here are voting for McCain. That doesn’t jibe with the national forcast, either.
Something is VERY seriously wrong with the polling data– and I would bet almost anything that the 80% hang-up rate is the culprit.
Only ATYPICAL people are getting polled.
The TYPICAL person doesn’t answer his phone at all!
correction: “This year, polling data shows that 52% of Hispanics in Florida are voting for McCain, and they don’t make up 52% of the Hispanics here.”
“They”=Cubans, of course– Cubans are a large portion of the Hispanic population here, but not 52%. We also have a large population of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and other islanders.
http://www.marstonchronicles.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=94&Itemid=118
The above might cheer you up.
2000/2004 the MSM called Democrat wins and they got it wrong on both occasions.
The BBC have run wild this time in their unchecked semi delerious cheering for Obama, strangely enough does this degeneration coincide with the ‘nulab reforms’ inflicted on the BBC?
McCain will win this and the MSMs biased reporting and partisan cheering will have actually helped a McCain victory, perverse eh? not really, if anything it proves that the MSM aint the ‘big thing’ it thinks it is.
Of course the old saying ‘wishing it dont make it so’ comes into play, I will be very very happy to watch a shell shocked media crying into its lattes, ha ha ha ha!
“Obama will win – he’s ahead in the polls” = arrogant meda, wait till the people actually vote.
“McCain will win – the polls are wrong” = perfectly acceptable assumption.
“Only racism can rob Obama of victory” = media blackmail and refusal to accept normal democratic process
“If Obama wins it’ll only be because of massive voter fraud” = perfectly acceptable assumption.
Come on folks – let’s have some consistency!
People will vote in a day or two, we’ll see who wins, and as democrats we’ll have to respect that decision, whether we like it or not.
Now, addressing the Matt Price blog entry: has Matt explained carefully to readers that the existence of some racists who won’t vote for a black man does not by default make Barack Obama a better candidate than John McCain?
I don’t care how many racists there are, who they vote for, and why. They are morons and I ignore them. Call me old-fashioned, but I’d cast my vote based solely on which candidate I think will make the better President of the United States, based on proposed policies, political record, and character.
I know, how terribly dated that sounds, compared with the onward march of progressive identity politics.
“meda” should of course be “media” – apologies
The only poll that matters is the election on November 4th.
henryflower,
The problem with Al Beeb carrying the “only racists wont vote for Obama” is this.
These people werent racist when they voted against Kerry in the last election, so why are they suddenly racist now when they vote the same way again (for a Republican)?
But they way the media has tried to spin this is disgusting. Its like they are trying to “shame” people in to voting for someone simply because of the colour of their skin.
You know a certain guy by the name of Martin Luther-King spent his entire life fighting for people to be recognised by the content of their character and the deeds of their actions yet here we have a candidate who’s only point is the colour of his skin.
You know what MLK would call that, he would call that racism (to vote for someone because they are black, yellow, green or red)!
Mailman
Let’s have a sweepstake –guess to the nearest month post election that all the people who voted for Change start becoming disillusioned with Obama –He seems to be promising some big things –getting out of Iraq (when and how?) big tax hikes on the “rich”, big spending on Healthcare etc etc . The Messianic zeal might be a little less fervent after a few months of reality
+ don’t get me started on his attitude towards NAFTA and protectionism –that works well doesn’t it?
Mailman; I asked exactly the same question in another thread – precisely when, and by what mechanism, have all those undecideds who eventually voted against Gore and Kerry, become “racists”? Did they become racists when, despite the Democrat nominee being African-American, they continued to hold precisely the same values and beliefs that had persuaded them to vote Republican last time and the time before?
Mailman, the only point I was making was that even if a thousand – or even a million – racists were to vote against Obama based on the colour of his skin, that wouldn’t in itself convince me that he will make a better President than McCain. Heck, if 99% of Americans were mythical vicious redneck racists and hated Obama because he’s black, and I thought that McCain were the better candidate, I’d vote McCain regardless.
I need no convincing that the BBC’s implication – undecideds who may vote Republican are racists this time though they weren’t last time when they did the same thing – is utter bullshit. My point was that, even if it were true, it wouldn’t necessarily make Obama a better candidate than McCain.
🙂
Wimmins Hour on Radio 4 this morning covered the USelection a bit – concluding with a longish interview with an American academic purporting to give the female view of the respective campaigns.
She was NOT introduced as a Dem, but as an academic.
But guess what – she trashed the McCain campaign and Palin, and eulogised Obama. Making some outrageously biased statements with no challenge from the programme presenter – Martha Kearney, I believe, who MUST know at least some of the statements being made were totally biased.
So I checked her out on Google. Sure enough – another far-left harpy :
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/politics/profiles/47/
https://domino.lancs.ac.uk/info/lunews.nsf/I/983E598422F30333802574780059EB5E
Weber seems to have other BBC attributes also
Try this
Cindy Weber explains her work:
My research addresses the following question: ‘how do hegemonic discourses function, and how might they be resisted and/or reconstructed?’
Someone pleeeze tell me she is a spoof academic invented by someone at Private Eye.
If the taxpayer is shelling out to keep people like this in tofu, it’s an even bigger scandal than the telly tax.
Tom
I glazed over the actual text of Weber’s description of her work.
Academia swarms with people like this – leftie “social deconstructionists”.
…………
Columbia U. is of course Obama’s alma mater. Bill Ayers and his terrorist wife lived in the same neighbourhood, it seems highly likely their paths crossed eg on the anti-apartheid rioting. That is – long before they are supposed to have met in Chicago. Did Ayers suggest Chicago as a good base for Obama’s political career ?
Evidently Obama failed to get honours at Columbia, just passing grades – but his academic record is carefully hidden. It seems clear he was wangled into Harvard Law School. All very spooky, Manchurian Candidate flashbacks.
Mailman,
It would be in the interests of the democrats to play the ‘race’ angle when(if)they lose.
There are plenty of european/black/latino/asian racists in America whose ‘race loyalty’ and bigotry overides any colour blind/common sense they might have when choosing to vote for a particular candidate, there are plenty of black Americans who are voting for Obama only because of his perceived membership of the black race.
Does the BBC mention those racists? According to the BBC only white people are racist and I have seen no negative reporting of black peoples motives for voting Obama!
The race issue has long been infiltrated and perverted by PC and the leftist agenda, anyone with an axe to grind or looking for an excuse was able to throw around the’is it coz I is black’ and ‘I aint got nuthin coz whitey wont gimme nuthin’ cannards, political agitators were able to split and divide Americans when they should have been bringing them together.
There are as many black racists as there are white racists in America but the tragedy is that racism isnt tackled as a cancer affecting everyone from every background, it has been used as a political weapon and a social excuse, the BBC are complicit in the crime of race hatred because they lack the moral courage to tell the truth and it suits their warped political agenda to continue to use it as a weapon to bash their ideological enemies.
Isnt it tragic that the very people who profess to hate racism are the one who help to perpetuate it?
Indeed Cassandra,
Then again, as with all politically correct goons, its only ever a problem if its the “other side” who are doing the hating!
Mailman
Frankos | 03.11.08 – 10:59 am |
The Messianic zeal might be a little less fervent after a few months of reality
Not a chance. The only current supporters who might start complaining are the ones who get shut out of the power meetings. If SubCommander Markos Moulitsas isn’t as close to power as he wants to be for working so hard to defeat George Bush…er…I mean, for working so hard to reform the Democrats and save the world, he’ll start complaining. If The Obamessiah hasn’t moved within six months to address all of the Daily Kos pet peeves, then they’ll grumble a little. But it will be a tiny minority.
Otherwise, every criticism of a President Obamessiah will be dismissed as the white man trying to take a brother down. Just like always. It will take four years for Bush Derangement Syndrome and racial guilt-induced blindness to wear off enough for more than a handful of people to start complaining if The Obamessiah really destroys the country. Unless we’re all in his buddy BIll Ayers’ re-education/internment camps, that is.
David Preiser (USA) | Homepage | 03.11.08 – 4:50 pm
every criticism of a President Obamessiah will be dismissed as the white man trying to take a brother down. Just like always.
You paint a depressing picture. I try to cheer myself up with the consoling thought that an Obama win would at least render racial politics, affirmative action etc. quaintly out of date.
But perhaps you’re right.
Look on the bright side, it will be the republicans turn in 4 years after Obama turns the american economy (and the worlds) in to a newer version of the failed soviet state economy!
That is of course unless Obama makes elections illegal, you know…sorta like all the sh1t Bush was meant to do to stay in power this year!
Mailman
Here’s an exclusive sneak preview of the cover for Gavin Hewitt’s forthcoming book about the 2008 election campaign:
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/6a6adae8da.jpg
Excellent, DB!
Excellent, DB!
GCooper | 03.11.08 – 6:23 pm
Thanks, GC.
This morning R5L’s Dotun Adebayo ended his weekend stint hosting Up All Night by saying he had “a date with destiny” for “people like me”. “You know what I mean,” he added. Yes Dotun • you’re black and so is Obama. We get it. Unfortunately I missed the rest of the station’s morning programming and therefore can’t say whether or not Nicky Campbell implied that he hoped the white guy would win just because he’s white. I did, however, tune in again for the Midday News to hear John Pienaar arguing (no other word will suffice) with a couple of people who had dared tell him they were going to vote for McCain. I continued listening to R5L this afternoon and the one thing that stood out was the fact that every time they went to a BBC reporter in the States it was someone different (including BBC hacks I’ve never heard of) but each person was saying exactly the same tedious shit as the person before. The number of BBC journalists over there is obscene – there must be around 50 of them, all now happy that they can include a chapter about the “Obama election” in their straight-to-remainder future memoirs.
And Peter Allen has just called Obama “spectacular”.
DB– Obama is, indeed, “spectacular”.
It is spectacular that he has gotten as far as he has without listing a single accomplishment except as a “community organizer” in a community that is the Muder Capital of the World (and much worse off than before he “organized” it!), and hasn’t even proven that he’s a US citizen!
McCain HAD to prove that he’s a US citizen, since Obamabots jumped on the fact that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone early on. McCain produced his birth certificate, showing that both parents were US citizens, and other documents showing that his father was in the Canal Zone on US military business at the time he was born.
We STILL haven’t seen Obama’s birth certificate.
I just wanted to comment on the death of Obama’s granny:
Unlike the leftie loons we (conservatives) actually have a heart so I want to send out my heartfelt sympathies to Senator Obama and his family.
Justin Webb in breathless tones quoting a new poll saying that 63% or Americans are comfortable with Obama being POTUS.
The glee could not be concealed.
Will we ever awake from this nightmare of intellectual dishonesty?
Hopefully you will only have to wait until Wednesday morning to wake from the horror story Al Beebs reporting has become on the election 🙂
Mailman
Thanks Mailman. I would have given everything to hear or see Matt Frei and Webb’s reactions on hearing of a McCain win. I remember Frei’s shock after Palin’s brilliant speech at the RNC. It’s not going to happen again.
Cindy Weber explains her work:
My research addresses the following question: ‘how do hegemonic discourses function, and how might they be resisted and/or reconstructed?’
My grandad died fighting a war to stop people like this –please make her go away!!!!!
“Did Ayers suggest Chicago as a good base for Obama’s political career ? ”
Of course not,for a kid born in Hawaii and raised partly in Indonesia,with a poli sci degree from Columbia and a Law degree from Harvard,who worked in New York ,the murder capital of America is the most obvious place to go to.
Well, what do we have here then?
http://ace.mu.nu/
Check out the developing story over troopergate. Seems Ace might be on to something with the timing of the clearance eh?
Mailman
“an Obama win would at least render racial politics, affirmative action etc. quaintly out of date.”
The Americans from the Indian subcontinent East Asia and the Hispanics will, of course be delirious.
and anyone called Geronimo utterly ecstatic,
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/toast/
Bloody good stuff on the election.
Mailman
A report to be given full publicity by the BBC, -AFTER the U.S. Election:
“Sarah Palin cleared in Troopergate probe”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5077623.ece