This is another post about the Tuscon shootings, but I’m not apologising because the BBC seems to be getting even more partisan about the affair, difficult as that may be to believe. Tuesday’s Up All Night on Radio Five Live gave Keith Olbermann the best part of twenty minutes to slag off the American right while presenter Rhod Sharp tossed up softball questions and agreed with every pompous sanctimonious comment from the MSNBC blowhard. Sharp’s evident political bias was matched only by Olbermann’s stunning self-righteous hypocrisy. Once you’ve listened (if you can bear it, that is) compare the butter-wouldn’t-melt moral posturing from Olbermann with this little collection of anti-Bush rage:
Incidentally, I know many of you have commented on the contrast in the BBC’s coverage of the Tuscon massacre with Jon Leyne’s report about the murder of a Christian man by an off-duty Muslim policeman in Egypt. No Pasaran has a blogpost about that very subject (and it’s attracted the attention of Instapundit).
UPDATE 17.20: More evidence emerges to undermine the BBC/MSNBC narrative:
“He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.”
Yes, the BBC really casts off any pretence at impartiality during the wee small hours with Rhod Sharp, but his 3 nights a week stint is pleasuarable compared the other 4 nights of the excruciating Doton Adebayo.
Ah yes, the dire Dotun Adebayo – if there’s a sniff of public funds and political correctness to be exploited, he and his family will be there:
Arts Councillors have seemed oblivious of the perils of conflicting interest — one has positively courted scandal this very autumn.
Diran Adebayo, a Councillor for the six years from October 2004 to October 2010, recently received an Arts Council grant of £10,165 to help him write a novel — a grant to which the Charity Commissioners (the Council is one of our largest charities) objected, declaring that it must be repaid. He refused. Adebayo has a cousin, Mojisola, a playwright who has received five Council grants amounting to £70,413; and a brother, Dotun, of X Press, has had three grants totalling £57,990. The award of these sums may have been entirely proper, but the stink of bias and nepotism hangs heavy over them, and the Council’s admission of “insufficient checks” in its system must undermine our confidence.
Someone really needs to call Sharp and demand a 20 minute interview with Mark Levin or Laura Ingraham after giving Olberdouche his socialist platform. But then this is the bBC we’re talking about.
Andrew Neill was interviewed by Richard Bacon the other day. Neill likened Fox pundits like Beck and O’Reilly to some anti-semitic pro-fascist priest who used to broadcast in the 30’s.
However, he did say that MSNBC is a left wing version of Fox. So why does the BBC have a 20 minute interview with MSNBC’s most partisan and controversial presenter and links to him on its webpage, but there’s no such thing for Fox? It’s a stupid question, isn’t it?
Got it in one, there, hippie.
You are probably referring to Father Coughlin. His anti-semitism emerged very late in his radio career. The main thrust of his popularity was his rhetoric against communism. The anti-semitism tarnished his hitherto considerable moral authority.
The Left detested him for 15 years before he handed them his own head on a plate by praising Hitler’s fight against communism and seeing Bolschevism as a Jewish plot. At this point he naturally lost all credibility and his Bishop demanded his withdrawal from public comment on pain of defrocking.
The Left’s attempt today is to try to link their critics (especially popular critics) to an anti-semitic antecedent.
That is the tactic.
At the end of the day Neill plainly knows nothing about American cable news, or American political philosophy, and that’s where it ends. MSNBC is not a left-wing version of Fox at all, however.
Firstly Fox has many liberal contributors on air at any point during the day and evening while MSLSD has virtually no conservative contributors at all (and I don’t count Ron Christie as he’s just a punchbag).
O’Reilly has became more of a centrist in recent years, virtually a squish to be frank, and Beck is a self-admitted conservative-leaning libertarian.
Olbermann is an admitted socialist, as is Rachel Maddow, whilst Chris Matthews worked for Tip O’Neill and Jimmy Carter and Ed Schultz changed his conservative values for liberal talk radio for a big payoff from George Soros and his organisation.
MSLSD is afraid of losing what pathetic audience it has to scream in an echo chamber. Much like the BBC.
Hmm, I see what you mean. It was a stupid question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Coughlin
And I thought the term ‘Social Justice’ was a weasel phrase of modern provenance. It’s the usual case of someone from the left who found a lot of common ground with fascism.
This is another form of blood libel, plain and simple.
BBC = Scum, even if every other media outlet is doing the same thing.
I saw this on another website, and was most impressed. Imagine my non surprise to see that your friend Olbermann is no fan.
Sharp gave a similar tongue-bath to a liberal (in the US sense of the word) gun control academic on this morning’s Up All Night. The BBC – left-liberal shall speak unto left-liberal.
have you seen the superb update on No pasaran?
“Just ask yourself this. If the shooter had been a 22-year-old named Muhammad, would we be hearing that Muslim talk radio and the Muslim Internet blamed for it?” the top-rated host asked today. “No, we’d have been told that we can’t blame Muslims for the action of one kook.”
Read more: Rush Limbaugh: What if shooter were named Muhammad? http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=249681#ixzz1Ar0Tz5Nj
I used to like listening to Rod Sharp before I left Blighty 9 years ago. I think what can certainly be said about his interview with Olbermann is it was gullible and complacent. A Tea Party guy followed on, and I think I know why. He too was calling for more civil debate. I think he’d been invited on as a patsy who’d let himself be duped by the ‘game plan’ of deeply unpleasant and manipulative individuals like Olbermann. I dont think it was my imagination that even though he was echoing the calls for more civil debate, Sharp was very disappointed when the TP guy emphasised that Jared Loughner’s shooting had nothing to do with the tone of debate, it was entirely separate.
I dropped a line to Rod Sharp and ‘Up All Night’ pointing out the disparity between having on a vociferously partisan left wing pundit like Olbermann but not having Beck or O’Reilly on from Fox.
According to the person who replied they would ‘love’ to have them on but they’re difficult to get hold of. Well, I’ve forwarded his email to Beck and O’Reilly, let’s see if anything happens.