A statue of Ronald Reagan being unveiled with a quote from Margaret Thatcher – the BBC’s worst nightmare. BBC covers this on BBC1 by getting on a few “experts” to complain about how awful many statues are around London – the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square being highlighted as an example of the “right” sort of art. Over on Today, they interviewed Geoffrey Howe about Reagan and Thatcher (Howe being the man who helped knife Thatcher in the back all those years ago, lest we forget). Praise for Reagan from the BBC comes between gritted teeth and those of us who remember the Reagan years will recall the unrelenting BBC hostility towards this truly great American hero.
REAGAN ON THE 4TH JULY
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I read that article and noticed straight away the bile, moral superiority and condescension contained within it. This is given an early airing by stating that at previous US 4th of July celebrations held by the US embassy the fare provided was beef burgers and hotdogs in which to illuminate as only the hate-filled left can of the lack of any form of American culture. Which is strange as during the mid 90s I was invited to the opening of the new US Marine accommodation block at the US Embassy in San Salvador and I didn’t see one Beef Burger or Hotdog. But hey if a leftwing hack says its true it must be true (True as elucidated by Lili von Shtupp)
As this is a leftwing hate filled article the author resorts to character assassination in which to try and destroy the credibility of Regan. So we have how the cold war was won without a shot, been dismissed as actually lots of shots were fired not however on the main battlefield of Europe but elsewhere and by soviet and US proxies. However what the author fails to see, is that the subject matter on hand was the cold war in…Europe,where no shots were fired.
Then the author tries to pass off the view that actually Regan isn’t liked in the US, which is why his $1 million statue was funded by private contributions. (Yeah nothing like the $12 billion handed over to Pakistan eh bBC) He then tries to give further credence to his hatred by claiming that actually special permission had to be gleaned by Westminster council as Regan hasn’t been dead long enough in which to qualify for a Statue. The thing is the bBCs favourite Blackman (and former terrorist) Nelson Mandela is not only still breathing but heavens forbid he also has a statue in the city of Westminster funny enough across the road from Parliament. Now contrast the coverage from the bBC afforded to that unveiling to that of the current one.
Yup the bBC where black is white and white is black.
Michael Goldfarb’s article for BBC news online about the Reagan statue is predictably petty, coming as it does from a lefty-liberal (the only type of person allowed to write these things for the BBC, it seems). He moans about the political spin surrounding the Thatcher quote on the plinth (“Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot”) saying the epitaph glosses over Thatcher and Reagan’s “good fortune” in coming to power when they did. Oh yes, becuase things would’ve been just the same if Jimmy Carter and Michael Foot had been in charge, right?). He also says that the epitaph fails to acknowledge the courage of the ordinary people of Eastern Bloc who rose up in 1989. Er, that’s because it’s a statue of Reagan, you bitter little prick.
The contrast with the BBC’s coverage of the Mandela statue, highlighted by Pounce, is striking.
It would’ve made a nice change if BBC editors had asked someone like Victor Davis Hanson to pen an article instead of opting for their usual favoured left of centre perspective. But then this is the BBC so such a thought wouldn’t have crossed their minds.
Goldfarb is one of the BBC’s favorite Rent-a-Leftoids in the US. Whenever they want a certain perspective on a US issue, they call him.
“Then the author tries to pass off the view that actually Regan isn’t liked in the US..”
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/02/19/gallup-poll-and-the-greatest-us-president-of-all-time-is/
The Beebs piece can be described as schizophrenic at best.
At one moment sneering, the next luke warm admiration.
Mealy mouthed compromised disjointed flawed.
They seem to be pulling their horns in a bit but you can tell the bile just waiting to spew from any gaps.
I hate them. I ffing hate them
I hate the BBC. Truly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13989455
The package is patronising and infantile.
Mark Thompson has come clean about the BBC’s ‘massive bias to the left’ 30 years ago, when Reagan was president.
Nothing has changed really.
Let’s hope in 30 years time the government has quit the broadcasting business and there’s no BBC director general then to make a similar confession about today.
I was proud & honoured to be there this morning waving the US & UK flags. Screw the Beeb, it was a glorious London event.
The article gives away the BBC’s bias in the very first sentence. Asking “how did this come about” assumes that most readers would be against it and would want to know why it happened.
I too was a useless idiot in the early 80s who was young and stupid enough(thanks to all those teacher training essays and Guardian editorials) to think Reagan was evil incarnate!
Thankfully, I read books of his writings as well as “Morning in America” and got to form my own opinions. Best of all I went over to the USA a few years back and saw for myself what a wonderful place it is-and its people as well(Michael Moore etc excepted!).
We owe the Americans everything we hold dear, and it is typical that the Beeb and Guardian want the cement corroded away, so Islam and Grayling can trade pebbles…and the useless idiots of the secular left won`t stand long afterwards!
So whilst we ponce about with Alison Lappers and other dreadful tat, we cavil over Reagan-who as well as Thatcher, Gorbachev ended up being as great as I`d thought them evil!
Had I failed to learn a thing, not go over there, not think for myself-well I too could have been Mark Mardell!
God Bless the USA!
There was a fascinating article (linked to, if I remember correctly, by MS(C2E) – if he pardons the new acronym!) about how the new media is beginning to allow us to by-pass the filtered news of the old media and form our own opinions.
In the 1980s the old media relentlessly bombarded us with the idea that Ronald Reagan was an idiot. It was hard, as you say CJ, not to fall for it. I fell for it too (even though I was pro-American and sympathetic to Reagan.)
Geoffrey Howe told a sceptical-sounding Naughtie a revealing story about how Reagan put aside a pre-prepared speech to a NATO conference to “wing it” and wowed the audience. No idiot then.
Similarly, throughout the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency, the concerted efforts of the Left – and the BBC – went into convincing us that Bush was a dangerous idiot. They even promoted the Michael Moore lie that Bush could really hardly string a coherent sentence together.
Though strongly sympathetic to Bush, I partly bought that too – until I watched him, late in his presidency, on an uneditorialised C-span broadcast, talking unscripted to an audience about his thoughts on the economy. Funny and folksy (as expected), but also coherent and convincing – and clearly intelligent. At that point, I knew I’d been lied to by the BBC (et al).
Michele Bachmann looks like being the next victim in this endless campaign. She’ll be painted as “stupider than Palin” the more popular she gets. Let’s hope people start surfing the net and watching her unfiltered and form their own judgements.
I never had much time for Bush jnr; he was happy enough cutting taxes, but then failed to shrink government to match. Nonetheless, he wasn’t nearly as stupid as the BBC painted him. With Palin they became totally deranged, even confusing comments from a comic playing Palin with the real thing (accident or design one wonders). I guess we will have to see what happens to Bachmann, but it’s not hard to extrapolate from past experience.
At least the BBC saved the world from these idiots and supported the smartest POTUS ever; even if he doesn’t know what limit there is on presidential terms (when he said he would serve for 12 years was that two terms of 6 years or three terms of 4 (or, given his brilliance, one term of nine years and one of six)? And has anyone discovered yet where he was looking when he referrred to the 59 state union? I have, I’m afraid, often had to send links to support just these two “gaffes” (fundemental failures to understand the country he aspired to lead or the nature of the office he sought would be more honest) to people who wouldn’t believe them as they hadn’t been reported.
Too many people do rely on, and trust, the MSM for their view of the world.
Not stupider, Craig: more dangerous and more extreme.
I dont think they’ll be painting Bachmann as stupid, but evil, yes. They’ll echo the Toynbee line on Marr’s review of the papers that she’s as far out on the extreme right as they come. So she’s Hitler then?
Adam Fleming’s account of the unveiling begins, sneeringly, thus:
“Just what Londoners were calling out for – another statue of an American president. But today that’s what they got as a ten foot Ronald Reagan in bronze was unveiled outside the US embassy in London.”
Just what licence payers were calling out for – another loaded piece of commentary from a BBC hack. But today that’s what they got as a smug six foot twat unveiled his political bias outside the US embassy in London.
Adam Fleming: “His favourite ever assignment was reporting on the US Presidential election where he travelled across the States for ten days, then joined the crowds partying outside the White House on November 4th. He presented live when Barack Obama was sworn in.”
Adam Fleming’s Newsround report following Obama’s election: “All I can say is ‘Wow!’” (warning – bucket may be required).
I wonder what he would have said if it had been a stutue of The One? No I don’t I know.
I have to admit that even through the 70s and 80s as a young man I liked both Mrs Thatcher and Reagan. These people were human and idealistic not stale and grey. I can never understand why people prefer socialism over freedom.
The people who prefer socialism see themselves as the governing apparatchiks not the masses. Back in the ’40s George Orwell of all peopel noticed that ‘socialism’ was becoming the ideology of what he called ‘the managerial class’ who saw it as their path to power.
I’ve got this new vpn gizmo thinggummyjig that allows me to watch the BBC. Just caught BBC London news @ 22:25, they had, what I think was a less then 10 second concluding segment on the unveiling of the Reagan statue.
Well, its not as if Reagan’s Presidency had any historic significance I guess or that the 4th July has any significance at all in anyone’s calendar.
Obviously I’m older than many of the commenters here and I was a fan of both Thatcher and Reagan from the start. The basic reason was that at last, for the first (and probably the last) time in (my) living memory, in both the US and (particularly) the UK there were people in power who were “us” not “them”: hence the fear of and sneering contempt for both of them by the political class and its mouthpiece, the BBC.
“..Obviously I’m older than many of the commenters here..”
How do you know? I could be older, but if asked I will deny it.
For BBC-Democrat:
“Thomas Paine’s Surprising Influence on Ronald Reagan ”
http://markinspokane.blogspot.com/2009/08/thomas-paines-suprising-influence-on.html
From the BBC website:
“A statue of US President Ronald Reagan has been unveiled near the US embassy in London, to mark the centenary of his birth. How did this come about”
Yes – how could this be allowed to happen?
Well, for starters, perhaps because he didn’t start WWIII, like the wretched ‘Gone with the Wind’ poster suggested he would.
i am surprised the BBC aren’t clamouring for a statue of Obama, maybe clutching his Nobel Peace Prize.
Just a matter of time.
They just can’t help themselves can they? Listen to the first few lines of the video…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14015400
…and it ends on a sarcastic note too re hotdogs and doughnuts.
US-style cooking is a subject for ridicule with Beeboids, unless it is Obama at the barbecue and Michelle doing the washing-up.
What’s wrong with hamburgers and hot dogs? Not to mention corn on the cob, potatoe salad and all those other traditional American barbecue and picnic foods?
Perhaps people’s disdain for Reagan is related to his numeruous immoral policies, including: arming the Sandinistas in Nicaragua who were running a terrorist war that deliberately targeted the Nicaraguan people; supporting vile, human rights-abusing regimes like El Salvador and Guatemala; shipping arms to Iran and then trying to cover it up; invading the little island of Grenada; supporting Saddam Hussein, the list goes on……
In fact, due to the Iran-Contra scandal, more officials in the Reagan administration found themselves under criminal investigation than any other U.S administration in history.
I utterly condemn the BBC for not addressing the full scale of Reagan’s crimes during its recent coverage of the criminal’s new statute.
And dismantling communism…..maybe that’s why you are not so keen on the man.
I think you’ll find that communism was in the process of “dismantling” itself. Reagan had very little to do with it – the Soviet Union was a rotten bueraucracy that had been in decline since the 1970s. In effect you are giving Reagan credit for undertaking a process that was in fact already underway.
Also note how there has been almost no condemnation on this board of Reagan’s crimes in Latin America. And we’re told that it’s only the BBC that is biased?