I know that BBC coverage of the US election has been well covered by my colleagues here on B-BBC but I just wanted to say a few things myself.
Whilst on holidays last week, I tuned into SKY, CNN and the BBC. They were all pathetic cheer-leaders for The One but whilst CNN was poor, Sky managed to be even worse but the BBC managed to win the race for MOST Biased news channel insofar as it really only focused on Obama. McCain was as rare a sight on BBC coverage as Gordon Brown in Glenrothes! I could not bear to watch the BBC coverage yesterday but I did force myself to watch the 10 0′ clock news tonight and instantly regretted it – the BBC is still swooning over Obama. I watched some sycophantic coverage suggesting that Democrats may well be moving into a permanent majority, no less. Those pesky white Americans are going to be a minority by 2050, the report thrilled, so the bad old days could be behind us! We also had images of Obama cultists scribbling best wishes on a tatty piece of cardboard defacing the Mall in Washington -funny thing is when Bush won in 2000 and 2004 I can’t quite seem to recall the same glowing aftermath in the Beeb’s coverage then, can you?
A lot of nonesense has been written by liberals in the MSM and spoken by broadcasters about why Obama won. They all think that America has suddenly changed irrevocably and forever. No it hasn’t. They should ask themselves, what would’ve happened had Obama been a Repubilcan, would he have won this election? This was a one off. Virtually all the African Americans voted for Obama, I doubt they’ll be so fired up in 2012 as it won’t be such a monumental moment.
And the other factors which clinched it were Obama’s superb rhetoric, and the poor state of the economy. The Republicans were always on to a loser because of the economy. And the state of the economy always trumps all other issues.
And finally, to say “just because the young vote for Dems mean America has changed forever” is bogus. The young are always left. When I was 18 I miguidedly thought Communism was a good idea. 11 years later, and 7 years in work full time, I’m fully in the centre right camp. The young move right as they age. The same thing’ll happen in America. If the republicans pick a good candidate in 2012, they can win.
Melanie Phillips:
“Preventing National Suicide”
[Extract]:
“In Britain, there is a collective swoon over the election of Barack Obama. Media superlatives have exhausted the lexicon of cliches. Journalists wept with joy over his acceptance speech. Even members of the Conservative shadow cabinet are firmly in the fan club. There’s been nothing like it since… well, I was going to say Dianamania, but actually the person who most comes to mind at this moment is Britain’s former prime minister, Tony Blair…
“It [Blair’s government] also set about changing the identity of the country. Promoting the doctrine of multiculturalism, it opened Britain’s doors to mass immigration. In the state-controlled schools, teachers no longer saw their role as the transmission of Britain’s historic culture, which was ‘racist’; accordingly, children were not taught the history of their country, but instead a concept of ‘citizenship’ which was all about changing the values of the country. It undermined marriage, promoting instead ‘lifestyle choice’ by incentivising lone parenthood (official forms no longer refer to husband and wives, merely ‘partners’). It discouraged prison sentences because criminals were said to be victims of life and jail would make them worse.
“Obama has talked about remedying what he sees as the flaws in the U.S. Constitution which promotes only ‘negative liberties,’ or freedom from something rather than positive rights to something. Well, through human-rights legislation Britain has exchanged its historic concept of ‘negative’ liberty — everything is permitted unless it is actively prohibited — for the ‘positive’ European idea that only what is codified is to be permitted.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjljMGU3ODc0YzcxMDkxYTlkYWQwOWY2NDMyZDVlYTY=
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7714549.stm
Popularity by association – the BBC way.
I turned off the news when they started to talk about the Obama’s fashion sense.
Which is quite funny really since Al Beeb was only too happy to take a swing at Palin for having clothes provided to her by the GOP.
Double standards..nah, never!
The collective wank fest is a joke and unfortunately its one that will last for the next 4 years.
Mailman
I think someone ought to start a website called “obamapromises.com” or something, which tracks all of the outlandish fairy tale promises Obama made in his campaign and records any progress made toward their end.
For instance, Obama’s claim that his election would “mark the point at which the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal” could easily be tracked by a graphic which plots average sea levels over time since his election. Similar graphics could plot progress made in other areas of “planet healing.”
If Obama’s done one useful thing it’s in showing us just how easily led the masses are. You don’t even have to be realistic any more – just promise them anything. Absolutely anything. I’m going to run for President in 2012 and promise better sex lives and and end to the common cold. There is no limit to what the public will believe, as long as you have the mainstream media running infomercials for you 24/7.
I didn’t want to compare Obama to Hitler back in 1933 but there are similarities…
The GOP has made promises and didn’t keen them. They wanted to change Washington but Washington changed them (as McCain rightly put it).
I’m now officially a member of the “Bobby Jindal for President 2012” campaign. If you haven’t seen him on FNC last night here’s a clip:
And billions in cash.
Jason that is an excellent idea, I was thinking that very thing yesterday, though I have no idea how to make a web site. It wouldn’t be hard to collect all the promises.
The mob can turn, also. And it’s wrath is horrid. I don’t know how to find it, but one woman in the crowds claimed that once the O was in office, she would not have to pay for gas anymore, or pay her mortgage (I heard it on a montage during Hannity).
What will these liberals on This Week do if their messiah invades Iran.
adam | 07.11.08 – 12:29 am | #
Simple. They’ll give him a free pass. Clinton was on the phone talking about sending troops to Bosnia while Monica Lewinsky knelt in front of him and earned her Presidential Kneepads. And he’s a living legend on the left.
By the way, has anyone seen this footage of an Obama supporting teacher humiliating a young girl in class who said she supported McCain – it wasn’t anywhere on the mainstream media in America, which is why it was left up to a Swedish channel to show it:
Bobby Jindal is the man.
David
I also watched the 10pm news. It was very revealing. The report on Virginia tells me something – that what we call liberal bias is not bias but exactly as described by Marr in the sidebar- a fixed way of looking at the world which is part of the make up of the person. Thus they can never understand what many of us mean by bias.
Thus not to vote for Obama is to be old ,white,poorly educated and almost certainly racist. To the reporter there was no other explanation.
Virginia was becoming in his eyes normal by virtue of a growing younger ethnic makeup and the influx of educated urban whites.
Ethnic and/or educated equals liberal/democrat and this is normal and the inevitable future.
To translate this attitude to Britain is also normal and the BBC sees itself as midwife to a cultural change which it regards as inevitable and desirable.
I now know just what we are up against.
.
Did the beeboid say that? That the area is becoming more normal
Adam
I said
“becoming in his eyes normal”
I think my meaning is clear.
Adam
Perhaps not so clear I am tired
Normality is the liberal BBC view every other view is abnormal- it is implicit in their every news report
Not everybody is going to get what they want, but this is a moment of
Look a this swooning!!
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/06/nations-look-obama-president-world/
“…hope,” said Mead, who added that Obama was sure to fall short of some expectations.
“If you look at Jesus Christ, he walked on water and fed the 5,000 and he ended up getting crucified, so I think it’s not unlikely that President-elect Obama is gonna disappoint some people also.”
This is almost embarassing. What is wrong in the world. Why do they think there is a difference between a black thug and a white thug?
oops – pasting without finesse – apologies.
Here’s a subtle instance of bias I noticed. When Asian markets rose the day after Obama was elected. The BBC crows:
“Asian stocks up on Obama victory” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/business/7710106.stm) tying the rise in Asian markets to Obama’s win and “expectations” that the Democrats will put the economy right.
Yet when US shares tumble the day after the election, it’s:
“US shares plummet after election” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/business/7712052.stm), with no attempt to link the drop to how the market perceives Obama’s election. Instead, it highlights the “challenges” his administration will face, and is a symptom of market “volatility” more than anything else.
You have to laugh at such transparently agenda-driven reporting.
Matt Frei feels the love
Barack Obama, the Tiger Woods President
By Matt Frei
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/06/do0612.xml
Dave s
I was wondering whether the reporter had said that. ie “this area is becoming more normal now that (democrats) are moving in.”
As that would be a damning statement of their snobbery in my op.
Its clear now that it was only inferred.
Anon, that is a fantastic example, perfect in fact.
Lurker:
May I just give an American conservative perspective to Frei’s wetting himself over the Master O’s predominance??
This is a transcript, you can read it en toto here:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_110608/content/01125110.guest.html
But here is the important meat. This is Charlie Rose, Evan Thomas, and Jon Meacham of Newsweek Magazine:
MEACHAM: He’s very elusive, Obama, which is fascinating for a man who’s written two memoirs. At Grant Park he walks out with the family, and then they go away.
ROSE: Mmm. Mmm-hmm.
MEACHAM: Biden’s back, you know, locked in the bar or something.
ROSE: (haughty chuckle)
MEACHAM: You know, they don’t let him out. And have you ever seen a victory speech where there was no one else on stage?
ROSE: Mmm.
MEACHAM: No adoring wife, no cute kid. He is the messenger.
THOMAS: There is a slightly creepy cult of personality about all this. I mean, he’s such an admirable —
ROSE: Slightly. Creepy. Cult of personality.
THOMAS: Yes.
ROSE: What’s slightly creepy about it?
THOMAS: It — it — it just makes me a little uneasy that he’s so singular. He’s clearly managing his own spectacle. He’s a deeply manipulative guy.
ROSE: Watching him last night in that speech, he finishes —
MEACHAM: Yeah.
ROSE: — and he sort of — it’s almost like he then ascends to look at the circumstance.
MEACHAM: He watches us watching him.
THOMAS: Watching him!
ROSE: Exactly!
THOMAS: He does —
MEACHAM: It’s amazing.
ROSE: It is amazing.
THOMAS: He writes about this metaphor being a screen upon which Americans will project. He said they want of Barack Obama; I’m not sure I am Barack Obama.
ROSE: Mmm!
THOMAS: He had — he has the self-awareness to know that this creature he’s designed isn’t necessarily a real person, and he’s self-aware enough —
ROSE: Ahhhhhh!
Now they tell us what they really think. Maybe the Kool-aide is wearing off.
I wish I had never read the book of revelations.
Someone tell me why according to BBC Palin’s £50,000 on clothes cost the Republicans the election yet Obama’s millions on his commercial was acceptable.
This deserves a bigger audience. It came from a comment on the Samizdata blog:
It behoves the BBC to be fair after all.
Are you – in the media – going to do to Obama what you did to George Bush?
That is:
First, demonize him and ascribe his motives to evil and malfeasance, not just policy differences.
You should proclaim often and loudly that he is not the president, that he stole the election and he has no mandate.
You should repeat false stories about him, no matter how crazy or wrong, until they are accepted as common wisdom.
You should create lies and urban legends to smear him and demean him.
You should ridicule any verbal slips or gaffes, and ascribe them to his native stupidity and intellectual vapidity.
You should accuse him of every sin and crime under the sun and attempt to have him impeached for policy differences, which we should call crimes.
You should undermine any programs he wants to pass by misstating their goals and content.
You should take quotes out of context to make him seem ridiculous and to make him seem mean-spirited.
You should repeat often that he doesn’t care about people who aren’t the same race as he is, and that he is only out for his own kind.
You should claim that he is going to try to force a coup and take over the country by force.
You should claim he’s going to lock up any dissenters.
You should loudly scream about losing our rights and interfere with his speechs and disrupt any gatherings of his party.
Politicians should cynically misstate his policies to make him look bad.
i wonder how long its going to be before Al Beeb bites back at the Chosen One
for example, imagine if the Chosen One made an off the cuff remark regarding global warming being of dubious science
Al Beeb would lynch him and hang him high
I experienced the BBC’s anti- West mindset in person yesterday when a female BBC staffer called our office looking for a guest to appear on their Have Your Say show or something like that. They were going to discuss the health and safety hazards posed by second hand goods imported from the West. When I asked her to explain her problem with second hand goods from the West she mumbled something to the effect that a second hand micro wave can easily explode and harm the user in Africa . I didn’t undersatnd why a microwave from the West in particular and therefore asked her to explain her obssession with the West given that most of the goods in my country( Botswana) are from the East i.e Japan , Singapore , the Chicoms etc. She ducked that and said that the programme would discuss second hand goods from anywhere in the world. Which begs the question : Why does the BBC derive satisfaction from trashing the West.I can’t stand neither the BBC’s patronizing attitude towards Africa nor its white guilt.
BTW , I am a black native of Botswana and have never been to Great Britain!
O/T, I was half listening to the Today report on Glenrothes at about 7.10 this morning.
An individual called John Curtis concluded his piece by saying that Labour can now look forward to a General Election victory in 2010.
Thanks for clearing that one up, John.
Like most people, I am not at my most astute first thing in the morning, so something may have been scrambled in transmission, but I was struggling to figure out whether this John Curtis was a BBC reporter or some stooge from party HQ.
Sure, for a long time it has been a job to tell the difference but I am now left wondering whether only a small minority even claim that there is supposed to be a difference.
What we need in the UK is a radio service like http://www.foxnews.com/radio (which you can listen to on the internet in the UK if you want to hear the other side of the debate).
But any radio show must be careful of the vigilant state regulators. James Whale (Talksport late night radio general talk show)was sacked for suggesting voters should vote for Boris Johnson in the London Mayor election recently. And that is the station which employs George Galloway as another of its presenters.
Alberich | 07.11.08 – 8:24 am
Professor John Curtice of the University of Strathclyde is Scotlands leading psephologist.
Barack Obama, the Tiger Woods President
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/06/do0612.xml&posted=true&_requestid=8717
It is all rather cosy, if perhaps too cosy, within the bubble, isn’t it?
Pity most in reply are not as convinced.
StephenB: Whale got sacked because Talksport is now run by failed BBC leftie Moz Dee. He’s ruined Talksport it’s turned into a sewer of broadcasting.
They used to have some great radio presenters on the station, like Charlie Wolf and Mikie Dickin (OK he died but got replaced by Gallotwat) for example.
Martin I agree – and personally I’m glad James Whale got the bullet; if I’d heard one more ignorant self-righteous attack on Israel from that pompous fool I’d have headbutted the radio into splinters.
But yes, Talksport has become a joke. Only Hawksbee and Jacobs are worth listening to these days – John Gaunt is an unbearable prick, and I do miss Charlie Wolf.
Dichaba Molobe | 07.11.08 – 8:18 am |
Thank you, this is very illuminating.
And absolutely typical of the BBC.
In their rush to sell the election as ‘historic’ the BBC has failed to point out that turnout was the same as in 2004.
Exploding microwaves? Where do they get these people from.
Its not a nuclear bomb.
She means when the seal weakens on old models and they leak radiation.
David Vance, would it be possible for you turn Anons 1:20am comment into a post of its own?
Is it not the perfect example of bbc bias.
very interesting to hear Dichaba Molobe’s views and great to see the blog is going global.
I’m quite chuffed the Yanks elected Obama instead of Hillary but WTF it has to do with the BBC baffles me.
Fair play, send a few chaps over but all foreign elections should be held in arrogant disdain, as Noel Coward said “it’s knowing they’re not English that makes them all so mad”.
This group orgy over a guy whose in-tray is shot to pieces is ridiculous. If anything they’re the ones promoting racism.
Wittering on about first black guy this, first black guy that is smoke and mirrors. I’m a bloody good golfer and I call Tiger ‘Tigger’ – not because he’s black, not out of disrespect but because he’d kick my arse round the course without breaking a sweat (and I feel I know him – the git won his first masters on my birthday and he’s 5 months younger than me – if my mum hadn’t made me go to school – the bitch.)
The BBC can’t see past talent and ability because they just massage their own self worth by whinging.
Anywho, apparently Obama’s got a streetfighter as CoS – back to business.
Dischaba
Please buddy, don’t judge us by the BBC or our sub-standard (microwaved) politicians. Apparently the Queen opened up a new building at the London School of Economics the other day and she asked the Chancellor or Dean “why didn’t you prevent the credit crunch? Why did you allow it to happen?” 30 + years of education and lying to people thrown straight back into the guys face – brilliant.
We’ve got into a disgusting phase that to be old is to be out of touch – I hope it changes.
Richard
Bad losers?
I wonder if the BBC has ever thought about it’s biased reporting during the 8 years of this current U.S. Presidency?
The contrast between the BBC’s “reporting” on newly elected U.S. Presidents depending on who it institutionally “favours” is pretty startling. The disdain it showed for President George Bush’s election and reelection compared to the “elation” (read orgy of praise which I predict will look embarrassing in years to come) reacting to the election of B Husain Obama’s has left me feeling like “Mr disgusted of London”!
But I love Ann Coulter’s remarks about how to react to this state of affairs:
“For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucac/thereignoflamefallsmainlyonmccain
What I object to most strongly out of all of this is that for the last ten months or so, every single Beeboid who has appeared on air has called me a racist.
The overwhelming majority of BBC election coverage has been slanted so that the only reason anyone might vote for McCain is racism. They have been very careful to gently glide over most policy issues, and in fact worked overtime to dismiss any criticisms of the Democrat nominee. They even hired actual anti-Republican propaganda artists to lie to you on Newsnight, so that nobody would believe that Democrats engage in voter fraud, and that instead it was Republicans always trying to shut down black people.
You were told not to believe accusations that The Obamessiah knew about any of the radical religious dogma preached at the church he attended for 20 years. Failing that you were supposed to believe that Rev. Wright did not say anything of consequence. You were told not to believe accusations that The Obamessiah had any tangible association with ACORN and other get-out-the-vote groups (whose profligate acts of voter fraud somehow weren’t intended to affect elections), or with Bill Ayers. You were told that The Obamessiah had the “correct” policy positions (except when his foreign policy adviser said that he didn’t, really, and got fired for it) on the BBC’s favorite issues of Iraq and sucking up to foreign dictators.
But most of all, since you were left with no other reason not to vote for him, the only reason left is racism. In other words, the BBC told you for the last eight months that I’m a racist. The BBC news show produced in the US and targeted directly at me and my fellow citizens told me that I’m probably a racist. Justin Webb added that I’m not a rational or educated person.
This wasn’t the Guardian doing a dopey letter-writing campaign. This wasn’t the Times or the Telegraph or SKY or ITV telling me this. This was the Official State Broadcaster of my country’s greatest ally, the country where I have friends and at least one relative.
I’m not a racist, and the vast majority of my countrymen weren’t racists before Nov. 4. The most offensive spectacle of all has been the entire BBC staff – and far too many members of their audience – celebrating their belief that the citizens of the US are somehow less awful today than we were last week, and that we’re now acceptable to them.
So far I have yet to hear any probing about God’s selection of his presidential team on earth.
For example, it seems astonishing to me that in all the “background” given to us by the BBC about Rahm Emanuel, the one piece of vital information missing is this: he once worked closely for and with Mayor Daley in Chicago. (I love God’s Chicago connections – from Daley to Oprah) I discovered the Daley tie by googling for a few MINUTES this morning. Perhaps the Beeb missed it because it is not (!) mentioned in Emanuel’s wikipedia entry – no doubt, the “reliable” source for all BBC news stories.
PS Someone tell Justin Webb where Chicago is.
John Bosworth | 07.11.08 – 4:32 pm
the Irgun, a hard-line group which fought for Israeli independence until 1948 as was branded as a terrorist organisation by the British colonial authorities.
…. too timid even to brand yesterday’s terrorists as terrorists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7702408.stm
and no mention of brother Ari – Michael Moore’s agent. But he may not go down too well with the One. Ari was once accused of ordering an associate not to cast a black actor as a Navy Seal on the grounds that ‘Blacks can’t swim’.
Just heard Peter Allen in Drive (Radio 5 Lie) suggest video conferencing might be the future, rather than air travel. Is this the same Peter Allen that joined 174 BBC colleagues for the over-the-top coverage of the Americal election?
Popped into the British Consulate in Barcelona to buy my poppy and caught a reporter on BBC World News say “After 8 years optimism has returned to America”. No bias there.
In all the Obamamania, I wonder whether the Beeb will do the simple sum as to why he won? McCain spent $84 million and got 56 million votes. Obama spent $700 million and got 64 million votes. That’s $10.93 for every Obama vote as against $1.49 for every McCain vote.
These numbers make Obama the most expensive president ever sold. Or should I say bought?
Popped into the British Consulate in Barcelona to buy my poppy and heard a reporter on BBC World say “After 8 years optimism has returned to America”. No bias there.
BBC swooning, gloating, ecstatic, their shameless bias “vindicated” – nothing to answer for. The Multicultural Liberal dream has arrived. “Could Britain have a black prime minister” is the gushing headline. The Kennedy moment, the Tony Blair moment. Time to party. WE HAVE WON!!!
Except “we” are a public news broadcaster not a side. Not that you would ever know it.
Now Glenrothes – the tide has turned. Savers are screwed, so borrowers can rejoice. Hated bankers are sternly warned by our leader. Pictures of our glorious leader smiling confidently. Its Pravda, Mao, Kim il Jong, its nauseating.
The bad guys have won. The mangement of media is complete. Armies of government-funded trolls will appear in the political blogs armed with with instant rebuttal. Liberal Facism. Never thought the two words would sit together. Left is the new right, Right is the new Left.
Where to now?
Andrew,
We may be bloodied, but we remain unbowed. Our day will come.
David, if there’s one thing ALL americans can’t stand is the implication of a party, any party “moving into a permanent majority”.
That is also known as a one-party state, although the BBC would avoid that description like the T-word.
The Republicans will be back, they won’t even have to _change_ (as much as the 6 or so BBC articles are implying) to come back, and the BBC will be scratching their heads when they do.