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?