The President and Mitt Romney have both given what they say are economic policy stump speeches in Ohio this week (on the same day, actually), and the BBC is right there to tell about it. Or, as this is the BBC, some of it.
Obama and Romney offer US voters election choice
US President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney have laid out competing visions of the road to recovery in back-to-back speeches in the battleground state of Ohio.
Looks like we’re going to learn about both visions, no? Well, this is the BBC, so:
Mr Obama offered what aides called a “framing” of “two very different visions” facing US voters in November.
The President “offered”.
Mr Romney accused the president of failing to deliver economic recovery, saying “talk is cheap”.
Romney “accused”.
Then follows six paras of the President’s criticisms of nasty Republicans who are responsible for blocking His Plans, with a bit of class war thrown in for good measure, plus shifting blame to Congress in general, as well as criticism of Romney. Then the BBC tells us the President is going to a fundraiser hosted by Vogue demoness Anna Wintour and Sex & The City’s (a favorite of Beeboids) Sarah Jessica Parker. The BBC does not tell you that the Republicans are having a field day making fun of the elitism in the ad campaign featuring Wintour. They probably think it’s great, and certainly their fellow travelers in the mainstream US media haven’t dared to criticize it. What the BBC also isn’t going to tell you is that this is just more proof that no amount of campaign cash for Romney can match the combined power of the MSM, the liberal elite, and Hollywood. That would detract from their “money talks” Narrative, which we’ll get to shortly.
Romney gets four less substantial paras, followed by a line about his own campaign agenda. That last sentence is very dry, but it’s not the BBC’s fault that Romney doesn’t have Hollywood and the liberal media elite firmly behind him.
Next, “correspondents” tell us the White House talking point for His speech. Then we’re reminded once again that the Republicans have raised more money than the President recently. This is to continue the “money talks” Narrative the Left-wing media and the BBC have fed us about Wisconsin. In case the reader is too stupid to get the point, they set up the money line by mentioning that Gov. Walker outspent his opponent. We don’t get any talking points about how to interpret Romney’s remarks, though.
The BBC then mentions the President’s latest gaffe about how the private sector is “doing fine”, and His backtrack. Except we know that the BBC believes that this was not a mistake and it’s only something opponents are trying to use against Him because BBC US President editor Mark Mardell has already written a blog post defending the remark.
They were wrong: the point was Europe and the president’s “prodding” paid off at the weekend with a big bailout for Spanish banks. But they’re not interested in that.
What they did seize on was the president saying the private sector was “fine” and then hours later having to say it was “not fine”.
You can see what he was trying to do. There are very sound political reasons why he wants to point out that it is the failure to maintain jobs in the public sector that is the problem. They are shrinking, whereas the private sector is growing, albeit very slowly.
Poor Mardell was not inspired by the President’s speech. Naturally, He still thinks the President is right about Romney’s economic ideas, even though it’s a gross misrepresentation. Romney’s criticisms of the President, however, are pretty much correct. The Stimulus didn’t work, ObamaCare is about to cause massive economic problems, and His Green Energy Plan For Us has been an unmitigated disaster. The problem is that, while the BBC has often reminded its audience that the President inherited a bad economy from a Republican Administration, they have never reported about just how catastrophically bad His Green Energy Plan For Us has been. They mentioned Solyndra once, but I think they got away with it. At no point has the BBC ever made a real report about all the billions thrown down the Green toilet, so the reader who relies on the BBC for information about US issues will know only about how Republicans got things wrong in the past, and not about how the President has gotten things wrong.
To complete the lack of balance, the BBC gives you video of some of the President’s speech at the very top of the article. At the bottom is not an excerpt from the Romney speech, but instead a campaign ad making fun of the President’s gaffe, which Mardell has already told you was the right thing to say but merely expressed poorly, and which this article has already explained as an attack piece, thus diluting its effect.
In the end we get no substance from Romney, only criticisms of the President, while we do get some substance from the President’s vision, along with some White House talking points for the defense.
Your license fee hard at work. Now it’s time to go watch some more “bespoke” video magazine pieces about the iPhone and some large hail stones in Texas. No need to report on anything that hurts the President like Atty. Gen. Eric Holder appearing in front of Congress regarding Fast & Furious and looking like James Murdoch in front of Leveson, calls for his resignation, calls to hold him in contempt, or anything of the sort, right, BBC?
David, have you seen this report at ZeroHedge website :
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-06-14/international-treaty-negotiated-secret-–-hidden-even-congressmen-who-oversee-
The title of the report is :
Treaty Negotiated In Secret – Hidden Even from Congressmen Who Oversee Treaties – Threatens to Destroy National Sovereignty
What on earth is Mr Obama doing to you and by extension, us (because I’ve no doubt that if this is happening, then the UK government is also involved).
No, I wasn’t aware of this at all. Thanks for the info. It seems a little over-blown to me on first read of the actual document about how far-reaching the consequences will be, but one thing is clear enough: this is the President once again acting as a tool for Hollywood and the music industrial complex (not artists, really, as they benefit much less than the corporations do) so He can get more cash and support from them. It’s also clear that He really doesn’t care about the rule of law or any of His promises about transparency and helping the little guy. Certainly it’s classic corporatism, perilously close to the kind of thing normally associated with Fascist regimes.
Additionally, it’s yet another end-run around Congress and democracy. Remember this next time the BBC whines about the Republicans and Tea Party-driven partisanship causing gridlock and raining on His parade.
Mardell is disgraceful. Note this sentence from his latest posting about The Emperor’s decree (over the heads of Congress) to allow “young” male illegal’s to be given work permits.
Mardell writes: “It is possible that Republicans are ignoring a vast reservoir of potential voters among a largely socially conservative and aspirational community”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/18463424
Wow. So don’t ask if this policy is right, moral or legal. No. Mardell asks, “Is it good for votes?” In that one sentence he blesses Obama’s bribery – what Rush Limbaugh calls the “arrest, release, vote” policy – and suggests that it’s OK to bribe a section of the US population who are BREAKING THE LAW.
By the way, is Obama going to tell the US unemployed population that there are now 800,000 new “legals” seeking work – and getting paid less?
The BBC – if it is truly an impartial news organisation (lol) – should review all Mardell’s comments. It is obvious he will bend over backwards to appease the president while nailing Romney at every turn.
Two points, David.
1. Did you see where Obama gave his speech yesterday? A stadium? An auditorium with Greek columns? A field packed with thousands of people? Nope. The Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland. My! my! How have the mighty fallen? And the students gave a Mexican wave DURING his speech. That’s how much people are actually listening!
2. The new illegal amnesty programme shows sign of desperation. Methinks even He knows He is in trouble.
Meanwhile on the BBC? The Minister of Information drones on.
Mardell’s a Left-wing Beeboid. Of course he doesn’t believe in national sovereignty when it comes to borders. All people – except Jews – should be allowed to live wherever they like and any laws restricting such movement are inhumane, a violation of natural human rights, etc. Also, he’s a politics junkie through and through, so naturally it wouldn’t even occur to him that there’s any issue with amnesty other than the political angle.
The sad thing about this is that we’re seeing the President and His minions push racial politics more and more. The Community Organizer-in-Chief in action right there. He’s a divider, not a uniter. But the MSM will end up blaming Republicans and the Tea Party movement for the inevitable divisive atmosphere He’s causing.
Someone should tell Mardell that in the U.S. you have to be a citizen to vote. An “illegal”? Just how long does it take to get papers over there?
But here it is, yet another expensively maintained beeboid short on facts!
The people in question here have generally never applied for legal status. And illegals have been voting no problem in any State that doesn’t require a photo ID. In fact, the President’s minions are trying to block Florida from removing illegals from the voter rolls. It disenfranchises people with brown skin, don’tcha know.
This is all a political issue, driven by Democrats’ desire to increase their voter bloc. And the Hispanic community is in favor of amnesty for illegals because of ethnocentricity. There are no morals here.
Maybe there should be a transatlantic melding of the ‘best’ (what that is rather going to the result desired by who controls… well, anything from the levers of power to the edit suite or, in some unique cases, both) of two ‘democratic’ systems.
Mind you, it may give a whole new meaning to ‘going postal’.
A potato would make a better US president than Obama.
Preferably one that had REALLY been grown in Hawaii.
Obama makes Nixon look like the archangel gabriel
The BBC, at best, has a marginal impact on the American scene. Why do they bother campaigning for Obama?
They campaign by proxy for their Liebour cultural marxist comrades by supporting Chairman Obama Mao.
The BBC has zero affect on the US voter. For now. Their goal is to increase US eyeball share and ad revenue, which is why they’ve gone The One Show/USA Today route. Any propaganda put forth via the rump of BBC World News America is just preaching to the choir like MSNBC does, so no harm there, really. But who knows what the future holds, as nobody over here really knows about the bias in the News. All we know of the BBC really are the sitcoms and costume dramas and nature documentaries.
But the BBC does have a significant influence on British public opinion, and I object to having my friends and acquaintances misinformed, or be made to believe I’m a racist, or falsehoods about government policy.
In any case, they campaign for the President reflexively. They don’t realize they’re doing it. It’s all driven by emotion and ideology, with very little self-awareness. They’re all highly “trained”, and just do what comes naturally to them.
Mardell, of course, is nothing more than an opinion-monger these days, and everything he writes or says must be viewed from that perspective. Which, of course, makes his “reporting” all the more dangerous, because not only does the BBC expect you to trust him on how to interpret US issues, but he has influence on other BBC reporting as well. As we’ve seen from his appearance at the BBC College of Journalism, their head of newsgathering over here agrees with him on pretty much everything, which informs all BBC reporting on the US.
But it’s not a conspiracy, they don’t believe they’re sitting there working diligently on behalf of the President’s campaign. They really think they’re being objective, professional journalists when in fact they are storytellers and spinners. That’s what’s so sad.
I think it serves as useful one-degree of separation proxy here, in filling the 24/7 news maw. Can’t really pack every minute with Balls or Prescott telling us how awful things are here, so a honey-toned Uncle Ben telling us the door to the microwave won’t open unless you talk to it nicely serves well in complement.
‘What the BBC also isn’t going to tell you ‘
Maybe a new channel… or indeed a new broadcaster? There is enough material.
Janet Daley skewered Mardell brilliantly at the time of the US 2000 election. That was the one when inventor-of-the-internet, saviour of the planet and Number One Customer of Tennessee light-bulb retailers, Al Gore, lost to GWB via some hanging chads and opinions delivered from the Supreme Court.
While that was going on, Mardell, then the beebyanka’s euro-toady-en-chef, was reporting from the latest summit. Everything that Blair, Chirac, Berlusconi and whoever said was completely “in camera”. Spokesmen and women for each government came out at the end and each one told a different story about the nature of the discussions.
Breathlessly (because he bore a pretty uncanny resemblance to a manatee, even then), Mardell reported this as if it were Holy Writ, never bothering to draw attention to the multiplicity of contradictions in the assorted governments’ statements.
Meanwhile, in the USA and everywhere else in the world with an internet connection, you could download the complete judgement from the Supreme Court, within minutes of the decision, as a PDF.
I’ve always admired Janet Daley as a commentator, but that was her finest hour, when she contrasted proper democracy with the Eleusinian Mysteries of the self-appointed technocratic “elite” AND she harpooned Mardell in the process.
A corrective to Obama’s mass immigration ‘policy’ (as supported by Foreign Bureau):
(6-min video clip.)
“Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs.”
BBC reports have started to concede that Obama’s campaign is struggling a bit.
But I have not heard any criticism of the total failure of Obama’s Cleveland speech that was intended to “reset” his campaign. Lots of acid remarks from Democrats – too long, very boring, nothing new etc – as well as lots of direct evidence that O was just rehashing tired old stuff from previous speeches.
Romney is still building his case. But I have not seen any poll showing Obama above 50% – a pretty dire position for the incumbent. On the other hand I have seen plenty of stuff by seasoned poll analysts that suggest the O could be on a hiding to nothing, and is already looking very dodgy even in “safe” states like Michigan. And this is before the inevitable fallout of Europe’s problems.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/cook-report/obama-backed-into-a-corner-20120614
“It’s the economy, stupid” Why should the voters be willing to let Obama splurge another 5 trillion of borrowed money on policies that have already been shown to fail. Obama’s stupid ideas about “borrow yet more to spend on faux “investment” tie closely to Labour’s ideas, so I suppose it all sounds good to BBC folk.
If the President is struggling, you can be assured that the BBC will remain on message: It’s never His fault.
I know only one thing about Mit Romney, and that is he’s a Mormon. I’m baffled why the bBC keeps telling me this. I think it is because it’s code for “crazy right wing religious nutjob”. Seem to remember the same meme targetting Sarah Palin. Nothing about policies, which I would like to hear more about.
In BBC la la land anyone who is religious apart from the religion of peace is a nutjob.
Ahh, Islam is “special”, a political ideology masquerading as a religion. Just ask the Mullahs “Who’s in charge?”.
BBC-Democrat (inc MARDELL and KAY) is so politically subservient to Obama, that non-Democrat Party politics are relegated or censored.
Can one imagine BBC-Democrat trying to employ Michelle MALKIN instead of Mark MARDELL?
“‘Just a Blogger’: Watch Michelle Malkin Assert the Power of Conservative Media at ‘Right Online’”
(inc video clip)
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/just-a-blogger-watch-michelle-malkin-assert-the-power-of-conservative-media-at-right-online/
Also for BBC-Democrat:
“Palin Knocks Obama (and the Mainstream Media) for His Ties to Socialist New Party”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/06/16/Palin-Assails-Mainstream-Media-For-Dismissing-Evidence-Linking-Obama-To-Socialist-New-Party