Smug metrosexual leftist elitists hate Sarah Palin. The prospect of her standing for the Presidency and even, gosh, WINNING it, induces a cold sweat amongst BBC types. So, it’s important to ensure she never gets an even break, Cue interview with David Frum, former Bush speechwriter, (a decent guy who I have corresponded with) but who is an on-the-record Palin hater…here’s Frum from last year.
We are afraid that it is not utterly inconceivable that she could win the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, and we are afraid that if she did so she would lead the party to a 1964-style debacle, accompanied by unnecessary losses down the ballot.
David is entitled to his view but why not provide time for someone who believes that Palin is a force for good and a genuine star in the US political constellation? No, get a Beltway elitist on who will say what you want. The BBC use talking heads who say what is expected.
It is often very difficult to discern from his articles that David Frum is a Republican supporter – he has expressed very warm feelings about Obama, and of course totally negative views about Palin.
So he is just the guy for Naughtie to interview and present as a “right-wing commentator”. Like minds and all that.
Naughtie could not cope with a truly right-wing commentator.
We have the same problem with Cameron – is he a conservative?
I came here to read shared views on the bias of the bbc and I’m not disappointed. however i am disappointed in the right-wing bias i have seen. being generally neutral on politics and dismissive of them all, i wish it wasn’t so. I’m afraid i cannot agree that Palin is a “force for good” only a case for better educational standards in leaders, similarly Diane abbott. Lets stick to sorting the bbc out.
The point about Palin is that the BBC distorts the truth. The difference in the way the BBC treats Barry Obama and Sarah Palin should be how you find wrong with the BBC.
Palin has helped energise a lot of people in America who are fed up with ALL the Washington elite be they Democrat or Republican. What the BBC fails to point out is that she beat up on her own party in Alaska and the oil companies, yet she’s painted by the BBC as a baby eater.
Within minutes of John McCain announcing her as his running mate Justin Webb was spouting the lies about Troopergate, stuff which was taken directly from the Huffington Post hate site.
It’s poor biased journalism from third rate hacks.
She may not be a baby eater, but she is a delusional lunatic, who despite the massive overwhelming evidence still believes that the earth is only 7000 years old and is entirely ignorant about international affairs and whilst Alaska Govenor, forced rape victims to buy their own rape evidence kits. She is incredibly dangerous.
I have been following the tea-party movement from the start, and I wholeheartedly support them in their attempt to reduce the size of, and interference from, government, local, state and federal.
However Palin, and the neo-con traitors (who are utterly indistinguishable from the neo-libs) are trying to co-opt and change what the tea-parties really represent.
She is as far away from Ron Paul’s libertarian conservatism as you can get.
Whilst I agree that the BBC are producing less than third rate hackery with their pathetic and biased “reporting” on the tea-party phenomenon, they are right to attack Palin. She is NOT a conservative. She is just as much a member of the big-government Republicans as the Bush Administration she 100% supported. She is a tool, a puppet of the same international corporatist (anti-competition, anti-free trade, Marxist) elites as Bush was and as Obama is.
The Conservatives need to rescue the republican party from faux conservatives who have hijacked the GOP, and Palin is still one of them.
I hope Ron Paul runs for President again, and gets the 100% full support of the tea parties.
Ben
I do not claim I am unbiased and I don’t ask for 3.5bn per year to prove it.
The left uses the quote “I can see Russia from my house” to ridcule Palin but what she actually said is that there are places in Alaska where you can see Russia. That is true.
Ben, Fair enough. However when the BBC has a left bias, it is not so surprising that criticism of its bias will tend to come more from a rightist direction. Powerful, pervasive, biased organisations tend to produce polarity and provoke very strong feelings and reactions. But not everyone here is against the left or has the same set of views or is of the right. I often don’t agree with opinions expressed here by individuals. But they are individuals and not funded compulsorily by the public and do not enjoy the power and position of a broadcaster such as the BBC. There is no point in being annoyed by individuals’ views. They will hold them no matter what you or I may happen to think. It is also possible to be exercised by the special position enjoyed by or afforded to a leftish organisation, without being against the left per se.
By the way, ref your point about educational standards, Diane Abbott isn’t exactly wanting in that department, having enjoyed a Cambridge education.
Ben, as the BBC has an anti-conservative bias it’s only natural that those who make most fuss about it are going to be conservatives. I agree that sometimes getting conservative views over here at the expense of exposing BBC bias does detract from proceedings and at times gives the impression that what is wanted is that the BBC has a right wing bias. Unfortunately, on the left, there is a dearth of people with a sincere commitment to democracy willing to make common cause against BBC bias. I guess they depend on it too much. A level political playing field isn’t something they could cope with.
Ben
So what is Obama’s educational record ? All his records are sealed. Did he get into Occidental in California on a “foreign” ticket – by bhis own account he did not do much work there. How did he get to Columbia – no-one knows how that deal was swung, not are his records available. People there at the time do not regard him as bright.
And how did he get to Harvard Law – it ooks like he had a very poerful foreign sponsor. Again – his academic record is locked. He produced nothing at Harvard Law Review – and published nothing as a part-time lecturer in Harvard. He has nil experience working in the real world – unless you count political activism as a “community organiser”. Virtually no settled cases as a lawyer – except hustling for ACORN. And there are clear signs that “his” books were ghost-written. Above all – before his candidacy he had nil EXECUTIVE experience.
I don’t regard Palin as a winner. But I do regard her as genuine, with more real-world experience than Obama. EXECUTIVE experience running a business, and EXECUTIVE experience running a city and then a state. The media may try to present her as dumb – they set out to do that – but it is Obama who oooks like a dummie these days.
What we are objecting to here is the incessant bias at the BBC. So yes, we can push the case for the right. We would not need to if the BBC obeyed its Royal Charter obligations.
Academic levels are a very poor guide to ability in my experience. Callaghan with nil formal education was a damn sight brighter than, for example, Shirley Williams.
Agreed. Also Barry Obama did jack shit as a Senator and he was given a total free pass by the ‘lame stream media’ over his links to terrorists (god could you imagine if Palin had even the most tentative link to a ‘terrorist’ group?) and his very dodgy land deals.
Its often the common sense factor that counts and an instinct for what ordinary people think. Oft times university is a very good place to make people stupid.
The way President Obama is shaping up a tailor’s dummy could probably beat him in the next election.
Who can forget the BBC’s obvious delight when he won? We’d seen nothing like it since Tony Blair was elected in 1997.
Anyway, who cares what the BBC thinks about the US elections? They have as much influence on them as The Guardian with its silly letter campaign – ie none.
It’s not about whether or not the BBC can affect the US election (it can’t, of course). It’s about how the BBC can affect the public’s opinion of an ally. The BBC worked very hard to turn the British public against the US under the Bush Administration. They turned everyone against Blair in the process.
Then they worked very hard to turn public opinion in favor of The Obamessiah. They depicted Him as a savior, the one who could redeem the US from all past sins. The public went nuts for it, including some defenders of the indefensible who came here and spouted the exact same charges against Sarah Palin and positive statements about The Obamessiah that we heard time and time again on the BBC.
When public opinion is affected, so is the behavior of politicians. Politicians will behave in the manner in which they think will best maintain their support from the voting public. This can and has affected international diplomacy and the relationship with the US. And it will again. Then there’s the added element of the Foreign Office’s financial support for the BBC, which is worth a whole investigation itself.
In the end, the BBC’s political bias against certain elements of the US and slavish support of the current President has a detrimental effect on British opinion of the US. It’s really not cool that the British public was prepared by the BBC to think that the only reason not to vote for The Obamessiah is racism. That was plain for all to see (the BBC’s biased agenda, I mean), and the evidence is there in nearly all BBC reports leading up to the last election. Regardless of whether or not one supports Sarah Palin, Justin Webb should not be stating on air that she is unfit for public office because of his interpretation of one of her religious beliefs. Nor should Matt Frei be continuously revealing his personal opinion of the Bush Administration or Hillary Clinton while sitting in the anchor’s chair.
We’ve also seen it for the last 18 months, with the relentless negativity and slander by Beeboids of the Tea Party movement and explaining away of any setbacks faced by the Democrats and the current Administration. The BBC has presented a dishonest picture of the US, and it affect personal, business, and political relationships.
It must be stopped, or at the very least, countered by an information campaign.
As for Frum’s opinion of Palin, David V. is correct in that the BBC has him on only because he’s a nominally non-Left pundit who will bash her. For proper balance and a more accurate picture of what’s going on in the US, they should really have someone on who might be able to explain the positives potential, and provide at least one voice from the other side.
Whether or not you or I agree with either side is irrelevant. The BBC ought to provide both sides at some point. With one exception last December, they have yet to do so honestly.
BBC turned the British against Bush? Not true. The war criminals in the Bush administration did that themselves. As I recall the BBC faithfully passed off the lies and faked intelligence info and White-house, and No10 press-releases off as unquestioned truth. They 100% supported and were willing and supine propagandists for Bush and Blair in promoting blatant and well known LIES about Iraq. The BBC were complicit in the drive to war.
Every dodgy dossier reported fathfully, without question even long after they had been thoroughly debunked online by bloggers working on pocket change.
It is entirely down to Bush’s incompetence in preparing for the aftermath (of which they admit there was NONE) which has led directly to the main benificiary of the Iraq war being Iran. Woaaa, Well Done you neocon idiots!
It was Bush’s illegal invasion of a soveriegn country that bore us no threat, and then their torture of innocent people, and then their economic incompetence in dealing with the sub=prime catastrophe, stealing hundreds of billions from “main-streat” to bail out Wall Street (Wholly supported by Obama) Where they allowed the banks to screw the economy and when the banks ran out of money, the government stole it from the people, to give to the elite banks to lend back to the people at interest. It was all this which, put people off the Bush Administration.
This created a vacuum replaced by hope based on the loooooong list of lies Obama promised, (and has already broken).
I cannot stand Obama and the sooner he loses the better, but I do not miss one second of the terrible, treasonous and incompetent Bush Presidency either.
BOTH parties are run by the same think-tanks and private clubs and corporations for the same purpose, and that is NOT to serve the American people. But solely to serve the interests of a small clique of international elitist Marxists who run international cartels. These Corporatists hate free competition and open markets and are wholly corrupt.
Frum toes the BBC party line on this subject and I am sure it is no accident that Today had a Palin hater on. He talks about the collapse in Palin’s vote and groups of people who don’t like her. He doesn’t mention the collapse in John McCain’s vote. Was that Palin’s fault too? Would he be happy for the party to put up another McCain?
On the topic of massive BBC dishonesty regarding the US electorate, and which side is vicious and full of inflammatory rhetoric, I ask everyone to remember how many times the BBC tried to highlight even the tiniest negative aspects of Tea Party protesters.
Tea Party activists fund sign linking Obama to Hitler
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8977000/8977992.stm
Even a World Service blog post which tries to understand the movement comes at at it from this biased perspective:
Do you understand the Tea Party
Who’s been to a tea party? John Scrudato has and he tells us not to judge so quickly
This is written with the assumption that everyone agrees that the Tea Party is full of racists.
I could go on and on, but we’ve all seen it by now.
So why can’t the BBC report that a the campaign manager for a Democrat running in Illinois led a group of activists holding signs depicting Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck (not even a politician) as Nazis? Not only that, but the woman behind this was formerly Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Deputy Director. This ugliness comes from the top of the Democrat political establishment, yet the BBC is censoring this information so they can dishonestly portray Democrat opponents as vile extremists.
Apparently Andrew Neil is in the US doing a documentary on the Tea Party movement which will be aired shortly before the US midterm elections.
Notice how at 1:30 in, the female Beeboid in the studio asks Neil how this group came “out of nowhere” and “developed such muscles in sucha short amount of time”. As everyone here knows, the movement hasn’t appeared out of nowhere, and 18 months is hardly a short period of time for something to grow in this age of the internet. In this day of literally overnight internet sensations, 18 months is an eternity. Of course, that’s assuming one gets information from somewhere other than the BBC.
But this woman’s question betrays the default biased position of the BBC about the Tea Party movement. There’s no excuse for an informed journalist to be acting like this is happening all of a sudden and nobody really knows what’s going on.
I’d be interested to find out what Neil is up to, where he’s going.
I don’t know if its just me or if the period of time between me reading something in a blog on Google Reader and me seeing covered in the MSN seems to be increasing.
Its no wonder the Beeb reporterette was surprised by the Tea Party when the Beeb took weeks to discover Climategate , have only just discovered that HMRCC want to receive your wages directly and haven’t yet realised the Americans won in Iraq and have gone home.
America won the invasion, but rebranded the war, which Iran is winning on the ground in Iraq.
Before the invasion, Iraq was a secular country with large Christian and Jewish populations and women were allowed equality, could wear what they wanted and hold high level jobs.
Now many parts of Iraq are theocratic enclaves run by Islamic extremists loyal to Iran.
the Americans have over 80,000 troops stationed there now, mostly belonging to private firms doing the jobs the regular troops were doing.
America’s declaration of victory and withdrawl was 100% PR, nothing more.
The time taken to report is inversly proportional to the amount the facts match their ideology.
Thus if israel attacks Hezbollah it is reported immediately but reports of hezbollah atrocities may as well be in a time capsule in the blue Peter garden
Just on Neil’s activities, tx for that.
I still dip into his blog, last thread of which is about 2 months and counting with near 2500 posts. Somewhat of a contrast to Nic R’s, which can often be pulled quicker than Richard Black can say ‘watertight oversi..’.
It’s actually gone near feral, including the mods who, one suspects, have realised that trying the OT justification might not quiet cut it and near let anything up.
Funny, if sad.
I think Andrew Neil will produce an interesting and fair report.
Unlike virtually all the rest of the BBC’s coverage of the Tea Party people.
Typical BBC pig ignorance
Last week on Women’s Hour Jenny Murray and 2 invited female guests were singing the praises of Julia Gillard Australia’s new female PM. Attacking her detractors as absurd idiots.
In contrast, 18 months earlier Women’s Hour discussed Sarah Palin with 2 female guests and some chap, they absolutely pulled her to bits, a blatant hatchet job, I was appalled but not surprised Julia Gillard is leader of a left wing party. Sarah Palin, Republican right wing.
Of course the BBC know where the Tea Partiers came from. The BBC reported (in their sneering fashion) on the folks who attended town hall meetings and demanded that their politicians LISTEN. Of course these people were demonised by the BBC as nasty white men, with made up stories of ‘death threats’ (ripped direct from the Huffington Post hate site) and so on.
The BBC have simply been putting their fingers in their ears and shouting loudly to try to pretend that the TP movement isn’t real.
So what will beeboids do when Barry Obama gets his bottom smacked in November?
They’ll go back to calling us racists and extremists, and tell you that everyone is afraid the US is taking a turn back to an über-white-Christian conservative state, where we’ll want to stone homosexuals and oppress minorities. Instead of telling you about, you know, the people who actually do those things.
Obama’s approval rating is now down to 40% – a huge drop over the past year.
If Palin can stand up to the onslaught inflicted on her by the Left Wing Media, domestic and international – and it was and continues to be very ugly indeed, with our beloved national broadcaster front and centre – then she can withstand anything the US presidency throws up.
Interestingly enough, some of – if not all – the enemies she’ll face as president (Commies, Islamists, general utter scummy bastards), will be the very same enemies said lefties sympathise and/or ally themselves with. So in effect she’ll hit the ground running having been defending herself against these enemies’ propaganda for years.
Compare that with Obama having spent his professional life doing…nobody really knows (and to ask is pure, unadultered racism), and I’d say she’s eminently qualified.
Question to David Preiser: David, is it normal for a President to have so much about his background/past ‘hidden’ away like Barry Obama appears to have had done?
Or is it a case that the lame stream meeja in the US don’t want to dig?
I’m sure with George Bush we knew every detail of his background.
Martin, it hasn’t been normal since the days of Nixon. Before that, the press routinely hid things about the President from the public if they wanted to maintain the aura, as well as that precious access. For example, they looked the other way when JFK had women brought into the back entrance of the White House every night, looked the other way when J. Edgar Hoover wore a dress and held rent boy parties, and hid FDR’s polio from the entire country for decades. After Watergate, though, everything changed.
But in this day of every news organization – including the BBC – sending hordes of people to investigate every moment of the life of a candidate for Vice President (not even the top job!), and of Dan Rather destroying his career over fake memos about Bush’s National Guard service from the early 70s, yes, and publishes unsubstantiated rumors about McCain having an affair, I agree it’s unusual for the press to be so demure about the President’s past.
But not surprising, considering the Washington Post admitted they were biased in His favor during the election, and MSNBC having to remove Chris Matthews from the anchor desk for having a tingle up his leg. These days it’s just like the JFK era.
Cheers David, I did wonder as bush, McCain and Palin got a right going over, yet for some Reason we know very little about Barry.
I mean, I’ve seen Sarah Palin in a bikini but I’ve never really seen much of Barry when he was younger.
I would have thought there would be some level of privacy, even post-Watergate, although it is true that we knew of George W Bush’s youthful escapades and problems.
As an example, it wouldn’t be very nice having one’s juvenile writings and undergraduate academic work splashed all over the media and I would expect schools and universities to seal those from the public gaze.
They refused to report on the homosexual drugs parties Obama used to throw in Chicago.
Hello all B.BBC degenerate gamblers.
It’s Honest john the bookmaker here !
I’m offering 1000 – 1 against the BBC having anything remotely positive to say about Sarah Palin during her posturing for the 2010 Republican nomination.
Minimum bet @ £145.50
That is to say for the 2012 election.
Perhaps the left and of course the BBC fear the appearance of a Sarah Palin politician here in GB. It is quite probable given the increasing level of discontent and the ineffectual career politicians infesting this land.
The pendulum always swings and a swing is long overdue.
It amazes me that we are so supine and cowed. I have never believed that one generation of left wing malcontents and fantasists can destroy this ancient people and take heart from the Tea Party movement in the US. It will start here it is just a matter of time.
Sarah is their nightmare so the opposition will be unrelenting.
The Beeb won’t want us getting ideas.
Palin is a women and should be a rabid feminist.The BBC only see stereotypes. To them there is right wing and normal (normal lies slightly right of Lenin). If you examined most peoples politics they would not fall into either right or left. They would be mixed and I expect Palin would be the same.
I really do detest the BBCs constant character assinations of anyone who may be popular with ordinary people. They latch onto one sound bite and ignore the whole.
Watch the high-profile feminists say that Palin is awfulf for running for President when she should be staying home and taking care of her young child.
From the other side of the pond
Terry Jones, the pastor who talked about burning a Koran and then didn’t do it, is going to be billed by the city of Gainesville, FL, for the “security costs” they incurred in doing what they thought necessary to secure the city as a result of his plans.
http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2010/09/a_new_way_for_government_to_su.html
The cost is to be around $180,000 .
So all it requirs is for some Muskims to start threatening mayhem on any excuse, and the victim gets stuck for the increased security.
America is sinking fast.
So will that Imam twat in New york also get a bill?
If he hasn’t been paying his rent, he sure won’t pay another bill from the city.
Obama must be the only ex-academic who keeps his academic records under strict privacy.
Why?
Tea Party’s already won
By A.B. Stoddard–09/15/10 05:56 PM ET
The Tea Party candidates themselves–like O’Donnell, whom Karl Rove called “nutty,”–matter little. Only a few will actually get elected this fall. Yet the Tea Party has won without them. There are no tea leaves left to read. Democrats have been spooked and Republicans threatened, cajoled or cleansed. The results are already in.
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/017359.html
I’d like to see Katie Connolly link to that article in her next online piece. And I’d also like a pony.
When Bush came to power the beeboids hammered him over the economy from day 1 even though the dot com bubble bursting and 9/11 were nothing to do with him.
But I love this bit in this beeboid report about Barry.
How could it be otherwise? With millions unemployed, millions more under-employed, a vicious recession in the recent past and a double-dip feared under way, people are focused on their bread and butter.
Even if Democrats are blameless for this state of affairs, they are the party in power. Voting against them is a logical, time-honoured response from weary, unhappy citizens who have run out of patience.
Barry has been in power for 18 months has pumped billions into the US economy and got nothing in return.
funny that the BBC are quick to blame the Tories over the state of our economy. I can’t ever remember a single BBC report that said of Cameron and Osborne “they are blameless for the current situation”
“The BBC, we really spout crap”
Exactly. Nothing is His fault!
Forgot link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11317100
“Even if Democrats are blameless for this state of affairs, they are the party in power.”
So no doubt they will state this when they mention the Tory “cuts”
“Even if Coalition are blameless for this state of affairs, they are the party in power.”
How can the BBC say the Dems are blameless – when the root cause of the whole collapse was Dem legislation forcing banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them ?
And when the Dems were running the Congress from 2006 ?
By contrast, the Tories had NIL share in repsonsibility for the problems in the UK, they had been entirely out of power for 13 years.
John, the BBC have never bothered to mention that Barry Obama’s only ‘contribution’ was as a community activist for ACORN an organisation that openly bullied banks into giving out home loads to those who couldn’t afford it.
If Palin were linked in some way the BBC wouldn’t shut up about it.