It’s that time of year when Handel’s Messiah is performed all over the place, so I thought it would be an appropriate time to look at how the BBC has been reporting on their beloved Obamessiah. After the kicking He and the Democrats got in the mid-term election, there was much worrying in certain quarters about whether or not He would be able to rise again after the stinging defeat of the Democrats in the recent mid-term election. Matt Frei was concerned about whether He would be able to rekindle the connection with the masses, and continue to promote His agenda against a Republican-led House of Representatives and a tiny Democrat majority in the Senate.
There’s been quite a bit of activity in Congress during this lame-duck session, so naturally the British Public must be informed of every detail of the domestic agenda of a foreign country. So, how is He doing?
Unhappy about extending Bush’s tax cuts for the evil rich? Not to worry, this is His Plan For Us now. The President worked out a compromise with the Republican leadership and extended the tax cuts, as well as giving businesses a break in payroll taxes, while getting in return some extension of unemployment benefits and more subsidies of green energy boondoggles. Most people view this as an overall victory for the voters who let their elected representatives know that they needed to drop the ideology and get fiscally responsible. Even departing Treasury guru (and Keynesian former boss of BBC economics editor, Stephanie Flanders) Larry Summers told the President this needed to happen. The President who spent months attacking the evil rich and declaring how He would never accept what He called tax cuts for “millionaires and billionaires” caved, yet somehow the BBC sees this as a triumph for Him. The report is full of the Democrat talking points, but nothing from a voice discussing how this would actually help the economy recover. In fact, the one time the BBC does mention that businesses think this will help, it comes from a Democrat who shrugs his shoulders and acts as if this is a gamble.
According to the BBC, it’s all about tax cuts for the wealthiest. Class warfare is the Narrative, as usual. At no time in their coverage of this issue has the BBC given time to the point of view that the Democrats wanted to hold the middle classes and small businesses hostage over the ideological point of attacking the wealthy. If the Dems had gotten their way, taxes would have gone up for everybody, not only the evil rich, simply to score an ideological point which has nothing to do with economic necessity – unless one is a pure tax-and-spend ideologue. Which is the viewpoint through which BBC reporting on this issue is filtered.
Mark Mardell, of course, sees this as a success for Him, a shrewd political move of which he approves. He also shows his personal, blind bias about his Obamessiah when he says this:
True, Obama has greatly angered the left of his own party. In the House, 112 Democrats voted against the package. Some say he’s a bad negotiator and has betrayed his principles. Well, annoying the left may be a cheap trick for leaders of left-of-centre parties (cf Tony Blair) but it often goes down well with voters in the middle ground. Or even on the right. Time and time again, even at Tea Party meetings, I’ve heard that President Obama has not governed as he was elected, that he’s been captured by the “Pelosi-Reid agenda”. This is his answer.
According to Mardell, it’s not the Tea Party movement successfully influencing the President: He’s making a shrewd move to fool them for a little while. Seriously, how can anyone think that the candidate who notoriously told Joe the Plumber that “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody “ is a centrist who was “captured” by the far-Left Democrat leadership? You know he’s not really saying that The Obamessiah is a shyster like Blair. No, Mardell sees this as a shrewd political move so He can attack tax cuts for the wealthy in 2012. Which will be difficult seeing as He’ll just come across as a weak leader who was forced to make a bad deal. I suppose the fact that He had to bring in Bill Clinton to convince enough Dems to vote for it is also a display of His ability to lead? But Mardell sees only strength and cleverness.
So does Paul Adams, in the inset “Analysis” of the report I’ve linked to above.
But the fact remains that six weeks after disastrous mid-term elections, Barack Obama seems to be reasserting his authority.
Reasserting Clinton’s authority, maybe. Oh, that’s right the BBC censored the part where the President took a powder during that press conference and let Clinton take over, so maybe Adams – the BBC’s man in the White House press corps – has wiped that from his own memory as well.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 40:5)
His real triumph, though is something Congress did, not Him: repealing Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. The President, who campaigned against this in 2008, could have used an executive order to get rid of this any time He wanted. But He passed the buck to Congress on this one, and they used the giddiness of the lame-duck session to take care of it. To hear it from a certain Beeboid in the US, though, it’s still His achievement.
The BBC’s Iain Mackenzie in Washington says the vote is a major victory for Mr Obama, who had made overturning “don’t ask, don’t tell” a key policy objective.
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. (Isaiah 9:2)
There’s one other big issue which came up for a vote: the DREAM Act, which is about creating a path to citizenship for the children of illegal aliens. This is seen by some as a first step towards amnesty for all illegals, as this would inevitably be used to permit illegals to remain in the country if they have what naughty people refer to as “anchor babies”. Does this sound familiar? It’s a very relevant issue to what’s going on in Britain right now.
Yet the BBC has censored news of this. Why? Because it was defeated.
The Leftoids are just as outraged over this as they are about the tax cuts for the evil rich. Subcommander Markos is not pleased:
Anybody who votes to punish innocent kids is an asshole. Plain and simple. And while I expect it from Democrats like Ben Nelson and C-Street denizen Mark Pryor, I honestly thought Jon Tester was different. I was wrong. I am now embarrassed that I worked so hard to help get him elected in 2006. I feel personally betrayed.
I’ll refrain from making a sarcastic retort about how I guess now we should be releasing all criminals from prison if they have kids, as imprisonment of these criminals is clearly also punishing innocent kids.
Other people on the Left are angry as well. Worse, the President apparently lobbied pretty strongly for this, yet it still failed. Where’s that authority and leadership now, BBC? Why so shy about reporting this?
The BBC spent a huge amount of effort bashing Arizona over its immigration law, and told you that opposing illegal immigration is tantamount to racism. Just like they do about the problem in Britain, they used the smokescreen tactic of saying “immigration is good, it’s silly to be against immigration”, always leaving out the “illegal” part and misrepresenting the opposing viewpoint. In the US, they hired a German immigrant, Franz Strasser, to travel around the country making a dishonest series of reports about immigrants in the US. I complained about it here at the time (actually several times). Strasser also censored the word “illegal” from his series of reports. His trip even took him to two Sanctuary Cities, which had official policies of deliberately flouting immigration laws, yet he refused to mention the fact that they were designated as such. The whole series was a smokescreen.
So now the DREAM Act failed, and the BBC is silent.
The Democrats’ massive, pork-laden spending bill also failed. As I said on Thursday’s Open Thread, the BBC reported it from the Democrats’ point of view, that it was a vital spending plan needed to keep the country running. They did not allow through a viewpoint that possibly the Tea Party movement had any influence on politicians’ behavior. In fact, pretty much every BBC report about what’s going on in Congress right now is free of any mention of the movement. They did, though, worry about how “time was running out”, but from the Democrat perspective, as if it was the only one.
Where’s His authority and leadership on this one, BBC? *Looks at floor and shuffles feet*
Come see the bias inherent in the system. The BBC spins the news to promote the accomplishments of a leader of a foreign country, and censors news which detracts from that Narrative.
The Lord gave the word: Great was the company of preachers. (Psalm 68:11)
PS: All Biblical quotes appear in the Messiah. Post written while listening to the recording by the late, great Richard Hickox, featuring Joan Rodgers, Philip Langridge, Bryn Terfel, and others.
