Author Archives: David Preiser (USA)

Mark Mardell Inadvertently Exposes Himself And His Colleagues

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I apologize in advance for any unpleasant images that title may have evoked. As most people here will know, I’m wont to complain about how Mardell is little more than a British mouthpiece for the White House Press Office. I’ve written at length about how this or that report or blogpost from him is supporting the President’s cause, spouting White House talking points, etc.

This time, though, it’s Mardell himself explaining what the White House talking points are. And it doesn’t take much to see how he and his BBC colleagues are in lock-step with the White House propaganda machine.

Mitt v Isaac in Tampa

One has to feel a little sorry for the BBC’s US President, though. He was supposed to be wallowing in a political event, reporting on Romney accepting the nomination and whatever negative stuff he can imagine. But the Republican convention has been delayed because of the storm, so is stuck having to make something up instead. He’s got copy to file one way or the other, so I suppose the White House talking points have to get in there somehow. However, in casually laying these point out, Mardell inadvertently reveals himself and his colleagues for the White House shills that they are.

First, Mardell cleverly tries to use the storm as a metaphor for the impending doom he wants you think Romney’s campaign senses. They’ve been battered and put off message recently, he explains, and Romney is going to face a tough crowd. No, really.

The house band blast out a sound check, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer rehearses a walk and talk for his show. Everything in the vast auditorium is bathed in blue and red lights, atmospheric, but curiously reminiscent of emergency vehicles at a crash scene.

Yeah, it’s a bit ham-fisted, I know. But it’s not easy churning this stuff out on demand, you know. In any case, this is a not so subtle introduction to the White House talking points. In fact, it’s one of them: Romney is in trouble already.

Still, Republicans are crossing their fingers that there’ll be no accidents this week. They hope that Isaac will miss and Mitt will be a hit.

Who at this point – outside the Beltway and the HuffingtonPost, anyway – still thinks the Republican Party is going to turn on Romney and they won’t rally around him for the goal of unseating the President? This is a mentality from six months ago. Sure, Mardell was right all along that most of the Republican Party and sympathetic conservatives and independents wanted just about anyone but Romney. But that was then and this is now. There’s no way that lingering animosity towards him outweighs the desire to prevent the resurrection of The Obamessiah.

Now for the talking points. I’ll let the BBC’s US President editor explain:

He may not applaud all the statements coming from the floor when the convention does kick off. He has a tricky path to walk.

He might want to convince the conservative base that he really is one of them. But he doesn’t want to play into the hands of the Democrats who are determined to depict him as a scary reactionary in thrall to nutters and cranks.

Nobody is going to depict Romney as a reactionary. Mardell is straining here. But “nutters and cranks”? That’s pretty much how most Beeboids describe the Tea Party movement. But now that Mardell has laid it out there for you, pay attention from now on to how many of the usual BBC suspects start saying that on air.

President Obama, apparently determined to distract attention from the economy, said in an interview this weekend that Romney had “signed up for extreme positions”.

You mean like how BBC economics editor tweeted that Romney had gone “so extreme” by picking Paul Ryan as running mate?

The Obama campaign team pulled out all the stops to link Romney’s name to that of the once obscure congressman Todd Akin, who coined the ugly phrase “legitimate rape”.

You mean like how you and your colleagues pulled out all the stops to spread the story all over the place and link Romney inextricably with Akin? In a way, I should point out, that you don’t do with things that might make the President look bad.

By the time they were through, the uninformed might think Todd Akin was the third name on the ticket.

So would BBC audiences. He’s really writing my jokes for me.

The president’s campaign went into overdrive to highlight an awkward joke Mr Romney made about his birth certificate, suggesting he had strayed into “birther” territory.

You mean like how BBC Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News America tweeted that Romney’s joke was “dangerous”?

But they’ve already been buffeted off message in the last week by Mr Obama’s accusations.

Really? Is that why polls now have Romney as tied with or even slightly ahead of the President? So where is Mardell telling you that the President is equally in trouble, campaign on the back foot, after all the missteps like “You didn’t build that”, or the harshly criticized bogus ad accusing Romney of being responsible for a woman dying of cancer, or the Democrat mouthpiece who accused Romney of committing a felony – both of which the President Himself had to dance around deal with a question about it at His recent press conference? Don’t make me laugh. The BBC censored all news of it save for one brief mention by Mardell in a blog post. Which he, naturally, defended.

See, it’s not just me saying this or that is a White House talking point. This is the BBC’s top man in the US, a life-long political junkie, highly trained and an experienced journalist with close contacts in the White House, who regularly receives press releases and emails and all the relevant information, telling you that these are White House talking points. Which he and his colleagues then dutifully support.

Oh, and the whole idea that Romney is in trouble and needs to get his game going for this convention? Don’t take my word for it that it’s a White House talking point: read it on the White House website.

The BBC Continues To Be A White House Lackey

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The BBC has been busy this week trying to carry the President’s water over various incidents. US President editor Mark Mardell has been especially active defending the President and attacking His enemies. And the youngsters at BBC News Online Recdep have been equally busy making sure some things are reported at length, while other things are censored entirely.

Before I continue, though, let me state first that this is not, contrary to what defenders of the indefensible love to claim, about me simply wanting the BBC to say only what I want to hear, or report from a Right-wing slant. This is about the failure of the BBC – specifically its top people in the US – to report not only accurately, but honestly, and give you some semblance of the whole picture. It’s also about how the biased reporting makes the BBC appear to support the President of the US, rather than being an impartial, honest broker of news.

The latest example is the foolish remark by Rep. Akin about rape and pregnancy. Naturally, since it’s been a big deal in the US mainstream media, the BBC is all over it, with no fewer than five features about it. currently at the top of the US & Canada (Who?) page:

Romney calls for Akin to drop out

Mardell: Obama’s opportunity

Missouri residents on row

Todd Akin: “I was medically wrong”

Akin’s apology ad

(There have probably been at least two more news briefs going up since I’ve been trying to put this together while the site goes up and down). Contrast this with the amount of BBC coverage of two other big recent election stories. The President’s “You didn’t build that” statement (I hesitate to call it a gaffe, because He meant it) was censored entirely by the BBC, except for a single brief mention of it in one Mardell blogpost. Yes, Mardell was defending the remark, trying to explain the context.  The other big story, one which has been all over the news was even brought up in the recent surprise Presidential press conference (more on this later), was the falsehood put out by a Democrat Super-PAC that Romney was directly responsible for a woman dying of cancer. The BBC has censored that completely.

These issues harm the President, make Him look bad. So the BBC isn’t interested in covering any of it. Yet this story about one Republican candidate for Senate – not even about Romney, not even connected to his campaign, mind – is a top priority for them. Even Katty Kay got into the game by tweeting that Missouri was an important State for Romney. It continues to be the biggest target for the Democrats this week, but that ought not make it a top news priority. Or do political targets dictate newsgathering now?

Back in January, Mardell managed to defend, sort of, Romney for his quip about how he loved to fire people. Actually, he didn’t defend Romney at all. Rather, he said that it was wrong to call the statement a “gaffe”, because it was really just clumsy and wrong for Romney to say it. Actually, it’s not really a defense at all, just the pretense of one.

A couple of days ago, VP Biden told an audience of African-Americans – descendants of slaves – that Romney and Ryan wanted “to put y’all back in chains”. Mardell defended him. In fact, he starts out by seeming to call any criticism of Biden over this remark “mud-slinging”. He curiously said that the mainstream media played down why the remark caused an uproar – the slavery reference – which is a joke. Everyone knows why it was a bad thing to say, which is why the media went into overdrive to protect Biden from the backlash. What’s much worse, though, is that Mardell had the nerve to suggest that Biden said it “perhaps inadvertently”. No, that’s simply not credible. Of course Biden knew exactly what he was saying, hence the pandering “y’all” thrown into the mix. Otherwise, Mardell is suggesting that Biden is as dim and unqualified to be VP as he thinks Sarah Palin is. I don’t believe that for a moment. Mardell here is basically telling himself – and you – a little white lie.

The defense continues. Suddenly people who saw this as race-baiting and wrong are, according to Mardell, “too sensitive”. Apparently the BBC’s top man in the US is unconcerned that people like Artur Davis (the co-chair of the President’s 2008 election campaign) and Doug Wilder (Democrat former Governor of Virginia) found Biden’s remarks to be deliberate, and offensive. The BBC wouldn’t dare suggest that the Black Coalition of Georgia Republicans are too sensitive to racial issues, would they? What Mardell really means is that white Republicans are making a mountain out of a molehill. He’s thus dismissing the objections of black people out of hand. And it’s not like he has no idea these people exist.

Actually, Biden’s dopey utterings have gotten worse. He opened his remarks in Virginia by saying that the Dems can “win in North Carolina”, and last week asked at a campaign stop, “’Folks, where’s it written we cannot lead the world in the 20th Century in making automobiles?’  Imagine if Sarah Palin had said such a thing. The BBC would have been all over it: Beeboids tweeting ecstatically, two separate online articles, plus a Mardell blogpost. But when Biden does it….nada.

It’s actually worse than you think. Biden’s idiocy has gotten so bad that his staff is actively trying to censor press pool reports and keep reporters from getting too close. This is from Politico, ladies and gentlemen, a favorite read and retweet source for both Katty Kay and Mark Mardell. They know all about this, but don’t want you to know. No, it’s much more important to whip up hysteria over Rep. Akin’s terrible remark about rape and pregnancy.

Let me repeat: I don’t want the BBC to report negatively about Biden, while supporting or sweeping Akin under the rug. I want them to report both accurately and honestly, without trying to defend one or the other. Explaining the potential damage or why one or the other is controversial is fine, but that’s not what you’re getting from the BBC, is it?

Speaking of difficulties with the press, people here may remember three weeks ago when Mardell was grumbling about how Romney wasn’t so friendly with the press during his visit to Poland. Apparently there wasn’t enough access granted, and his press man lost his temper with the pool reporters. Mardell was all over that. In fact, it was so important to him that he whipped up a second negative piece about it. His friends getting censored by Biden’s staff? Radio silence. You don’t need to know about that.

Worse, the President Himself actually didn’t give a press conference at all for eight weeks. No questions taken at all. Instead, He’s been hitting the local media, morning radio DJs, and the like. He’s been doing that instead because they bow to instructions in advance about what He wants to talk about. Where’s Mardell on this? He knows about it, but doesn’t want you to know. Again, I don’t merely want Mardell to attack the President: I just want him for once to report the whole picture, both sides, and not only negatives about one side, while providing the defense for the other.

And this is where the water-carrying becomes really obvious. Remember all those times Mardell was moaning about how things have gotten so negative, so nasty, and blamed the Tea Party or Republicans for it? There was another attack from Team Obamessiah last month, this time accusing Romney of committing a felony while at Bain. They even held a conference call with reporters to push it.

The other day, the President finally did grant an audience give a press conference where He took questions from reporters. It didn’t go so well for Him because one of them had the audacity to ask Him about the negative, ugly tone of His campaign. This was about both that bogus ad and the felony charge. The President tried to dodge responsibility for it. Previously, His campaign denied knowledge of it. Then they had to admit they knew. At the presser, the President showed that He knew all about it, while trying to claim that He didn’t, and that it was no big deal. Did the BBC report that? No, of course not, because that would mean you’d know about the ugly ad itself, or the bogus felony charge, which makes Him look bad. So they’ve censored this as well, in order to maintain radio silence about the ugliness coming out of the White House.

How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya now, BBC? Will you ever be an honest broker of news about US issues? Or is it going to be Pro Obama At All Costs until November 6? (Not Nov. 2, like Michelle Obama just said, at which the Beeboids will not be giggling on air.) It’s not bias to report about the two attack ads. No need to judge them, just report that they exist, and that they’ve caused an outcry. But the BBC can’t even do that anymore. It’s not just Mardell, either. There are other BBC journalists tasked with proper newsgathering in the US. They’re all responsible for this failure.

Paul Mason On Paul Ryan

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Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason has put together a little hit piece on Paul Ryan. Under the pretext of examining whether or not Ryan’s budget proposals will help the US in fiscal crisis, Mason attacks and demonizes.

Could Paul Ryan’s plans fix US debt?

Hands up all those who think we’re going to get an honest examination of those plans. Nobody?

Mason’s opening salvo tells you it’s an attack. Right away he claims that in a matter of days Ryan has “polarized US politics”. What? Haven’t Mardell and the rest of them been telling us that the country’s politics have been polarized and more divided than ever before since the nasty Tea Party got busy? All of a sudden we’re polarized?

The video clip of Ryan is cut short before we get to actual policy points, allowing through just a statement about cutting spending in general. So far, you’re not informed at all about the actual plans.

First expert commentator: this benefits the President. How does this help examine whether or not Ryan’s plans will benefit or harm the country? Don’t be silly: that’s not what Mason’s goal is at all. His real goal is show that Ryan is bad for the country, and a bad choice for Romney. Whether or not Ryan’s policies help the President in campaign rhetoric is irrelevant to a discussion about Ryan’s plans fixing the debt. But that’s what Mason gives you.

Then Mason plays an excerpt of Ryan giving the President a hard time over budget issues. This video has been making the rounds of the Rightosphere lately, as evidence of why Romney chose him. So the Beeboids do pay attention after all. But listen to what Mason says next. Ryan wants to cut Welfare and Food Stamps, apparently. And, “says, Ryan, growth would follow.” So that’s it, is it? Crushing the poorest and most vulnerable is Ryan’s recipe for success, eh?

It’s the simplest trick in the world: use the most general terms possible, no details, and claim “accuracy”. In fact, even the mandarins at the government program themselves admit that it’s more about putting back some means-testing as a way to get spending back to 2008 levels. Sure, they describe it as the cruel wresting of vital support for “low-income families”, but that’s their job. They’re not about fixing the debt problem. Mason is giving you a talking point more than he’s giving you a useful fact. Of course, the BBC can claim “accuracy” here, because Ryan’s plan would, in fact, cut expenditure on these programs. The hows and whys are apparently irrelevant.

But that’s not even the real point, is it? This is supposed to be about whether or not Ryan’s budget ideas will save the country. Mason, it seems, has no interest in giving you any information with which to decide for yourselves. Instead, he’s giving you partisan attack points. Then the biased reporting really kicks in.

Mason next shows a clip from Ryan’s recent stump appearance in Iowa. He got heckled, and Mason uses this as proof that “the Democrat half of the country” doesn’t like him. Again, we get no policy statement from him, just the bit where he gets heckled.

I’d like to pause for a moment and ask defenders of the indefensible to show me examples of the BBC showing the President getting heckled and reporting it as proof that a portion of the country has a legitimate objection to His policies.

As for the Ryan clip, all we see is him criticizing the hecklers, which is followed immediately by footage of the President having a great old time meeting some other Iowans. He’s at ease, smiling and pressing the flesh, complimenting the local prowess in sno-cone making, and nearly kissing a baby. No hecklers, no negatives, no hint that part of the country might object to any of His policies.

However, I have to ask if this footage was included in the interests of “balance”? If so, why? This is supposed to be about Ryan and his budget ideas. Actually, Mason cleverly uses this as a segue to support his rather fatuous statement that this election is suddenly about “where you’re from”. It’s bogus because Ryan was teasing. Anybody who doesn’t rely on or trust the BBC for their news on US issues will know very well about just how ugly and violent the Democrats in Wisconsin can get when they don’t like a politician. Ryan wasn’t seriously saying those hecklers could never be from Iowa or Wisconsin. He was just making a weak crack about them being rude. For Mason to take that and spin it into a larger issue of some kind of regional divide is even weaker. Now, one could make a case for the South not being so supportive of the President, but that’s all racism, according to the Left and the BBC, and not because they think Ryan’s budget ideas are sound. But that’s another argument altogether, and won’t help Mason’s agenda.

Then we get a liar from the Washington Post. She plays the class war game, much beloved by Mason and the BBC. The WaPo hack claims that choosing Ryan is proof that Romney wants to cut taxes on the rich, full stop. Once again the BBC can claim the vaguest definition of “accuracy” here, because a tax cut across the board – for everyone – will by definition include tax cuts for the rich. This is, in fact, Romney’s plan, something the BBC leaves out in order to seriously mislead you and grossly misrepresent the facts. Mason gets away with it this time because it’s some US mouthpiece saying it and not him. So where’s the balance, the explanation of even one single relevant detail of Ryan’s or Romney’s plan never mind whether or not it will help fix the debt crisis? Don’t make me laugh.

After this, Mason gives us another White House talking point: it’s Congress’s fault. No mention that the Republican-led House has passed a budget – twice – while the Democrat-led Senate has blocked it and failed to pass one in three years and counting. No mention that the President’s own offerings have been such a joke that the CBO couldn’t even score it and His Plan For Us never passed the laugh test enough for anyone in Congress to even consider it.

Mason gives us one last generality, that Ryan wants to cut spending in order to promote growth. “But that is one major throw of the dice.” Yes, that’s one opinion: Paul Mason’s. Which is the whole reason the BBC has these titled “editor” positions. It gives them an excuse to allow opinion-mongering in place of real reporting. Not a single second of actual reporting is in evidence here. Instead, it’s carefully selected and edited footage to support Mason’s opinion of Ryan’s fiscal conservatism.

Now that I’ve spent time playing the ball, it’s time to play the man. We know for a fact that Mason is a Marxist, and supports the Occupy movement. We know his political opinions from his tweets and his books and his support for and participation in far-Left organizations and conferences. All that on its own would be enough to cause concern over his capability for impartial reporting, except the BBC doesn’t accept that. Yet now we see his opinion being offered on air, and it’s the same one we see from his extracurricular activities. His personal political bias informs his “reporting”. It’s as plain as day.

Your license fee hard at work, promoting the domestic agenda of the leader of a foreign country.

BBC DG: Olympic Coverage Is Too Patriotic, Must Now Support Other Nations

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This was brought up in comments thread of  the “Nearly Back” post by Number 7, but I think it’s worthy of a full post itself and deserves discussion.

We are too focused on Team GB: Astonishing memo from ‘increasingly unhappy’ BBC boss over patriotic tone of news coverage

BBC chiefs have ordered their news teams to stop focusing so much on Team GB’s stunning Olympics success.

Director general Mark Thompson is said to be ‘increasingly unhappy’ with the patriotic tone of the news coverage of the Games.

(…….)

TV and radio newsroom staff were astonished by an email sent yesterday, which told them to focus on the achievements of other nations as well as our own.

In the message, titled ‘An order from the DG’, director of news Helen Boaden wrote: ‘Mark Thompson is increasingly unhappy that we are focusing far too much on Team GB’s performance to the exclusion of all else.

‘This is also becoming a theme within the Press.

‘As editor in chief, he has issued a directive that this needs to change from today. So you need to get cracking on making that shift.’

What, no hugs? Seems like a strange directive for the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom. Especially considering the bit in the Charter about “bringing the UK to the world”. Assuming that the following bit about “bringing the world to the UK” is about news reporting and not jingoism in sports, that is. Even so, this raises some serious questions.

1. Does Thompson believe that in reality there are enough immigrants or communities of immigrant origin in the UK who would prefer to hear about their own country’s success that he is seriously directing staff to pay more attention to other countries? If so, doesn’t that betray the entire concept of a nation united by values and that the much-vaunted concept of multiculturalism is in fact divisive balkanization? Not enough British people living in Britain, then?

2. Is this revealing of a certain embarrassment at the top levels of the BBC about openly supporting British success in the face of non-white nations? I’m pretty sure Thompson isn’t concerned about so much attention being lavished on Usain Bolt for his two brief events rather than on US athlete Ashton Easton for winning gold and setting a world record in the decathlon, which used to bestow upon the winner the title, “World’s Greatest Athlete”. Nor is Thompson talking about giving more credit to the French.

3. Has the BBC’s lust for evil profits, global reach and dominance caused Mark Thompson to subsume the BBC’s ultimate remit – providing public service broadcasting for the license fee payers in the UK as the official State broadcaster – in favor of pandering to audiences in other nations where the BBC reaps or stands to gain commercial revenue?

4. Is Thompson simply the Panderer General?

5. What does this tell us about the line of defense we’re always fed that there is no top-down editorial directive at the BBC, that there are no memos handed down from on high giving editorial directions, that the BBC is too large and too disorganized for there to be an institutional bias of this kind? According a BBC insider the Mail quotes, this never happens:

‘We never get direct orders like this.

Except, we know they do. Maybe it’s just that there’s been no serious objection before when orders come down from on high about Global Warming or Islam, for example.

6. Does the shock amongst regular BBC staff signal at least some hope for the reformation of the BBC after all?

‘It is only natural that our viewers and listeners want to hear about Team GB’s successes. All the other countries celebrate their own medal winners.

‘It would be a shame if we had to water down our coverage to satisfy an abstract notion of fairness.’

Do they not feel, as Thompson seems to, that a significant amount of their audience in the UK is not British or proud of British achievement? Presumably it’s more than just the one or two disgruntled assistant producers who leaked this to the Mail. Or will this current patriotism vanish next week and it’ll be back to business as usual because the only time Beeboids approve of patriotism or nationalism by the English, British, or certain other countries is during sports tournaments?

As an outsider living in a country where the BBC is most definitely trying to increase influence, audience share, and evil profits, I find this very amusing as well as important.

Mardell On Message

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At last, someone at the BBC has mentioned the President’s “You didn’t build that” gaffe, which has haunted His campaign for a couple of weeks at least. The revealing Collectivist statement has inspired a series of mocking responses from small businesses and ads from the Romney campaign. It was in all the major US media outlets – they had to come to His defense, after all – yet the BBC censored all news of it: until now. The BBC’s US President editor mentioned it in his latest online article, and yes – what a shock – he comes to the President’s defense. But first, the bias in Mardell’s editoria before we get to that part:

Mitt Romney’s economic open goal

The opening paras are more or less simple statements of positions, not a big deal. However, Mardell immediately starts providing support for the President’s side.

Alan Krueger, chairman of the council of economic advisers, issued a statement saying “today’s employment report provides further evidence that the US economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression”.

The CEA existed originally to provide objective economic analysis to the President. The problem with that scenario, though, is that the President appoints the three members, who are then approved by the Senate. These are policy advisers, not statesmen or people in charge of anything, so there’s not much danger of them not being approved for the job.

In this case, though, Krueger is the third chairman in three years for the President. Although he’s ranked among the top 50 economists in the world, he’s Left-leaning, known as a “labor economist”. Krueger is one of Leftoid dreamboat Paul Krugman’s colleagues at Princeton, with a focus on trying to prove that we must raise the minimum wage, and other Leftoid shibboleths, like “inequality”.

The second member, Katherine Abrahams, wrote her doctoral dissertation on….wait for it…”Vacancies, unemployment and wage growth”. Anyone sensing a pattern here? While her main focus in recent years has been about time management, she also, according to her bio, has maintained an interest in labor market, as well as how government grants increase college enrollment. Shocking, I know.

The third member of the CEA, Carl Shapiro, was an academic at Berkeley, and was promoted from within the Administration, where he was advising the DOJ on how to go after businesses engaged in anti-competitive practices. Not necessarily hard Left, but since the current DOJ is one of the most politicized in history, it’s not hard to guess which side his recommendations will favor.

In short, the CEA is not exactly the most objective group going these days. When Krueger says that we’re clearly on the right path, one must take it with a very large grain of salt and assume that this is a statement coming from the Administration, and not from an objective third party. Yet Mardell doesn’t qualify that at all, and expects you to accept it as such. So already you’re being led to believe one side versus the other.

After that, every negative is qualified, “balance” obligingly provided.

The figures are in fact a mixed bag. Unemployment is up to 8.3% from 8.2% But 163,000 jobs were added, more than expected.

First the negative, but then the “unexpected” positive. Not the other way around, which wouldn’t be as supportive.

So the familiar political battle for interpretations is sharper than usual.

But it is not hard to stand back. It is pretty clear that the shaky recovery is continuing to move in the right direction, but that unemployment is a stubborn, serious and long-term problem.

No, it’s not so clear to those outside the bubble. If it was pretty clear, the President’s job approval would be a bit better, and those jobs added wouldn’t be so “unexpected”. Perhaps this is just another case of that typical mindset of our betters: if we don’t agree with them, it’s just because we don’t understand, or the message hasn’t been disseminated well enough. Mardell, though, obviously firmly believes things are on the right track. But just in case:

A shock from Europe or the Persian Gulf could crush the shell of this recovery’s snail-like progress.

It’s not His fault, you see.

When President Obama was elected he never dreamt the economy would be in such a poor state by this time in the election cycle.

Really? Do tell. This can be interpreted in two ways. One could accept that He had no idea how bad things would be because it’s all out of His control, He could never have known that even His best efforts couldn’t save us all. Alternatively, one could accept that He had no idea how bad things would be because of His poor grasp of economics, His far-Left ideology, and that His policies would fail and fail again. We know which perspective Mardell is coming from.

It is only in the last few months that his team seems to have understood that he is fighting for his political life against a strong “feel-bad” factor.

“His team”? What about Him? What happened to that amazing genius who strode among us like a giant, who ran the most perfect election campaign ever, ever, ever? Are we supposed to believe He had no idea? This is either evidence that He’s supremely arrogant and clueless, or that someone is shifting blame. It’s not His fault, you see.

Now Mardell must be the good proselytizer and give you the Gospel:

President Obama’s basic argument is simple. Without his actions, including spending to stimulate and save industries, the economy would have gone down the drain.

The president claims what is needed is more Obama – notably “an extension of middle-class tax cuts” and a Congress that will pass his American Jobs Act, to help public-sector hiring.

Ah, borrowing and spending, and public-sector hiring.

It is not my job to judge competing economic policies, but even if he is absolutely right, as a campaigning position it is pretty lame.

No, but we know your judgment anyway, don’t we? It’s not his job to judge, “but…”, which means we’re going to get his opinion. We know Mardell thinks the President most definitely is “absolutely right” (an editorial emphasis) because he told the BBC College of Journalism just that (beginning @5:51 in). But even he knows this isn’t the most inspiring message. We’ve seen before how Mardell can mope when the President fails to inspire him. And it’s killing Him now.

“It could have been worse” is not a great rallying cry.
While blaming Congress may be popular, it is peculiar as an argument for re-election.

Mardell is little more than a campaign junkie, and spends most of his time on election issues. Is this worthy of the title “North America editor”? He knows there’s an open goal for Romney here, and just can’t help himself but play defense.

If Obama wins he is likely to face an even more intransigent bunch on the Hill.

“Intransigent”? Because they don’t let Him get His way anymore. We’ve heard that term time and time again since the 2010 mid-terms. Yet we never heard Mardell – or any other Beeboid, for that matter – refer to Congress as a “lapdog” or “rubber stamp” back when both Houses were easily controlled by the Democrats and they were able to ram through ObamaCare and other laws without needing a single Republican vote. Congress doesn’t exist simply to grease the skids for a President’s every desire. Did the BBC refer to the Democrat-controlled Congress under Bush as intransigent when they didn’t let him get his way? I forget.

The thing is, only the House of Representatives has a Republican majority and Speaker. The Senate is still controlled by Democrats. It’s rather dishonest to lump both houses of Congress together in this way. Especially since quite a few Democrats have sided with the Republicans on things like the Budget and

Actually, when Mardell writes that warning about the President facing that awful obstacle in a second term, he’s continuing to write from writing from the perspective that His Plan is “absolutely right”, but He might not get His way and save the country.

After all this, we at last get to the first mention by the BBC of the “You didn’t build that” gaffe. Naturally, since it makes the President look bad, what has been a major story in the US media doesn’t merit its own report, and Mardell dutifully provides the balance by first gently sneering at Romney’s recent ruffling of a few British and Palestinian feathers.

The Romney team has focused its recent campaign around Mr Obama’s contention that “if you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen”.

Their previous onslaught targeted his remark after the June unemployment figures that “the private sector is doing just fine”.

The often-quoted remark, that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth, is nearly right.

In these cases it is when the president reveals his underlying contempt for his opponents.

What? Contempt for His opponents? No. It’s contempt for private enterprise, for economic freedom, for individuality. It’s contempt for anyone who doesn’t believe as He does, that the State is all. The President revealed what worried many of us back in 2008: He’s a Collectivist at heart. If we take Mardell at his word, though, it means that private enterprise, free market proponents, and independent businessmen are the President’s opponents. This is not a good recipe. It also highlights the President’s far-Left political beliefs.

Slavishly, the BBC’s US President editor then defends Him, reading out the White House explanation:

Mr Obama’s point was that even entrepreneurs rely on the government many Republicans so despise: they are educated using taxpayers’ money, travel to work on federally funded roads and so on.

No, those who were allowed to hear the full speech – which the BBC has censored entirely – know all too well that He went much further than that. It was much more revealing than Mardell and His supporters in the mainstream media want to let on, hence the mad scrambling to explain it away, walk it back, and attack Romney over his recent trip.

His remark about the private sector is an unwise dig at the demand for deeper cuts in government spending – in June and July unemployment figures are higher because the government is shedding workers – 9,000 in the latest figures.

Both comments suggest Mr Obama’s irritation with his opponents’ strident anti-government message.

The lurid characterisation of his politics by some of them (my inbox this morning contained a warning of his “Marxist agenda”) obscures the fact that he probably is to the left of most America voters.

He does, in a rather centrist European social democratic way, believe in government as an enabler. Many Americans instinctively don’t.

“Lurid”. “Despise”. “Strident”. No emotive terms, no editorializing there, then. Yeah. But what a giveaway. Someone at the BBC at last admits, after years of claiming that He’s a moderate, a centrist, that the President is pretty far to the Left. When Mardell says “centrist European social democratic”, it betrays his own perspective that the US is wrong for being to the Right of Him. He’s a centrist in Mardell’s mind, and you’re getting analysis from that perspective. This is not impartial, not objective reporting. Nor do we expect that from Mardell at this point in the game.

At last we get to Romney’s policies. Sort of. In case there are any lingering doubts in his readers minds, Mardell starts off by saying that there are “questions” about Romney’s policies, and that the situation in the UK proves that they’re wrong anyway.

There are questions about his policies. And as the British government has found out, even if tax cutting, spending cutting, red-tape scrapping is the right way ahead, it takes a painfully long time to work.

Note that Mardell doesn’t write “even if…..is absolutely the right way ahead.” Nope, that was reserved for the President’s Plan For Us. Does the President’s big-government, Statist Plan take a “painfully long time to work”? We aren’t told. Mardell doesn’t dare speculate there, does he? I wonder why.

Mr Obama’s charge is that these are the very policies that led America into the current mess.

Again we get a White House talking point, and have yet to see a single one from the Romney campaign. I don’t think Mardell even realizes he’s doing it. It’s reflexive, what he does naturally, and what’s expected of him at – and clearly approved by – the BBC. And anyways, the last few Bush years certainly were not full of “austerity” measures. Bush ramped up the spending, increased our debt. Either Mardell isn’t aware of this because he was busy as the BBC’s Socialist Europe editor at the time and had no idea, or – more likely – he doesn’t want you to know so doesn’t point out that the President might possibly be wrong about it. If this was supposed to be a piece about the President’s weakness and a way in for Romney, there sure is an awful lot of defending the President against that weakness and only a brief mention of what that weakness actually means.

Some readers may at this point still be worried that the President won’t come out on top in the end. Fortunately, Mardell provides that ray of hope:

Opinion polls show them level pegging, but in the really important swing states Mr Obama is ahead.

I’ve long said that this election will be about two very different visions of America. I still think I am right. But character may be just as critical.

Many polls suggest a majority don’t like Mr Obama’s handling of the economy and think Mr Romney would be better on the issue, but give the president higher scores when it comes down to what they call “likeability”.

Even though Mardell still has to admit now that there’s trouble ahead, he provides that last bit of optimism.

This election really is wide open.

America may feel let down by Mr Obama. It has yet to be convinced by Mr Romney.

Whew! That’s a relief.

That open goal has plenty of blocking from Mardell, anyway.

SHOCKER: Mark Mardell Spins Romney, Then Plays An Obamessiah Campaign Video

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This is why I call Mardell the BBC’s US President editor instead of his official title, BBC North America editor. Mardell’s report about Romney’s trip to Israel leaves out the most important thing he said, and the second half of it is devoted to defending the President on the domestic economy issue.

Mitt Romney: US will stand with Israel

In the accompanying blurb, the BBC mentions that Romney said that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Yet Mardell strangely left that out. Why? He instead says that Romney’s show of support for Israel and strong stance against Iran is less about appeasing US Jews and more about portraying him as being stronger on foreign policy than the President. This is actually correct, and I’m left wondering why Mardell strayed off the BBC reservation here. He’s previously fretted over the Jewish Lobby, so it’s interesting that he doesn’t see them as the main factor here.

First, though, let me whine for a moment about Mardell’s offensive use of the term “Wailing Wall”. While I don’t expect him or any Beeboid to use the Hebrew, ha Kotel (literally, “the Wall”), as showing that much respect is reserved for Muslim holy sites, I do expect him to use the correct English term, “Western Wall”. The “Wailing Wall” is an outmoded stereotype, which comes from non-Jews observing the orthodox Jews’ style of praying. To the uninformed, it was said to sound like wailing. Plus, there’s the historical emotional connotation of this being the only part left standing of the Holy Temple, the only actual holy site in all of Judaism. This is also the only part of the Temple Mount at which Jews are allowed to pray, or even wear religious garb. Mardell should show more respect, and the BBC ought to educate it’s staff better, the way they do for Muslim issues. To many Jews today, the term “Wailing Wall” is offensive. The New York Times (admittedly with more concern for its Jewish audience than the BBC ever could have) uses the term “Western Wall”, and Mardell has no problem taking a page from their playbook when he refers to Bibi Netanyahu as Romeny’s “old friend”, so one would have thought he’d at least get that right as well. But no, he uses an outmoded stereotype temr instead. Whine ends.

It’s especially curious because he fails to mention Romney’s statement about Jerusalem, which is meant to speak to Jews everywhere, and specifically US Jews who are worried about the President’s increasing betrayal of our ally on this issue. Did I say “betrayal”? Yes I did. Has the BBC reported this? Of course not.

We all know by know that Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is not approved by the BBC’s editorial policy. Several people here have shown how they refuse to show it on, for example, the Olympics page for Israel. Yes, everyone knows it’s “controversial” because the Palestinians don’t accept it, and that the Muslim World hates it and wants Jerusalem to be Judenrein, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Knesset is in Jerusalem and it’s the functioning capital of the country. Outside factors do not decide the capital for any country. The BBC, of course, bows to the Muslim position here, and decides not to acknowledge Israel’s sovereignty on the matter.

Fortunately, the BBC has reported elsewhere that Romney said that about Jerusalem, and used the dodge of reporting other press reports about it as a means of showing how awful it was without having to make any messy editorial decisions themselves. Yes, the Muslim press is all about anger at appeasing the Jewish Lobby. So why does Mardell omit what many see as the most important statement Romney made? Could it be because he knows this will highlight the President’s increasing betrayal of a US ally on this issue?

I say betrayal because that’s exactly what it is. In 2008, when running for President, Candidate Obamessiah said Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. Now, He’s been distancing Himself increasingly from that position. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that His press secretary (personal friend of BBC Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News Ameirca, Katty Kay, and husband of her friend and business partner) refused to answer reporters questions about it. Watch the video below:

Yes, you saw that bit at the end right: the President now says that Jerusalem is up for grabs, going back on His word. No wonder the BBC’s US President editor didn’t want to admit what Romney said. If any defenders of the indefensible want to say that doesn’t matter because it’s in the blurb or on that other website page featuring Muslim anger about it, remember that most people will see only Mardell’s video report and not the website text, and so most will remain blissfully unaware of it. And for those wishing to play the source and not the ball, attempting to dismiss this because of who made that video, dispute this quote if you can, and dispute the video evidence above of the President’s original statements and Carney’s sad display.

In reality, Romney’s trip to Israel was meant to show everyone in the US who cares – remember, we hear about how evil Evangelical Christians are equally concerned about Israel’s safety just like the nasty old dual-loyalty Jews are – that he will not betray Israel like the President has been doing. Regardless of which side of the issue one is on, the facts of both candidates’ positions and behavior are there. Mardell spun all that away very nicely.

But that was only a fraction more than half of Mardell’s report. The rest was spent defending the President against the charges that He can’t handle the economy. In fact, Mardell merely states a few words of Romney’s criticism – the only acknowledgment by the BBC anywhere of that “You didn’t build that” gaffe!!! – then plays about ten seconds of the President’s own campaign video rebuttal, complete with the President Himself smiling and speaking to the camera. This is the BBC’s tacit admission that it was a big deal after all. Mardell then closes his report by saying what he thinks Romney’s stop in Poland will cover.

Basically, the President gets a chance to speak for Himself in a report about Romney, while Romney’s campaign gets only Mardell uttering one sentence from their side. In the end, Mardell spins away Romney’s trip to Israel, refusing to mention the most important issue from it.

UPDATE: Oh, dear, it seems I’m 100% wrong on this one. As we know, the standard line on things like this from defenders of the indefensible is that the BBC can’t be biased because other media outlets are reporting the same way. The killer line:

Instead of sending political reporters who report on politics, the foreign affairs reporters might have given us serious reporting on the international issues raised when the Republican nominee for president traveled abroad.

While Romney was in Israel, for example, he proposed a U.S. policy fundamentally different from the one President Obama has given us. Most of the political reporters on the trip missed the significance of the announcement.

Missed, or censored? So either Mardell is a useless tool who just follows along with what his DC Beltway colleagues say, he deliberately censored the key bit out to protect the President, or he’s just a poor political analyst and doesn’t deserve his job. But the BBC expects you to trust him anyway.

Mitt Romney and Lech Walesa Fail

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In the open thread, I made a comment that Lech Walesa was now on the BBC’s sh!t list for having spoken positively of and essentially endorsing Mitt Romney. Since Romney is the enemy of the President, I just knew the BBC wasn’t going to look favorably upon the hero of Solidarity and Polish freedom from Soviet oppression.

No prizes for guessing if I was right.

Mitt Romney Poland Visit Stirs Solidarity

Why, what do you know: it’s a negative perspective.

The Republican candidate is due to lay a wreath on Tuesday, to mark the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939.

But trade union movement Solidarity has distanced itself from the visit.

Mr Romney has just travelled from Israel where comments he made about the Palestinian economy angered a senior Palestinian official.

Yep, there’s even more space spent on the Israel visit, spun negatively, so even less room (On the internet? There are no space limitations. -ed) to mention that Walesa might have kinda sorta endorsed Romney. In fact, as of this writing, only half the news brief was given over to Poland. Wasn’t there enough slamming of Romney in your other reports, BBC? (If News Sniffer or The Wayback Machine show that the story “evolved” later and they make the piece at even slightly more about the actual Poland visit, I’ll post an update.)

The only part of Walesa’s remarks the BBC will allow through the censors is this bit, which is at least positive:

“He’s very open, and brimming with values, his wife is always by his side, he’s got five kids — we’re very much alike, I really like him and am pleased we met,” Mr Walesa told reporters.

Curiously, the BBC chose that over this bit:

“I wish you to be successful, because this success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe and the rest of the world, too,” Walesa told Romney at the end of their meeting Monday. “Gov. Romney, get your success — be successful!”

I wonder what editorial thought process went into that choice? In the interests of balance, of course, this is immediately followed by harsh words from the BBC’s trade union friends in Poland:

But the trade union movement, which originated in Gdansk and toppled Poland’s communist regime in the late 1980s, said it had nothing to do with Mr Romney’s trip to the city.

“Regretfully, we were informed by our friends from the American headquarters of AFL-CIO (trade union in the US), which represents more than 12 million employees… that Mitt Romney supported attacks on trade unions and employees’ rights,” Solidarity said in a statement.

I guess this is the best the AFL-CIO can do these days since they pulled funding from the President’s campaign in order to focus on themselves. Anyways, Walesa is then dismissed.

Mr Walesa and Solidarity have not seen eye to eye for some years.

In other words, Walesa’s words are now to be taken with a large grain of salt, right, BBC? Negative, negative, negative. To judge by BBC reporting, in the last few days Romney has angered the entire planet and appeased only a few wealthy Jews. Can’t wait for the stop in Warsaw to see how awful things are next.

BBC Censorship: US Gun Laws, Gun Crime, And Reality

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Most people here will have noticed that the BBC has gone overboard this week with the hand-wringing over US gun laws. The same agenda – US gun laws are too permissive, gun ownership laws lead to a high homicide rate, etc. – has spread across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting, from the website to radio to television. All of it from the same angle: too much gun ownership, ordinary citizens probably shouldn’t be allowed to own guns, and all that. Not a single report or interview – as far as I’ve been able to find, and defenders of the indefensible are welcome to correct me and point out the exception – coming from the opposite viewpoint. Anyone seen a Beeboid challenge someone who says US gun laws need to be much, much stricter, or similar?

The BBC also made a big deal out of the President turning up in Colorado to pose as the caring leader, uniting us all under the banner of Hope, that the Beeboids know He really is. Not a single raised Beeboid eyebrow or sarcastic aside at how this might be a nice bit of political opportunism in a tough election cycle. He’d never do that, would He?

With all the whining about US gun laws and gun crime, there’s really something else you need to know. The BBC, of course, is censoring this news, refusing to tell you about it. Mark Mardell seems to have been on vacation for the last couple of weeks, so there isn’t even a word of wisdom from the BBC’s top man in the US, whom you are supposed to trust on these things.

Here’s a perfect example of what the BBC doesn’t want you to know about US gun laws and gun crime. It even concerns the President’s adopted home town, so one would think the Beeboids in the US would be aware of it:

Chicago Homicide Rate Worse Than Kabul, Up To 200 Police Assigned To High-Profile Wedding

As Chicago residents face a murder rate that, thus far this year, is worse than U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the Chicago Police Department has assigned at least 100 officers to secure the wedding of White House advisor Valerie Jarrett’s daughter.

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha arrived in Chicago Friday evening ahead of the Saturday wedding of Laura Jarrett, which will be held in a backyard in the city’s Kenwood neighborhood. And that wedding is, expectedly, set to be a high-security affair.

This is the HuffingtonPost, folks. So the Beeboids know all about it. And this can’t be dismissed simply as extra security for the President, happens all the time.

The directive for police to cover the Jarrett wedding arrives at a time where Chicago is facing a surge in its homicide rate. The Daily pointed out in a Friday column that more Chicago residents — 228 — have been killed so far this year in the city than the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan – 144 — over the same period.

The war zone-like statistics are not new. As WBEZ reports, while some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago during that time, based on Department of Defense and FBI data.

More than 5000 people. How many of them in random acts of mass murder by lunatics like the guy in Colorado or Loughner in Tucson? Pretty much zero. (Gang activity and drive=bys aren’t really the same thing at all, even when innocents are killed in the process.) That’s a body count high enough to make any Beeboid’s head spin, so Chicago and Illinois must have pretty lax gun laws, right? Must be sub-machine guns and RPGs for sale on every corner, a free shotgun with every Slurpee at the local 7-11, right?

Er…no. Illinois and Chicago have just about the toughest, strictest gun laws in the country. In fact, the local county currently has a law banning the very kind of assault weapon the Colorado lunatic used. And yet, Chicago has a much, much higher rate of gun murders than the whole State of Colorado: 120. That includes murder by other means, like stabbing, which means that the number of murders with actual guns is even lower. But that doesn’t help the BBC’s anti-gun agenda, so they don’t bother to check it out and instead push partisan propaganda at you.  Hell, even Washington, DC – the President’s current place of residence (when He’s not golfing or on vacation with rich white folks, that is) = with something like 12% of the population, has more murders per annum than Colorado. And DC also has very strict gun control laws. They’ve even tried to ban people from keeping a loaded handgun in the house for self defense, never mind buying a semi-automatic weapon and a high-capacity magazine.

Of course, there’s one very important difference between the victims in Aurora and those in Chicago and DC. The vast majority of the people shot and killed in Chicago and DC were black. The President isn’t going to be giving a Hopey speech to their families any time soon, I can assure. And it won’t even occur to single sycophantic Beeboid to ask why not. It also puts all the BBC long faces and rending of garments over the troop deaths in Afghanistan in perspective, no? Not such a high body count when taking reality into consideration. But I digress.

Furthermore, while the BBC spent all that effort discussing gun laws and gun crime, did anybody bother to ask how many guns Timothy McVeigh or the9/11 mass murderers or the 7/7 mass murderers needed? No? Funny, that.

Just a couple months ago, some lunatic went on a rampage with a knife in a grocery store in Salt Lake City. Utah, of course, has slightly more “lax” gun laws than Chicago or DC, but that isn’t going to prevent some idiot from grabbing a kitchen knife and running around with it. Even the BBC knows that. So a legally armed private citizen shot the f@#$er before he killed too many people. Again, the BBC won’t be bringing this kind of thing up because it doesn’t fit in with the Agenda.To balance out the constant stream of people advocating stricter gun laws, where are the guests saying that the massacre could have been stopped if somebody in the theater had been carrying?

There’s plenty of evidence – even begrudgingly admitted by the liberal New York Times – that European countries with more guns per capita have lower murder rates. But then, those countries are probably more homogenous, eh, BBC? Oh, my, better tone down the racism inherent in those facts.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. That’s good enough for the BBC, and they don’t want you to think any different.

Is The President’s Harvard Law School Professor A Racist?

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Roberto Unger, one of the President’s old professors at Harvard Law School, has said that the President “must be defeated” in the next election (@6:10). Is he a racist?

Actually, Unger is making the same criticisms of the President as some others from the far-Left have been making, including Occupiers: He has failed to transform the country into a Progressive Paradise. He hasn’t governed Left enough.

“President Obama must be defeated in the coming election,” Roberto Unger, a longtime professor at Harvard Law School who taught Obama, said in a video posted on May 22. “He has failed to advance the progressive cause in the United States.”

Unger is one of those who believe that their side must spend a few years in the wilderness in order to refocus and regain strength and purity.

Unger said that Obama must lose the election in order for “the voice of democratic prophecy to speak once again in American life.”

He acknowledged that if a Republican wins the presidency, “there will be a cost … in judicial and administrative appointments.” But he said that “the risk of military adventurism” would be no worse under a Republican than under Obama, and that “the Democratic Party proposes no new direction.”

But check out the specific policy criticisms:

  • His policy is financial confidence and food stamps.”
  • “He has spent trillions of dollars to rescue the moneyed interests and left workers and homeowners to their own devices.
  • “He has delivered the politics of democracy to the rule of money.”
  • “He has disguised his surrender with an empty appeal to tax justice.”
  • “He has reduced justice to charity.”
  • “He has subordinated the broadening of economic and educational opportunity to the important but secondary issue of access to health care in the mistaken belief that he would be spared a fight.”
  • “He has evoked a politics of handholding, but no one changes the world without a struggle.”

Much of this resembles complaints from the Tea Party movement, no? Unger even says it was misguided to push ObamaCare through when they did. I realize, though, that most of the rest of his diatribe is standard far-Left fare.

As we know, the BBC Narrative is that there is no legitimate opposition to any of His policies, and any objection to Him is really inspired by racism. Their top man in the US, Mark Mardell, came to the US job expecting racism as a reason for opposition to the President.

The relationship between black and white has been such an important driving factor in American political history that it would be strange if it now mattered not a jot.

Last year, he told the BBC College of Journalism that opposition to the President’s policies – particularly amongst Tea Party types – is ultimately based on racism. Mardell also reiterated his expectations of racism. Beginning at 55:30:

“I’ve been to lots of Tea Party meetings, and I honestly don’t think most of them are racists. I think some of them…..uh…certainly not in a straight forward sense…I think for them it really is about the government spending…uh…their money. Now, I think that deeper than that, it’s about the government spending money on people who are not like them….sometimes.

And I think there are people who feel a disconnect because they just didn’t expect this sort of person in the White House, and particularly because He plays against their stereotype of what a black person is like. I mean, it’s actually quite a stereotype in the African-American community, the thoughtful, professorial…uh…you know…intellectual. But it’s not a stereotype in the ‘country’ South.

But yeah, I mean it’s one of those things that I feel that I can only answer when I go out and when I talk to people. And I haven’t found it as strongly as I thought I would.”

So when Prof. Unger criticizes the President for having a policy of “financial confidence and food stamps”, is that racist? When he scolds about the “politics of handholding”, is it about the government holding the hands of people not like him? Or are some people permitted to object to these policies while others are not?

Another BBC correspondent in the US, Jonny Dymond, made a rather dishonest report about how there’s been an “explosion” of hate groups since the black man became President.

So, one has to ask Mardell and everyone else at the BBC: is Prof. Unger a racist after all? Or is he magically exempt from the charge of racism because he’s of the Left, even though some criticisms are virtually indistinguishable from those Mardell suspects to be driven by racism?

Oh, and the BBC sure won’t be telling you about this any time soon. Doesn’t help the Narrative.