At first, as I was reading this latest report by Mark Mardell I was thinking how amazing it was that it was not about this or that candidate, that it wasn’t about some political issue which affects the President, and that he had made a rare excursion outside the campaign trail to discover something else about the US besides political polarization. Here he is, I thought to myself, talking about art and something interesting.
How wrong I was.
In reality, this was Mardell telling you that we need to re-elect the President cos He is black. Aside from any niceties about the artist, Kahinde Wiley, being used to promote an agenda interviewed about his vision and a brief discussion of his work and what it represents, the message could not be clearer. The editor even has is as the highlight quote:
“I’m looking for a sense of self-possession, a type of swagger, a sense of grace in the world”
Oops, sorry, that was the superficial praise of Him, the revival of the “Oh, look how cool He is,” meme, which has so often passed the lips of Beeboids since He came among us. That’s really all He’s got these days, which is sad. What any of this has to do with running a government I have no idea. But that’s not the point, is it?
The actual quote I’m talking about:
“Obama stands as a signal, that this nation will continue to redefine what it means to push beyond the borders of what’s possible”
See, we must re-elect Him so that other countries think we’re cool. For no reason other than the color of His skin. This is racial thinking, and I object.
The whole thing is really about His race, and about how we need to keep Him in power as a racial symbol. Nothing about His accomplishments, nothing about merit, nothing about ability or achievement. It’s all about race. These are Wiley’s words, not Mardell’s, but it fits in perfectly with Mardell’s own beliefs and the story he wants to tell.
“The reality of Barack Obama being the president of the United States – quite possibly the most powerful nation in the world – means that the image of power is completely new for an entire generation of not only black American kids, but every population group in this nation.”
Yes, it does. We’ve done it. But what does it tell an entire generation of black American kids if we say the only reason to keep the President in power is because He’s black? Do we really tell them that a black person’s only intrinsic value is the color of their skin?
“The way that we’re coded for power has been recontextualised in terms of race. Now there are children who are four or five who would have known only a black man at the seat of power in this nation. It’s an important social message.”
Yes it is. That’s why we elected Him in the first place. Not because we thought His ideas about nationalized health care were so great, not because He was against homosexual marriage at the time, not because we wanted to send George Bush packing, as he wasn’t running for office. We elected The Obamessiah because of the color of his skin, to send that social message. Mostly so the whites among us could pat ourselves on the back more than to actually uplift black people. But why is that a reason to re-elect someone who isn’t up to the job?
I realize that this last question comes from a Right-wing perspective. Mardell, of course, wouldn’t see it that way. As far as He’s concerned, as we’ve seen over an over again from his “reporting”, the main reason The Obamessiah hasn’t been a brilliant President who fixed the economy and saved us all is because He wasn’t allowed to by intransigent Republicans in Congress. So Mardell will see this idea that we will continue to send a positive racial message as mere icing on the cake.
It gets worse:
“There is a cultural shift in the nation that says possibility is not necessary impacted or determined wholly by the colour of your skin.”
Really? Then why is this entire piece about how we must determine our nation’s future wholly by the color of His skin? This doublethink drives me crazy. On the one hand, we’re supposed to accept – which I do – that the election of a black man to the White House means that we have made at least some progress towards seeing beyond skin color, that enough of the country is not as racist as we were led to believe. While on the other hand, we’re supposed to say that we must keep Him in power simply because He’s black. Again, I must point out that there’s nothing here about His character or accomplishments, or trying to prove He’s done a good job and deserves a second term.
“That said, this society has a long way to go, and – as we go through this election cycle – there are echoes of racism that continue to enter and occupy the American imagination.
“There is – and always will be – the legacy of chattel slavery in this nation, an obsession with racial and gender differencec, but I think that, at its best, this nation is capable of creating standards for itself and reaching towards those standards.
“Obama stands as a signal that this nation will continue to redefine what it means to push beyond the borders of what’s possible.”
And so on. There’s quite a bit more on this theme: it’s important to keep a black man in power, regardless of His competence or policies, because the US has an unfortunate history on racial issues.
The BBC has gone from the 2008 election message that if we don’t elect The Obamessiah it’s because we’re racist to saying that any opposition to His policies is based on racism, to how we must re-elect Him because of past racist sins. This really isn’t much of a positive statement about how He’s done as President, is it?
This is all they’ve got. Mardell is dimly aware that the President is going to have a tough time running on His record, which is why the campaign is all about how evil the Republicans are. Mardell simply cannot let go of his racialist views, and so sought out Wiley to use as a tool to promote this message: the US is a racist country, and not only did we have to elect Him to assuage some of that guilt, but we must now re-elect Him because of it.
There can be no other message taken from this. It’s sad not so much because it attempts to dismiss any legitimate objections to the President’s policies and how might govern if given free reign in a second term. It’s sad most of all because this infantilizes black people.
At the end of the day, people of African-American descent are not valued by Mardell or his kind for their character or their accomplishments, but only for the color of their skin. This is racialist thinking, and it’s coming from the BBC’s top man in the US.
If you don’t vote for Him in November, you’re a racist who wants to send the wrong message to black children, and wants to tell the world that we’re not cool, and that there is no longer any Hope. What’s that? You have an objection to one of His policies? Racist!
Think I’m making it up? Seeing something that isn’t there? In his next piece, Mardell says it explicitly:
The core political debate about the redistribution of wealth is sharpened by redistribution to people who “are not like us”.
This is the same slander he babbled to the BBC College of Journalism last year. The rest of the very long outburst is about how this election is all about race, and if we don’t re-elect Him, black children will feel bad.
If, on the other hand, he loses, many African Americans will take it personally, will be worried and hurt, and see the result as another reverse in their long struggle.
I wonder if the Mardell/BBC will be reporting this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2197527/New-report-reveals-insensitive-racial-remark-Bill-Clinton-Barack-Obama-2008.html
Remember this?
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”
That is the most appalling piece of lefty arse kissing “evah”. It’s just embarrassing to read, though I’m sure the Nobel Prize committee have no regrets….onwards and upwards with the agenda….
And it’s not even parody. It’s real (Sir Arthur forgot the link).
David, reading this, I can only conclude that Mr Mardell is a racist.
My thoughts exactly.
I used to joke that someday we’d be considered “racist” for using the word “the”. We’re not far from that now. Everything – I mean everything – is racist.
Remember when everything the left hated was described as “fascist”? These words are place holders, nothing more than blunt instruments to stop us thinking about topics, examining the facts, and discussing the issues like grown-ups.
But they’ve gone too far, as they usually do. The “racist” tag has jumped the shark. “You’re racist!, they cry. “Whatever”.
However, David Preiser (USA) and John in Cheshire are correct: true racism, that is, the inability to see beyond a person’s color AND ETHNIC BACKGROUND – is at the heart of Mark Mardell’s view of a person’s politics. One could extrapolate a racist view of Mardell – that he and other guilt-ridden blond blue-eyed pudgy middle-class Brits from the elite class are imbued with a sense of angst because of a lost empire and a heritage of shame – the shame caused by the actions of their ancestors who were once rulers of the world. To be truly racist we could say that EVERY blond blue-eyed pudgy middle-class Brits from the elite class thinks the same way. In the words of Obama referring to his grandmother: “typical white woman”.
But of course we know that all such pudgy Brits do not think this. Only the ones who work for the BBC.
Long before Dinesh D’Souza wrote “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” pointing out Obama’s motivation was based in “anti-colonialism” Mark Mardell looked admiringly on his hero with these words written in 2009:
“…America is an ever changing nation. Obama is a symbol of that. It is less white, less English, even linguistically, with each passing year. I am unsure where the president’s mother’s family originally came from, but it is not what fascinates him, not what he wrote a book about. His African heritage is important, and the stories he heard in Kenya will not have woken any sympathy in his heart for Britain.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2009/09/not_so_special.html
Wallowing in this stuff is like a hot Radox bath to Bertie Wooster fellows like Mardell. But its a dangerous game. It could backfire on the left with real violence. Matches burn.
The latent resentment among SOME blacks in the US is real and it is stoked by the race industry led by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (not to mention Louis Farrakhan). Now, in this election, the “mainsteam left” is using this magic bullet. Have a look at this from Democrat brown-noser Joe Klein:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/09/02/joe_klein_obama_should_start_playing_the_race_card.html
On a less serious note, when every wink and nod, sneeze and cough is evidence of innate racism, everyone, even the race card placeholder-in-chief has to be careful. Yesterday he had an hilarious offhand comment devoid of all irony in the climate he, himself, is creating:
“President Obama blasted Republicans Saturday for an agenda he said was so “last century” that it was like watching “black-and-white TV.” ”
Black and white TV? You mean BLACK? Call Rev Jesse. Call Rev Al. Call Ed Klein. Hell, call Mardell!
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/247073-obama-gop-agenda-suited-for-last-century
Heard this wandering rant earlier today. What an absolutely disgraceful, and pretty much outright racist shambles it was.
We had the usual BBC interviewee who basically said that anyone opposing Obama couldn’t possibly be against his policies, a vote against Obama is racist.
This is how it works with the BBC these days, Obama has no really effective policies to play with (and many, in the mould of the most recent Labour government here, are downright economic suicide – to be left for some other party to sort out at some point down the road) – so out come the attack dogs, Mardell included, playing every possible nasty card they can.
And the last quote you give above, says it all…..”If, on the other hand, he loses, many African Americans will take it personally, will be worried and hurt, and see the result as another reverse in their long struggle.”
So that’s it, then – anyone voting against Obama is clearly intent on hurting African Americans because of their skin colour….and so, by definition, is racist.
Mardell did interview one African American who was a Republican, but pretty much downplayed anything he pointed out about policies. Of course, by the time he got to that point he’d already pretty much disposed of ‘policies’ as being a significant reason anyone might oppose Obama anyway. Job done.
He also brought up the fact that he was interviewing these people in an area once thought of as the richest black neighbourhood in the US….. which had now become a run-down, squalid, shuttered ghetto…. but of course, that was because black people were disproportionately discriminated against in the job market – nothing to do with Obama’s policies over the past four years, no sir !
No hint of any semblance of balance in any of this guy’s reporting whatsoever.
The crass stupidity of Mark Mardell is that he can’t even see that his own narrative is insulting to the black race. His message is the same as all other middle class, self absorbed, white race hustlers, obsessed with their own righteousness when you take it to its ultimate extension – that the black nation has no intrinsic individual excellence. All the black people achieve can only be done with outside help when they hype up a man who cannot stand on his record and is aided and abetted by a press that gives him a free pass purely because of his colour.
There are black men and women up and down the United States who getup every day and go out and their intrinsic gifts have made them a success story who can look themselves in the eye and know that their success is because of themselves. It has nothing to do with a President who the liberal media thinks is cool.
Every time people like Mardell peddle this cr*p they sell those people down the river. It’s their version of “You didn’t build that”
But of course the reality is they know there’s a counter narrative to their racial exploitation. They know it because they avoid it. They know it because they and their partners in the “progressive” media hide faces like Mia Love and Allen West when they speak and people like Mayor Michael Nutter don’t get a look in either. The media know they have to vilify these characters and when they can’t take them down because they’re just to clever to lie down for it they have to hide them.
I’m reminded of a comment about a “race story” on a news website which said “as a black woman, I’m sick and tired of middle class white people telling me what I should be offended at”
Mardell – such sentiments apply to you!
You are so right, Restoring Britain. “As a black woman, I’m sick and tired of middle class white people telling me what I should be offended at” – and so she should be. Doesn’t it show the arrogance of the white pundit class that they should presume to tell her what’s good for her. It is – dare I say it – a very paternalistic attitude.
Biggest story in the world according to the BBC’s home page right now? Paul Ryan’s marathon time.
It’s not biased at all, because it’s the top story for the US media today. For example, the New York Times…oh, wait.
The Washington Post, always a fine example to follow has….no, hang on….
Politico, a Beltway favorite, has it…damn.
Okay, never mind. They can’t use the “everyone else is doing it” excuse this time. The Ryan story died over the weekend. Turns out he was using a “composite” marathon, and not talking about a real one. Oh, wait: that only works in celebrated biographies.
Nearly 750 words on Ryan’s marathon time. Nothing about those fake GOP women in the Obama ads last week. Nothing about Empty Chair Day. And the only reference to “2016: Obama’s America” I’ve seen was a begrudging mention in last week’s box office run-down on the BBC entertainment page.This is a documentary that has so far taken more than $18m on the back of talk radio and word of mouth. Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth only took $24m and the entire MSM establishment came out in force to promote that one. It’s a phenomenon the BBC doesn’t want the world to know about. Paul Ryan’s marathon times on the other hand? They’ll use every trick in the book to make sure as many people as possible click on THAT link.
Careful, you’ll have a Drs. Scezandymanus from Oslo popping up to lecture on what isn’t ever newsworthy and what we should be grateful our betters prioritise for us (if, on occasion, ‘vanishing’ entire stories that may on reflection be embarrassing suck-ups enough to get the May Day balcony treatment).
Meh.
Strange that I did not hear Mardell extolling the virtues of having Colin Powell and Condalisa Rice at the very heart of Government a few years ago. They are both from black mothers and fathers ( as opposed to Oblama) and were two of the most powerful people on the planet.
So I wonder why Mardell did not get orgasmic about them!
Couldn’t be anything to do with political orientation could it ?
Absolutely right, General. When black people are Republicans, they’re “Uncle Toms” and “House Negroes” and “Race Traitors” and “Opportunists”. You can be sure that Mardell would see a Mia Love victory as tokenism, while a similar thought about The Obamessiah would never cross his narrow little mind.
What is being said about Barack Obama, in terms of his “optics,” i.e. he looks like the kind of black person we’d all be comfortable with and around (as opposed to, say, 50 Cent) and worthy of our vote to assuage our liberal guilt, is no different from Joseph Biden’s observation about Barack Obama being a clean articulate black man, a remark which, because Joe-being-Joe wasn’t yet the VP running-mate choice, was pounced upon as being, if not per se racist, the sort of remark that gave aid and comfort to Republicans who could point to Joe-being-Joe as a typical Limousine-Liberal hypocrite on race matters. There needs to be an adult discussion of race in the United States, and Mardell is certainly not engaging in it with the sort of cod-liver-oil treatment of voting for Obama, i.e., it’s good for everyone however unpalatable it may be– what is he saying? “Prove us wrong, America, and show us you’re not racist; elect a disappointingly inept incumbent and we’ll forgive you for doing the same thing in 2004, the difference being this time it’s OUR disappointingly inept incumbent, and a racial minority to boot!”
A thought occurs: If the Beeboids truly believed that the US was filled with racists across the board, full stop, then they’d be equally eager to bring up things like Clinton’s race-baited (which Doyle brought up at the top of the thread), or Joe Biden’s blatantly racist statement from four years ago that Candidate Obamessiah was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean”, in order to support their claim.
But they don’t, do they? They keep censoring this kind of thing. Right now the genetically impartial BBC editors are deliberately censoring all news of the racist defamation hurled against Mia Love. Hell, they censored news of her existence at the convention until reality forced them to mention her – as the last line of a news brief about two Republican attendees who threw peanuts at a black CNN staffer and said something like “This is how we feed animals”. It could have been a dig at the bias at CNN in general, but no, we must assume that it’s RACIST. In any case, the racist epithets thrown at Mia Love are not reported by the BBC at all.
So it’s pretty hard not to come to the conclusion that the Beeboids see racism only from one side, and refuse to admit it exists on the other side. This also means that their ideological prejudices tell them to see racism in place of legitimate political opposition.
I just wonder how Mark Mardell can look at his journalism certificate, if he has one, and not give it back. He is a hack.
Obama needs to keep the entire Black vote if he is to win.
There were plenty of Whites who voted Obama in 2008 despite his being Black and plenty because he was Black (whatever that means when describing a Kenyan father and ‘white’mother who was brought up by his mother’s parents, later in Indonesia and went to Hawaii’s most snooty private school). Mardell feels he must remind both groups.
According to the exit polls in the 2008 presidential election, 43% of whites had voted for Obama, and 95% of blacks.
He knows who the real racists are.
It’s about the same percentage of blacks who voted for Al Gore and John Kerry and every other Democrat in recent memory. Yes, all of them say this time they’re voting for one of their own, but it changes nothing in the end. The real problem is that they’re stuck on the Democrat plantation and are attacked if they try to escape. The real racism lies with people like Mardell who think people ought to behave and be treated according to skin color rather than character.
I was under the impression (mainly from the MSN) that Oblimey was voted for by a large turnout of first time black voters. They had not voted before because there was no one black to vote for before etc.
It was this vote that tipped the scales. Is this not true then?
Largest percentage turnout, sure. But tipped the scales nationally? No. There just aren’t enough of them spread out across swing states. Independent/Reagan Democrat whites who voted out of a misguided combination of racial guilt and Bush fatigue won the day.
“Inclusivity and celebration of diversity” doesn’t appear to include rednecks, or Mormons, or bankers, or white folk come to that.
Inclusivity is an entirely ethnocentric concept invented by guilt-ridden white middle class liberal/socialists, to include only very carefully selected worthy dark skinned minorities.
White bankers are an ethnic minority, if you look at life on the same terms. Mormons are a religious minority. No multicultural entry pass there, just vilification.
Not quite true – how come Eastern Europeans are included?
And these people are NOT “LIBERALS” they are Globalists and totalitarians, extremely intolerant of views other than their own, especially if expressed by their own ethnic group (if you are brown or black it’s OK to be sexist, homophobic or bigotted. They call themselves ‘liberals’ because it makes them sound good.
inclusivity = The East Coast + The West Coast. It explicitly does not include all the boring bits in between that have an iritating habit of voting Rep.
Mardell unsurprisingly dribbled the same empty can round the block as he spouted the need to re-elect Barry…or else the hicks would have won…racist bastards who won`t vote Obama because they`re racist an` all.
Desperate stuff-and with Allegra Stratton chewing the cud about Tories in the reshuffle and Paxman being the blutack for this feast of leftie lumps….it was another highlypaid and partisan own goal for the rancid BBC.
“Don`t believe a Word”…thank you Mr Lynott!
“What’s wrong with America having Anglo-Saxon heritage?”
By Ed West
(July, 2012)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100172809/whats-wrong-with-america-having-anglo-saxon-heritage/
It’s racist. The end. We’re a nation of immigrants, I tell you! What’s that? The Anglo-Saxons were just the first immigrants and it was mostly they who set the whole thing up for the rest of us? Don’t confuse me with facts.
And please, for God’s sake, don’t mention that several of the Founding Fathers were direct descendents of the Cavaliers…..
It is now “Afro-Saxon”
The President must really be in trouble. The BBC has churned out yet another piece presenting as many White House talking points as possible. This time it’s both regurgitating a press release about the President’s appearance in Ohio. For balance, we get one line from Paul Ryan, and one line from Romney.
But we do get three curious moments, including the Romney line.
He roused the crowd with the familiar slogan: “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”
That’s a familiar slogan? Seems a bit grotesque. Imagine the scowling from on high if a Republican had a “familiar slogan” which included crowing over killing someone. Not a single raised Beeboid eyebrow here, though.
While most Americans spent Monday marking Labor Day, Mr Romney issued a statement from his lakeside home in the state of New Hampshire, saying: “For far too many Americans, today is another day of worrying when their next paycheck will come.”
Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but “while most Americans….” seems to imply that Romney is making an ironic faux pas talking about workers and paychecks on a day that’s supposed to honor laborers. The evil wealthy white man who never did an honest, Marxist-valued day of work in his life has the nerve to talk about ordinary workers on Labor Day!!
Note to BBC: We don’t all spend the day solemnly contemplating honest working-class labor. There is no negative here.
Correspondents say the Democratic push to highlight what they see as Mr Obama’s economic achievements comes the day after a key Obama supporter, Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland, suggested Americans were not better off than they were four years ago.
Mr O’Malley sought to clarify his remarks on Monday, telling CNN: “We are clearly better off as a country because we’re now creating jobs rather than losing them.
“But we have not recovered all that we lost in the Bush recession. That’s why we need to continue to move forward,” with a second Obama term, he added.
Oops, another Democrat straying off the plantation then groveling his way back like Mayor Booker did. Hopefully, no BBC readers noticed that the “are you better off” is a Republican theme this time around (every challenging party says this every election, really), and the White House machine is reacting as much to Romney’s remark on it as they are to O’Malley. This should be a main story on its own, but that wouldn’t occur to such expert, impartial journalists. Wrong story they don’t want to tell. Naturally the BBC plays it downs as O’Malley trying to “clarify” his remarks, rather than using the honest term “backtrack”. But I suppose I should be happy they’re reporting this at all, seeing as how they censored all news of Booker’s sin.
The piece ends with the White House talking point that the crowd for the convention might not meet expectations because of bad weather. Need to get that in early on, so nobody’s hopes are too high and we don’t have to play down any lack of multitudes, right, BBC?
They can always fill it out with all the BBC North America staff. There are enough of them to swell the numbers and they all seem to be committed Democrat supporters.
While most Americans spent Monday marking Labor Day, Mr Romney issued a statement from his lakeside home in the state of New Hampshire….
I thought that the from his lakeside home bit was somewhat surplus to requirements, unless you are a class warrior of course. Do we get to hear where any democrat is issuing statements from?
After the recent ‘but he doesn’t have a pint with the lads like the Big O’, ‘news that is really news according to those who get to decide such things’, I’m surprised it wasn’t referred to as his Prohibition-era Estate.
As to democratic lifestyle additions, I’m guessing ‘Ocean-front mansion that gobbles more juice than a small town’ would be an affront to Gaia, or ‘On call 747 holiday-at-drop-of-hat charter flight’ would be plain racist.
Though while over here ‘lakeside’ may appear something impressive, my recollection was a fair number of UStatesians do have a place on the water too.
Well there probably aren’t many lakeside homes in Islington, so it must sound very high and mighty to one of the “people’s correspondants” from the classless BBC.
I caught a Mardell report on TODAY this morning. Utterly awful along the lines of what you’ve covered.
Some black big’ spoke of going forward to the future or back to the past, “a nasty, racist past”.
Any objective journalist would have challenged him about whether or not he is playing the race card.
Not Mardell.
Silence could be taken to mean assent, especially when listening to the rest of his sickening report.
I wonder how feasible it might be for B-BBC to get together an annual ‘Bent BBC Journalist of the Year Award’? Mardell would be tough competition for anyone.
The problem is, Mardell agrees with the charge that a Romney Presidency and a Republican Congress will actually set the clock back to Mississippi circa 1960. He honestly believes it. So he and his editor won’t see this as anything needing to be challenged. To the BBC, this is fact.
Nah. No way.
Neither his interviewee believes it or Mardell.
It is (no pun intended) black propaganda to play on the white conscience.
It is, but Mardell and his kind still believe it. It’s based on emotion, not reason.
Now you can hear this in a newly published video:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19469728
Stunning
I found this interesting from a FaceBook post by a US friend who is not by any way a Republican, but seems to feel the Obama Presidency needs to do a bit more than play various cards all the time..
When President Obama signed NDAA, which gives him the right to have any US citizen arrested and detained indefinitely without charges, he said that he was doing so “with reservations”.
With reservations???
You’re the f-cking President of the United States, was someone forcing you to sign this?
So why did you do it?
I figure it’s one of three things:
1. You’re playing politics as usual, trying to please everybody while standing for nothing.
2. You’re a weak leader.
3. You actually were forced to sign it.
I’d say that suggests some folk are holding the President to account on more substantive issues than the BBC’s market rate, impartial, reporting and analysing talent pool.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/9518491/US-election-2012-Michelle-Obama-to-make-case-for-second-Barack-presidency.html
I await to see whether the BBC covers this or not and, subsequently, how those who deem what is news or not justify the level (if any).
Comments are a hoot, BTW.
Oh, and if they do cover it, either to excess or a sycophantic degree such that things are creeping into overt territory, I wonder if they’ll then ‘vanish’ stuff they created to ‘tidy up’ balance-wise?
As they seem prone to doing.
BBC News – Michelle Obama: ‘I’m not watching Republican …
► 3:09► 3:09
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canad…ShareNEW4 days ago – 3 min
US First Lady Michelle Obama tells US late-night host David Letterman that she has not been watching the …
I can’t wait to see if Richard Bacon asks this week if bringing out the candidate’s wife makes a difference like he did with Ann Romney. It wasn’t asked dismissively, but it’s a stupid question to considering how every candidate has done it for the last 20 years. Suddenly it’s a question?
Side note: while listening to the show in question (starting @1hr 35min), I noticed that Bacon had on two guests: a female reporter from the Washington Post, and a Republican political analyst. This could be taken as a tacit admission that the WaPo is of the Left.
Bacon labeled his other guest a “Republican political analyst” again the first time he asked him for comment.
Some producer must have put a bug in his ear after that, because he then asked the WaPo woman if she voted Democrat. Naturally the woman claimed to be non-partisan, to hold views on both sides of the political spectrum.
Bacon then quipped, “At the BBC, we love a bit of balance.” The sarcasm in his voice was obvious. Defenders of the indefensible will describe this as merely a humorous aside, no malicious intent at all, I’m sure. Bacon knows exactly what he does, and what they do in general. He’s doing what you all call “extracting the urine”. A class act all the way, is Bacon.
He also tried to make the case that it’s awful how Republicans have a “visceral hatred” for the President. Like we never had that with the Bush haters last time around? What a joke. The WaPo woman also referred to a “Republican-controlled Congress”, which is a lie that Bacon is too ignorant to correct.
It really does a disservice to the license fee payer to have this kind of uninformed, half-assed host covering serious news issues. I know it’s impossible for one person to be an instant expert on every issue that comes across the microphone, but this is just sad.
‘The WaPo woman also referred to a “Republican-controlled Congress”, which is a lie that Bacon is too ignorant to correct.’
Easy to pass by as it happens so often, but why are we paying market rates for such ‘talents’ to interview when they clearly have no qualifications intellectually do do so, too often topped off with rampant tribal biases they are too unaccountable to conceal?
ps: Some have shared, as I have, concerns, regarding the ‘story’ that was evidently enough of a story about a black woman saying what she wasn’t doing regarding the Republican Convention to feature vs. actual black women saying stuff they would do, but didn’t make the cut.
And then even the featured piece promptly vanished.
I have been forwarded this that was provided by way of a BBC response on being asked to account for why.
‘With regards to the item on the website of Mrs Obama appearing on the Letterman show, the piece was removed after 3 days as we only have access to The Letterman show for that period of time under news access. We are legally required to remove the item after that period of time as we do not have the rights beyond that time. I apologize for any confusion. ‘
So, there you have it.
They put up stuff for a limited time which can then get flushed down the memory hole of the world’s biggest news broadcaster, on the basis of… ‘rights’.
This is actually news, in the sense of news to me. And raises some questions.
First off on precedent… what else can be shown to suit but then yanked from public view by virtue of ‘rights’?
Then there is the small matter of what goes up, stays up and… crucially… gets disappeared from the BBC as if it never existed, like an out-of-favour Commissar on a Kremlin May Day rally photo.
I’d like to know, preferably on a non-FoI exclusive basis.
At the very least, if something the world’s most trusted broadcaster puts its name to gets published, it is a worry that it can simply then vanish subsequently without trace. That casts a spotlight on what else was in the public eye and then wasn’t, which strikes me as pretty dubious practice.
If this constraint is for real, I’d suggest they didn’t run such mayfly-esque features in the first place, no matter how great the temptation to splash The One’s spouse in all her glory for a few brief, moving-on from days.
But, they do find this hole-digging lark hard to resist, eh?
“Are you better off than 4 years ago – or worse off” has been the Republican attack these past few days, and there have been several instances of Dem spokesmen such as David Axelrod fluffing the response or waltzing around the question. Or, memorably, Joe Biden saying “Of course America is better off, if it wasn’t so hot I’d explain why”
This all hinges on the clear facts that median family incomes are down, there is continuing huge unemployment, house prices are still down – and national debt per person is much higher. Statistics that Chris Wallace coolly played while Axelrod spluttered. Democrats have now evidently got the word that they must assert and bluster that things are better – which will look odd to the uncommitted voters who know the bluster is false.
The Republicans are naturally continuing to attack on this line – including Paul Ryan to a huge crowd in North Carolina yesterday.
THIS is the story that Mardell should be reporting on. What a creep he is.
Interviewer Chris Wallace has Obama’s eminence grise Davod Axelrod really squirming :
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/02/video-axelrod-dodges-the-better-off-four-years-ago-question/
In the interests of devil’s advocacy, that could well be how a coalition minister responds over here.
What’s interesting therefore is how the BBC handles the respective issues.
It’s almost as if they are more concerned with either boosting or trashing (to taste) the person/party, and ignoring the substantive tangibles as it suits.
Which, by any measure, does not suggest a credible, professional, impartial media entity.
Given a 24/7 pervasive media presence backed by £4Bpa budget, that seems a matter of concern.
Mardell is a politics junkie, and little else. He’s into the dog and pony show stuff, the rhetoric, the speechifying, the attack angles, the superficial theatricality of it all. Even though he’s a die-hard Leftoid, he doesn’t like to get bogged down in policy stuff too much. He’d much rather play armchair quarterback and guess whether or not this or that political strategy will work. When he’s not busy playing the race card, that is.
I’d love to see Mardell cover this story:
http://patdollard.com/2011/11/mother-of-obamas-murdered-gay-lover-speaks-up/
PS Not sure how you do the HTML URL stuff so sorry for the link.
A recent long list of BBC-Democrat reporters for U.S and Canada.
Note: one is based in Canada; but a lot are based in Washington, no doubt at the ready for Obamessiah’s call.
How much does the Corporation’s American operation cost we taxpayers per year?
“U.S. & Canada-
Editor:
Mark Mardell – Washington
Correspondents:
Peter Bowes – Los Angeles
Alastair Leithead – Los Angeles
Tom Brook – New York (Entertainment)
Michelle Fleury – New York (Business)
Caroline Hepker – New York (Business)
Karen Nye – New York (Business)
Laura Trevelyan – New York
Matt Wells – New York
Maggie Shiels – San Francisco
Barbara Plett – United Nations
Ian Gunn – Vancouver
Lee Carter – Toronto
Paul Adams – Washington
Natalia Antelava – Washington
Adam Brookes – Washington
Kevin Connolly – Washington
Jonny Dymond – Washington
Kim Ghattas – Washington (State Department)
Marcus George – Washington
Steve Kingstone – Washington
Richard Lister – Washington
Rajesh Mirchandani – Washington
Jane O’Brien – Washington
David Willis – Washington”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BBC_newsreaders_and_reporters
Two in Canada apparently; rarely hear from them.
That’s just the tip of the Beeboid iceberg, although that list is out of date. Kevin Connolly moved on months ago to become an anti-Israel….sorry…Middle East correspondent, to fill the gap left when useful Jew Tim Franks gave up to become a sports reporter. In any case, there are plenty more than than that list shows, not least of which is Katty Kay.
There are also all those News Online Beeboids hired to produce the myriad lightweight, “bespoke” video magazine pieces, and contribute other human interest and lighter news pieces: Daniel Nasaw, Matt Danzico, Franz Strasser, Finlo Rohrer, Kate Dailey, and several more. All of them Left-wing.
I didn’t know there were BBC correspondents in Canada. Must be the easiest job in the world.
How hard can it be to cut & paste a press release? It’s clear that many of these journos have a personal agenda and waste little time producing well-balanced, thoughtful and properly analysed articles.
It’s all easy when you don’t have to put much thought into your output.
How many Beeboids does it take to hope and change a burned out light bulb?
Q. How many Beeboids does it take to hope and change a burned out light bulb?
A. This request falls outside the scope of the FOIA and therefore we at the BBC are not obliged to answer. Also, mocking Obama and those of us who love him is just not funny.
Leave Obama alone!
Something tells me this is going to get some play on this site.
Here’s a BBC journalist working on stuff about Obama for the Andrew Marr Show:
And here she is re-tweeting a Bill Maher “joke” about Tea Party followers being incestuous retards:
Check out her twitter timeline. Classic BBC lefty. I think the Andrew Marr Show’s coverage of the US elections is going to be every bit as bad as one can imagine.
Nice find, DB. Another one for the list. It’s an ebook waiting to happen.
(Apologies for embedding my own tweets but it’s the quickest way to reproduce an image in the comments.)
Tentative attempt at a repost as I have a nasty suspicion the site is getting glitchy again having eaten two and decided my avatar no longer exists …
’Journalist film maker for BBC… All views mine innit.’
Tells me all I need to know about the BBC’s commitment to personal vs. professional integrity and impartiality.
George, Mark, Helen, etc… you collectively could not run a whelk stall commercially and have the journalistic credibility of Joseph Goebbels.
But kudos on arranging it so you can charge me and others, year in year out, for screwing us over so hypocritically, and for so much money.
US National Debt broke the $16 trillion mark in the past hour. Will the BBC dare report this on the day of Michelle’s big speech?
They will just as soon as they can figure out how to spin it as not being His fault.
No David. They will NOT report it.
They will be forced to report on the next downgrade of US debt.
I think that will be the main “October surprise” this year
Mardell’s latest defense of the President features an attack on the masses who might not vote for Him this time. After a sort of admission that the President has nothing to run on (one point for this small bit of heresy/honesty), Mardell then insults the US public:
The rights and wrongs of the central argument have been debated across European and American politics for the last five years, so I am not going to revisit them here.
No, that would be too sycophantic even for him, and we all know from Mardell’s previous work where he stands on the issues.
But, even if he is right, (Oops, there’s a hint anyway) he is asking saintly patience of a people brought up to be intolerant of the long view.
Stupid tiny-minded United Statesians, raised the wrong way, with bad attitudes. It’s not His fault, you see.
Maybe you cannot just stick an economy in a microwave and re-heat it, but many Americans feel someone should invent something that can.
It’s not His fault, you see. He needs another four years, and the fools just don’t get it!
The second half of the Obama campaign strategy projects this point into the future: “If you think I’m bad the other guy would be far worse.”
The argument goes that Mr Romney would take the economy back to former President George W Bush’s policies (always labelled as “failed”) and life in America back to the 1950s – a war against women and gays.
He would give tax breaks to millionaires at the expense of the middle classes, the argument continues. Mr Obama says the Republican convention looked like it should have been on black and white TV.
So, “hope and change” have been replaced by “fear, and more of the same”. It is not inspiring, but it may work.
So who’s doing the polarizing again? Oh, and when you talk about taking us back to the ’50s, don’t forget to add “war against blacks” while you’re at it. Mardell has suddenly gone silent on how ugly and mean things have gotten. Imagine that.
But Mardell must be pleased at the website editor’s choice of images to accompany his article, one of six young black boys and one of three middle-aged black women.
And he even manages to get two subliminal racist lines into his text, an opening mention of ‘black suit and white shirt’ and a penultimate sentence about ‘black and white TV’.
I guess once he’s started playing the card he just can’t stop.
The black & white TV meme is from the White House campaign. Mardell is just laying it out in good political reporter fashion. But having both photos featuring a certain ethnic group is definitely playing the race card. One of them, fine. But both?
Hi folks, only been away for a couple of days and can’t believe the amount of disgusting BBC bias oozing from its bloated mass. For instance, this sickening pro Michelle Obama gush…. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19431000
Or, the DESPICABLE fact that the BBC have ignored the disgusting attacks on our servicemen by Muslim thugs at the Para-olympics… http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/343884/Hate-attack-thugs-turn-on-soldiers
This really makes me tremble with pure rage! They should be rounded up, chained and deported to whatever third world hell-hole they came from.
I watched Mark Turdell last night in some pro-Obamah report and his sneering tone towards the Republicans was a disgrace. The BBC’s getting worse by the minute.
Get up-to-date with all your enrichment news here people…
http://warband.wordpress.com/
Blimey, just watched the Mother Of The United States’ ode to Old Yeller on SKY, and if half of the BBC, and especially Richard Bacon, have not called in on a sickie to ‘take a moment’ to compose themselves before hitting twitter, I’ll be surprised.
One is sure the BBC Editorial teams will be much more sober and professional in their ‘reporting’, of course.
I did note that she again pulled the poverty angle out of the hat again.
Maybe a Downfall-style adaptation of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo is required, especially as the non-starving CEO of ‘Save the Children’ pontificates from his vast office complex on how kids are doing homework under blankets as we speak.
A few sharks being jumped either side of the pond today, and it’s only 7.20am.
According to the bBBC, Obama’s election was the most significant event of the last 40 years. They managed to slip this in to a ‘news’ item about the retirement of two of their long-running Radio 4 announcers, Harriet Cass and Charlotte Green.
Harriet Cass has worked with the BBC since joining in 1972, announcing historic events such as the election of Barack Obama.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19486182
And here was me thinking it was Mother of all the Rushes Michelle parting the Red Sea and curing cancer only last night.
Ah well, maybe it was more on the basis of an internal poll?
The paucity of noteworthy global events since then, especially involving the country whose name the BBC contains, obviously making PresO’s ascension a struggle for the poor lambs to find a match for.
Guessing the gels missed this whilst on hols?…
Are the bBBC playing this yet? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gLa9Te8Blw&feature=player_embedded
The Democrats’ new video: “The Government Is The Only Thing We All Belong To”
Again, they might have got away with but for those darn commenters.
The current most favoured kinda showing why it’s top of the pile..
‘I think that is by far the dumbest thing I have ever heard. We created the government deciced how it would function and we, through our elected officials decide how its run and the direction it takes. We are not members of the Government in any way shape or form. We definitely own the government. I think you and people like you need to get the fuck out of my country.
Now all the BBC needs to do is mount an Operation Clarke county in complement:)
Well it was either that or the Shipping Forecast
Mr. Mardell’s blog thread/twitter (views own & nothing to do with guys on whose web page it is published, apparently) stream are never anything short of intriguing as guides to his ongoing professional integrity, but what the heck does this even mean?:
@BBCMarkMardellvia Twitter
#DNC2012 Michelle – he just keeps getting up and moving forward…with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace. @BBCNewsUS
I know the received wisdom is He is now celestial, but perhaps a slight tilt to coherence, though typing while prostrated must be tricky, true.
Mardell has the BBC logo and BBC in his handle. Even though he says “these are my thoughts”, it must be an officially sanctioned account.
Then Helen must be having conniptions / checking her employment contract / penning a stiffly-worded email* to ask him to try simply reporting for once / please stop showing her up / toe the line ’til this one blows over*
Or the lawyers can ask themselves how they feel and get back in due course (plus expenses) to say they are comfy that it’s all OK really, based on the principle of #wadyagonnadoboutit?
*delete for most accurate.
I’ve just come across this, although it looks like Mardell got there before me. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/20129214930757922.html
The whole thesis of this rambling article is that black people tend to be poor therefore any policy that doesn’t throw money at poor people is obviously racist. Therefore Republicans are racist.
I’m sick of this crap. There are more white people on food stamps than black people, 41%-36%. When Romney calls The Obamessiah “The Food Stamp President”, it’s not racist.
To hell with this far-Left agitator writing for Al Jazeera, and to hell with Mardell and his “people not like them” lies.