Compare And Contrast …

The BBC News home pages for the 2004 Presidential Election and the 2008 Presidential Election

They’re .. er .. somewhat different in tone, to put it mildly. And they must have used up all the website’s scare quotes in 2004. Then we had :

‘Liberty’ at the heart of President Bush’s foreign policy.

Rice begins work on ‘great cause’.

Not to mention

What Bush means by ‘liberty ‘US vote ‘mostly free and fair’

Admittedly the 2004 page is post-inauguration – but I don’t remember coverage of the result being quite so “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that the King of Glory may enter in“. Indeed, I recall a certain gloom creeping in at the time the results were announced – one observer claimed that “every single BBC reporter looks like they have just swallowed a wasp“.

You may remember that after 2004, the BBC’s post-election theme was ‘Divided America’.

Although the 2004 vote was 51/48 and the 2008 vote was a not-radically-different 53/46 percentage split, I somehow think that the ‘Divided America‘ theme will go back in the toybox for a few more years.

Not that the BBC weren’t following the pack.

(via Booker Rising)

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16 Responses to Compare And Contrast …

  1. Rob says:

    Umm…the top two links are exactly the same…

       0 likes

  2. archduke says:

    the cartoon says it all…

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  3. archduke says:

    and the countdown for Obama to obama being out of favour with the bbc begins in 3…2….1

    http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-140089

    “Israeli media hails Obama’s pick of chief of staff”

    Israeli media on Thursday hailed Barack Obama’s choice of Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff, with one daily calling the Democrat of Israeli descent “our man in the White House.”

    Radio stations and newspapers pointed out Emanuel’s Jerusalem-born father was once a member of Irgun, an underground, ultra-nationalist Jewish movement that fought British troops before the 1948 creation of the state of Israel.

    Emanuel himself volunteered to serve in the Israeli army and did a two-month stint at a base in northern Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, public radio reported.

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  4. Ed says:

    Rob- 11.53.

    I’ve put in what I assume to be the correct page for ’08. Obama blazes to victory in glorious technicolour.

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  5. Anonymous says:

    isnt Obama a great guy? he must be able to walk on water backwards while farting to the tune of “she’ll be commin round the mountain when she comes” poop poop

    if i ever touched obama, ive never wash my hands again

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  6. Anonymous says:

    The Making of Barack Obama’s Socialist Utopia

    Barack Obama will move swiftly to close Guantanamo Bay as soon as he takes office, his aides said yesterday.
    Mr Obama is planning to ship dozens of terrorist suspects from the camp to face criminal trial in the US.

    He has vowed to start removing combat troops from Iraq immediately, although in recent weeks he has become more opaque about the speed of withdrawal.

    One of Mr Obama’s first acts could be to use the power of executive authority • which enables presidents to take action without an Act of Congress • to block the expansion of oil drilling in the Utah wilderness authorised by Mr Bush
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5126528.ece

       1 likes

  7. Cockney says:

    what have any of those decisions got to do with socialism?

       1 likes

  8. Anonymous says:

    Re:One of Mr Obama’s first acts could be to use the power of executive authority • which enables presidents to take action without an Act of Congress • to block the expansion of oil drilling in the Utah wilderness authorised by Mr Bush…..

    Now Obama will continue to allow America to be hostage to Arab oil:

    “In the Election campaign both Obama and McCain focused on the fact that we spend billions of dollars buying oil from regimes that hate us and have a radically different view of what the world should look like than most of its neighbors. Both viewed the issue of energy independence as a matter of national security. While differing on the margins over where to drill and the priority given nuclear energy, the campaigns, representing candidates supported by about 96 percent of the voting population, were in agreement”.
    http://www.douglasfarah.com/article/417/the-ultimate-counter-terrorism-weapon.com

       1 likes

  9. mailman says:

    Obama will do what he has always done, side with the democrats when confronted with a bill restricting drilling.

    Mailman

       1 likes

  10. Kill the Beeb says:

    archduke:

    I don’t think that will cause Obama to fall out of favour with the BBC. Nothing trumps being black in the BBC deck.

    Except being muslim of course. Oh wait…

       1 likes

  11. David Preiser (USA) says:

    archduke | 11.11.08 – 1:35 am |

    Nobody’s going to be too upset about Rahm Emanuel being an evil Zionist. He’s just going to be the new Karl Rove or Alistair Campbell for the new Pres. He won’t be much use as a pro-Israel influence. His job will be to enforce policy, not advise or create it.

    And if there’s any trouble, he’ll just leave, like he did before. He won’t be much of an influence on anyone then.

    Obviously there are going to be cries of “Aha, the Joooos control the US!” at first, but that will pass. The reason I say that is because The Obamessiah Campaign has already sent senior foreign policy adviser Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria over the last few weeks to outline Obamessiah policy on the Middle East.

    This is the same Robert Malley who was encouraging Bill Clinton to sell Israel down the river. Worse, this is the same Robert Malley who was an Obamessiah foreign policy adviser until he was supposedly fired for talking to Hamas.

    This was back when Jimmy Carter was kissing up to Hamas, and all the candidates had to do the obligatory, if unappealing, task of reaffirming their pro-Israel bona fides. (I wish everyone didn’t feel that was necessary all the damn time, but it is what it is.)

    In any case, it seems that The Obamessiah Campaign was lying about severing ties with Malley. Rahm Emanuel will be the enforcer on policy in Washington. Malley will be the one of the main influences concerning Israel.

       1 likes

  12. Arthur Dent says:

    The Obamessiah Campaign was lying

       1 likes

  13. Arthur Dent says:

    Hmmmmm missed out the next line for some reason

    Aaaaargh say it isn’t so!!!!

       1 likes

  14. ipreferred says:

    Would a more useful comparison not be the 2000 election and the 2008 election? The incumbent victory in 2004 was after four years of unhappy times for the US, not necessarily due to Bush, but certainly the mood was different then to now.

       1 likes

  15. Dr Cromarty says:

    “every single BBC reporter looks like they have just swallowed a wasp”.

    Pretty much the ame reaction as when Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI

       1 likes

  16. Lee Moore says:

    I was amused to see from the 2004 page that the eight US voters whose views were published on the prospects for Bush’s second term had voted 5-3 for Kerry.

       1 likes