.
Well, there’s no escaping the fact that Obama is to be sworn in today as 44th President of the United States and as you can see here, the BBC are worshipping at his feet. What a contrast with those occasions when a Republican was sworn into office! It appears in BBC parlance that only a Democrat can “unite” the nation (and planet) whereas Republicans only divide. I caught Justin Webb on Today earlier – revolting Obama sycophancy. I caught an item alleging how the US was literally falling apart because of lack of “investment” in infra-structure. It seems that no other President has considered these issues and so it will take The One to make it all right. Let us be be clear; today is one vast left wing love-in, with the BBC spending vast amounts of our money to ensure that they push the virtues of their man now in the White House. The smiling media faces, the sanitised coverage – get used to it – this is how it will be. Objectivity and critical analysis are out the window – fall at his feet and worship.
It will not always be like this; we know the BBC loves Gordon, but the general public sees through the Beeboid worship easily. Such will be the case for Obama – he cannot be all things to all men for ever, and in a few months the strain will begin to show, even if the BBC spend millions trying to paper over the cracks that appear.
Case in point: The Times, Twelegraph and Guardian have the RBS crisis as their lead story online; the BBC leads with Obamaworship on their News Front Page. In fact where is the RBS news on the current (8.30am)BBC News Front Page?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
This guy reeks of Third Way. He couldn’t be more Fabian (which explains the love-in) if he tried. I won’t be falling at his feet but I will be watching keenly to see how long it takes him to fall flat on his face. Didn’t take Blair et al long at all…
BBC whinged about the $40m dollar Bush inauguration (which wasn’t much more than previous ones):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4187023.stm
but has stayed strangely quiet about Obama’s $170m
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Inauguration/story?id=6665946&page=1
Another reminder of the BBC’s coverage from four years ago:
With an estimated price tag of $40m, the three-day celebration that is President Bush’s second inauguration will be the most expensive ever…
Some have criticised the expense, questioning the propriety of a flashy celebration as US troops are dying in Iraq and South Asia still recovers from last month’s deadly tsunami.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4187023.stm
Can anyone find mention on the BBC website of the estimated $170m cost of Obama’s inauguration?
Peter Wilson | 20.01.09 – 8:54 am
Peter beat me to it. Sorry, I should’ve reloaded the page before posting.
Hey DV, how about this nice pic of Anita Anand for the blog?
I listened with horror to Today this morning the bit that made me laugh was the piece about the greatest Inauguration speeches.
It’s widely accepted that the greatest ones were Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.
Strangely Today ignored Reagan (is it cos he was an evil-republican) and inserted JFK – is it cos he was a nice-democrat?
Does anyone know how many staff the BBC are sending to the US on this junket ?
Its funny isnt it. For a man who has supposedly united America, nearly half of the country voted against him.
Then again, I guess those who voted for the old white guy and the radical christian are racists anyways…so they can be ignored! 🙂
Mailman
Abandon Ship – Didn’t the BBC break the RBS story yesterday? Peston I think. Hardly some sort of cover up.
Mike – completely wrong: Naughtie at about 7:40 featured Reagan’s speech heavily. Even played bits of it.
Look, I know your side lost, but don’t you feel in your bones that this day is a little special?
“but don’t you feel in your bones that this day is a little special?”
Special only for the hate filled left and a racist media that goes on and on about skin colour
Look, I know your side lost, but don’t you feel in your bones that this day is a little special?
mikewineliberal | 20.01.09 – 9:31 am |
your like some guy who gatecrashers a wake dressed in a clown suite.
Yes, this one:
http://www.gamerevolution.com/images/misc/pennywise.jpg
Abandon Ship! | 20.01.09 – 9:47 am | 😆
Theres been an awful lot of elation and fuss and brouhaha concerning the swearing-in of the Big O. And thats just Newsround on CBBC.
I cannot wait until The Man has to make some tough decisions, which is going to happen sooner or later, and many of which will have no cost-free answers. Nobody, least of all the BBC knows what he will do yet. Some things he will have to do (but rather not) are:
• Should he let free an alleged al-Qaeda terrorist whom prosecutors describe as dangerous?
• Should he accede to pressure from union leaders to ease workers’ concessions in the auto industry’s rescue plan?
• Should he define the words “combat troops” strictly or ambiguously? That will help shape the withdrawal from Iraqi cities that the United States has promised Baghdad.
Also on CBBC’s Basil Brush this morning (I have little choice in the matter) was one of the most appalling portrayal of Americans I’ve had the misfortune to see. Anybody else see it?
I used to get really peeved at the BBC’s anti-Americanism and offensive generalizations that they would never make against, say Muslims or Chinese, but now it just comes across as … pathetic!
DV wrote:
“It appears in BBC parlance that only a Democrat can “unite” the nation (and planet) whereas Republicans only divide…”
Does anyone remember the following cartoon?
http://rightvoices.com/2008/11/07/united-or-divided-your-cartoon-for-the-day/
The cartoon shows two side-by-side newspapers with the captions:
“Bush wins 51% – country divided.”
“Obama wins 52% – country united.”
Says it all, really.
The BBC has been in an orgasmic trance over the inauguration of Obama. Not because he represents anything new, he will be controlled by big business like a lot of presidents, but purely because of his colour. Will they have the confidence to say ‘A black man has fucked up’ if it all goes pear shaped? Thought not. Their racism only goes one way.
A corrective for the BBC:
“Barack Obama and Slavery”
(by Bill Warner)
[Extract]:
“Until he was 20 years old, he went by the first name Barry. Then he decided to be called Barack Hussein Obama, his original birth name.
“Many people seem to the names ‘Barack’ and ‘Obama’ are African names. They are not.
“Baraq [Barack] was the name of the winged horse-like creature that took Mohammed to Paradise in the Night Journey. Baraq can also mean God’s blessing. Hussein reminds some Americans of Saddam Hussein, and Obama’s supporters get upset if it is used. Hussein was the name of Mohammed’s grandson. So Obama’s entire name is based upon Islamic mythology and African conquest. Barack Hussein Obama means [Allah’s blessing] [Mohammed’s grandson] .
“Obama’s name reveals a part of history that is unknown or hidden about America, Africa and slavery. It also reveals a history of the destruction of native African civilization. His name came from his father, a so-called Arab African. The word Arab is the clue to the hidden history.
“Kafirs (non-Muslims) rarely refer to Islam, but call it by an ethnic name whenever they can. When Islam conquered the Middle East, the conquerors were not called Muslims, but Arabs. In Eastern Europe the Muslim invaders were called Turks. In Spain conquering Muslims were referred to as Moors. Thus it is that the Islamic culture in Africa, Arab African, is referred to with an ethnic name, Arab Africans, like Obama’s father, are Muslims who leave behind their African culture and adopt the Arab culture.
“The Arab African Muslim has always been associated with slavery because Islam is the driving force in the history of world slavery.
“Islam’s connection with slavery starts with Mohammed.” (Bill Warner.)
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/barack-obama-and-slavery/
Not on Obama’s, nor the BBC’s educational agenda:
“Fitzgerald: What is worrisome about Obama”
[Extract]:
“Obama may harbor the illusion — he certainly gives that impression — that the mixture as before will do. He thinks we need to ‘explain’ ourselves better. We don’t. We need to understand the meaning of Islam better, and work to identify the various means used to further Jihad — Jihad being the ‘struggle’ to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam, everywhere. We need to exploit pre-existing fissures — sectarian, ethnic, economic — within the Camp of Islam and Jihad. We need to identify, and then undo, the main weapons of Jihad in the West — the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa, demographic conquest. We need to find a clever way to discuss this.” (Hugh Fitzgerald).
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022391.php
Doesn’t anyone love me any more?
How do think I feel?
Another BBC political propaganda programme for Obamessiah to avoid tonight (BBC 2, 7 pm).
This is how his relationship with Rev. Wright is glossed over, in one mere sentence, in this plug of an article:
“The upbringing which shaped Obama”:
“Later on, the fall-out of the Reverend Wright affair threatened to bring him into conflict with the African-American community.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7837338.stm
Alternative, non-BBC view on Obama relationship with Rev. Wright:
“Obama distorted Rev. Wright’s background”
[Extract]:
“But as detailed in an April 13 Newsman article, ‘Obama’s Rev. Wright Mythology,’ Obama’s characterization of his mentor’s upbringing is untrue.
“Wright grew up in a racially mixed, middle-class section of Philadelphia called Germantown, which consisted of homes on broad tree-lined streets. Both his parents had good jobs: His father was a pastor; his mother was vice principal of Philadelphia High School for Girls.
“Wright was privileged to attend the elite Central High School, which admits only the most highly-qualified applicants from all over the city. When Wright attended Central High, the student body was 90 percent white, according to students who attended at around the same time.
“Wright’s classmates clearly respected him. The 211th class yearbook described him as the ‘epitome of what Central endeavors to imbue in its students.’
“In contrast to Wright, Bill Cosby, who also attended Central High, has denounced the black culture of victimhood that Wright has promoted in his sermons, a culture that Cosby says sets up blacks for failure.”
http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/obama_wright/2008/04/28/91553.html
I don’t suppose the adoring Beeboids in Washingron and elsewhere will be spending their freetime using this deck of cards:
Obama bin Lyin “Deck of Deception”
[Extract of publicity]:
“Commemorate this historic election with the Obama bin Lyin ‘DECK OF DECEPTION!’ It captures 52 of the most outrageous deceptions associated with his campaign. Including up-to-the-minute deceptions, such as:
Obama and Rezko
Campaign Finance ‘Rope-A-Dope’
Obama and Ayers
‘Spread the Wealth Around’
Obama and Lobbyists
ACORN
OBAMANOMICS
Obama and Ouchi
What Hillary said about Obama
What Biden said about Obama
Donor List???
Rural Americans ‘Guns and Religion’ Slur
AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!”
http://www.obamabinlyin.net/401.html
Ah leave the poor liberati alone, after all they’ve had a torrid, if played down by the beeboids, time of it. For one day, the won’t have to think of the spin to blame the Tories almost 12 years since they won the election.
God I’m wetting myself. Obama! Obama! Obama! Obama!
The Radio 5 lot are having audible orgasms and HATE anyone on who disagrees with them.
Vicki Pollard and her crew are for some reason broadcasting from some shitty cafe in London for some reason.
Don’t they have a studio?
Remember that as far as the BBC is concerned today is the equivalent of the Third Coming as we had Tony Blair and New Labour in May 1997 as the Second Coming. Are we in for another re-run of the Emperor’s New Clothes as well – I suspect so as style appears to be well in the lead again over substance so far.
Mikewineliberal – I was in work by 7:40! The bit I listened to at around 6:50ish ignored Regan. So I’m not completely wrong and you should get your facts right! I note you are unable to enter into reasonable debate.
PS I’m happy that Obama won, your point is a non-sequitor. I and this blog are just pointing out the absolute pro-Obama bias on the BBC
World at One
“Is the inauguration over-hyped?” asks St. James of Smug.
Well let’s ask some people who have waited all night in Washington to see it.
“Of course not!” they somewhat surprisingly reply.
QED says St James.
The tone on the breakfast news was outrageous, just endless sugar.
I don’t really give a shi*t about the lack of coverage given to all the tittle tattle, rumour and googled discoveries that seem to amuse people so much as per George R’s post. It’s too important to be a morality contest – hell, if I could choose anyone from Labour to be PM it’d be Mandelson on competency irrespective of his utter dodgyness.
What I object to is that the Beeb have devoted precisely zero time to an analysis of his declared policies and their potential impact on the citizens of the UK (y’know, where we are??!!). I don’t care about whether he’s painted a classroom or said “yes we can”. I don’t care if some black dude I’ve never heard of wants to have a good blub. I do care if his protectionist trade policies are going to further f*** up the global economy for years on end. A bit more economics expert analysing and a bit less fluff please.
Mike – Your hypothesis was Today ignored Reagan in the context of reporting famous inauguration speeches. I was able to show this was false. The point is, people are too ready to call bias based on isolated snippets. Bias is something one needs to consider in the round.
Is there incidentally any coverage of the Obama inauguration that B-BBC would be happy with? Sky and ITN’s doesn’t seem to be much different in tone to me. Perhaps Fox has a purple faced O Reilly or a hard blowing Hannity banging on about birth certificates, Acorn and Malcolm X; but I doubt it. That would be unpatriotic.
BBC campaigns for:-
‘multiculturalism’ and some vague notion of ‘diversity’- but BBC presents no arguments why such policies should be pursued, or what the effect will be on the majority white British people:
“Be bolder on diversity, MPs told”
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7838905.stm
This article is sheer BBC political propaganda for mass immigration and multiculturalism,
although those words are not used. To achive the BBC’s desire for greater racial ‘diversity’ an even greater mass of immigrants to Britain will be needed, presumably mostly non-white, so as to achieve the BBC’s goal of greater ‘diversity’.
This is all stupidly wrapped up by the anonymous BBC piece as some desirable ‘Obama effect’:
“Political parties must exploit the “Obama effect” to encourage more people from ethnic minorities to get into politics, MPs have been told.”
This incoherent, ‘multiculturalist’ propaganda continues its anonymous political exhortation until in the NINTH paragraph, the BBC phoney trail leads to one Simon Woolley, of ‘Operation Black Vote’ (not to be confused with Operation White Vote).
The BBC’s daily political project, based on a belief in a kind of ‘multiculturalism’ which elevates some vague notion of greater racial ‘diversity’ as superior to presently existing predominantly white Britain, results in the effective self-deprecation of white people, using some vapid ‘Obama effect’ propaganda.
mikewineliberal: YAWN!!! Here we go again. What Sky, Fox or ITV says I don’t care about. I’m not forced ot fund them. I ‘expect’ serious sensible analysis from the BBC, not ‘Beatles’ style cheer leading and knicker wetting.
There has been no proper analysis of Obama by the BBC. No investigation into his politics or dodgy background with Acorn and terrorists.
Sarah Palin was interviewed on Fox News last night and was most gracious towards Obama. Shame the left couldn’t have been more honest and balanced towards her.
I guess you leftists just love to hate don’t you?
“The point is, people are too ready to call bias based on isolated snippets. Bias is something one needs to consider in the round.”
In the round then, Mike, all this gushing over the Messiah, who has never done a thing in his life – zip, zero, nada – contrasted with the very poor treatment of George W. Bush (as vendetta for not signing away American soveriegnty at Kyoto, smashing Sadam, standing up agaisnt Islamo-terrorism when everyone else sat down) makes reasonable minds numb with indignancy.
This is not an inauguration, this is a coronation. And he is being coronated based on falsehoods perpetuated by the media, who silenced all oppostion due to monoploy of the airways. Opposition, I might add, which applied the same scrutiny we before now applied to all incoming politics. This does not now apply, and this is called BIAS.
I predict he begins to fuck us all over as soon as he takes his hand off the bible.
Mike, since you bring in the other media regarding this question, perhaps you’d care to explain why stories they’ve all given space to recently, like the 2-figure conservative lead in the polls, or the EC giving the worst-yet verdict on the state of the UK’s economy, have strangely been passed over in silence by the BBC?
Barack Obama inauguration: UK coverage round-up
The BBC will have the biggest UK contingent, taking 60 UK-based staff out to the US and also working with a US-based team.
The corporation will be broadcasting Obama’s speech on Radio 5 Live, on the World Service and on BBC Arabic TV and BBC Persian TV.
The inauguration will also be covered live on the BBC News channel, BBC World News, BBC America and streamed live via the BBC homepage from 4.30-6.30pm.
Huw Edwards will be the main BBC anchor live from Capitol Hill with BBC World News America anchor Matt Frei.
BBC Two’s Newsnight will have an extended programme on inauguration night running from 10.30 to 11.40pm with Jeremy Paxman presenting live from Washington DC.
Radio 4’s Today programme has had James Naughtie in the US and along with Hugh Sykes he will providing additional reporting for an extended addition of PM from 4.30-6pm.
On Radio 4’s World Tonight, Robin Lustig is presenting a special programme from Alabama. BBC Radio 5 Live drive will be broadcast today from Washington, presented by Anita Anand…
Sky News’s live coverage from Washington is being led by Adam Boulton and Jeremy Thompson working closely with the channel’s US correspondents Michelle Clifford and Robert Nisbet. Viewers with HD can also watch the inauguration on Sky Arts HD channel 258.
(Guido has the Anand pic now)
I notice the BBC’s front page has a javaScript fade-in/fade-out picture gallery to mark the monumental event. I don’t recall having seen them use that before.
Incidentally, I wonder how much license payers money has been spent on champagne today?
The bbc coverage of the Second Coming of Christ has been it’s usual understated self–can’t wait until they have to report His first cock-up (or will be be BBCeed into the long grass?)
“Excuse me while I whip this out”
Now that would be funny.
Just watched the swearing in and The One’s speech (On Sky).
I see he ballsed up the oath – no autocue, perhaps?
The speech was trite and cliche-ridden and the `poet’ who followed it a joke!
Various mad vicars in evidence, too!
Welcome to Blair Mk 2!
Hope and change blah blah…sunlit uplands blah blah… we are as one blah blah..ebony and ivory blah blah…nothing to fear but fear itself blah blah(insert mindless slogans and platitudes by the dozen)…
Tommorow comes the reckoning, next week, next year, the USA has a radical socialist rabble in charge that makes the Clinton rabble seem like Reaganite reactionaries!
The class war against white America and the evil capitalists begins soon.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p1W1XJ96y9k
Would this have been suitable for his Coronation?
No Frankos, far too modest!
How about `Crown him Lord of All’
“David H:
Just watched the swearing in and The One’s speech (On Sky).
I see he ballsed up the oath – no autocue, perhaps?”
The cock-ups were shown first time through on BBC 6 O’clock News but edited from a round-up reprise. How significant is it to balls up so big an oath? Any precedent?
R2 has been filled all day long with effluent about the guy and the epochal nature of the day. Steve Wright did an interview with a lady (Lisa Rojack?) who had put together of OB’s vapid quotes and treated them as if these were pearls of immense wisdom.
But the BBC TV 6 o’clock News was in a different league of shite. Matt Frei introduced a series of links concerning inauguration spectators and their experience of the Civil Rights movement. Seemingly little interest in the event beyond its vindicating the CR mvmt and no interest in anyone White except for a couple in Obama-hostile Fredericksburg on the verge of losing their large home. “They overreached…they support Obama out of desperation” claimed Frei of the couple who had communicated only their hope that their circumstances would improve, no mention of OB I could hear.
With the views of 2 Black Canadians canvassed by Clive Myrie telling us that, yes, it was something they never really expected to see and, yes, they will take away the lesson that we all need to blah blah blah this was a gushing brazen effing disgrace posing as serious broadcasting.
My regional BBC news slot afterwards was also stuffed with related matter: community centres screening the event and the vapid reactions of semi-pro quota-hustlers.
The insular know-best bastards have outdone themselves today.
UK celebrates as Obama sworn in
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7837279.stm
Actually, I celebrated when Mister Bush was elected each time. I don’t recall being asked how I felt, or filmed.
Funny, that.
Reimer is right – Max Frei took the excrement award today. His vile, unending, point scoring, nasty and supercillious commentary was in a special league of its own. He didn’t actually seem to be interested in what was happening – so busy was he looking or new ways to go on about American racism (with a few easy Bush digs thrown in).
And Mikewhineliberal – Mike from Brighton is absolutely right. The Today programme airbrushed out Reagan in their line up of greatest inaugural speeches. I also thought it was blatant bias. The fact that they mentioned Reagan later (in what context exactly?)in no way mitigates the bias of the original item.
Obamania is I believe the official start of the end of the Age of Reason. Some of the quotes I’ve read since his election have been frightening in their absurdity. The last few days has been positively terrifying as morons everywhere climb over each other in order to say something stupid to reporters.
This one’s great – now I realize the kid’s only ten years old, but I’m thinking back to myself at that age and I’m pretty sure I had enough of a grip on reality to prevent something like the following falling out of my gob:
‘Jalani Johnson, 10, also a fifth-grader, joined his classmates in cheering wildly moments after Obama was sworn into office. “I felt when he became president, I accomplished something really great.”‘
I have felt uneasy about the whole BBC reporting of Obama – then thought about Martin Luther King’s speech – when a man is not judged by the colour of his skin – but isn’t that exactly what the BBC are doing – the first afro-american president?
The Messiah wrote his own speech, and true to being the One for all people, a citizen on the world, he had a paragraph for each of us.
I had a picture in my mind, as I was kneaded our bread – I make our bread you see, and have always said that because bread dough is “alive”, the best bread is made when I think good thoughts and use a light but sure hand….where was I?
Oh yes, kneading bread as I listened to the Son Of God speak. Anyway, I had a picture in my mind as he rattled off a paragraph for each and all, the humble world over, muslims, methodists, pagans…wait, I’m getting side tracked again.
Oh yes, I was listening to the radio and kneading bread. And I heard him talk to us all, and there it was a picture of someone very flexible and even ambidextrious making damn good and sure to suck each and every one of his ten toes in turn, so’s nobody felt left out.
And I says to my daughter, “Is he being crowned King of Earth?” Because he talked to everyone, from sea to shining sea, from pole to pole the Son of God addressed the face of the Earth with resonance and determination.
Anyway, the bread came out rather heavy.
betyangelo | 20.01.09 – 11:42 pm | #
You’re not MOCKING The One are you?
Sssssssssssssss…….