Anyone catch Mark Mardell’s paean to Obama’s latest bluster? I dare you to listen to this starry-eyed adulation that passes for political reporting. Here’s the odd thing – the markets do not appear to share Mardell’s gushing love-in.
“So clever as to almost sly”
I posted this over on my other blog, A Tangled Web, but thought I would put it here also. To be honest, I was sick to the stomach after the Liveblog last night and wanted to share my thoughts;
“UK readers will be only too aware of the BBC’s flagship weekly political debate programme – Question Time. US readers may not be so familiar but essentially it consists of an invited panel being asked questions by a selected audience. It has, shall we say, a certain reputation for being left-wing, and that is why I set up a Question Time LIVEBLOG over @ Biased BBC a few years ago – allowing readers a chance to have their say on it as it is broadcast live. Usually, this is good fun and whilst the programme is predictably dreary, massively pro-Labour and reliably leftist in all other zones, I get quite a kick out of the Biased BBC commentariat and their caustic wit!
However there is a serious side to this. 10 years, after 9/11, the edition of Question Time that was broadcast that week became infamous. The Towers lay burning, thousands were dead (reduced to ash) and I think most people were in a state of shock. On the panel of Question Time that week was the then American ambassador Philip Lader. He was reduced to tears by the unbelievable hostility of the “selected” BBC audience which baited him, blamed America and essentially suggested that the US got what it deserved. The BBC seemed surprised by the reaction from people across the UK and apologised for the atrocious programme.
Last night, the BBC ran a 9/11 special edition of Question Time, ten years on. As usual, we hosted the live discussion. After 20 minutes, I was thinking of leaving the debate, after 40mins, I did. Quite simply, this was ANOTHER opportunity for the “invited” BBC audience to vent their spleen against the Great and Little Satan. America was berated, Israel was berated, Islam was exonerated and Muslims were defined as the real victims since, as Tariq Ali stated, “their lands are occupied”. In short, the programme made me sick.
There is plenty to be said about 9/11, but I would have thought most decent human beings would sympathise with all those innocents who had their precious lives taken, so horrendously, so unimaginably. America was the VICTIM of a vicious terror attack by militant Islamists who shouted how great Allah was as those planes detonated into those offices. Since 9/11, there have been 17,000+ additional acts of Jihad. America made mistakes before 9/11 and it has made mistakes after 9/11. Perhaps we can all agree on that but in the final analysis, it was America that was attacked and it is America that has every right to defend itself.
Bonnie Greer, Tariq Ali and all those others US haters in the Question Time audience last night made me feel ashamed to be British. When it comes to the BBC’s Question Time – my response is NOT IN MY NAME.”
Another classic attack piece on the GOP by the BBC. First, look at the masthead quote from the BBC’s Alistair Leithead.“The biggest applause was when the number of people executed in Texas was read about” Just setting the scene, right, what with all those bloodthirsty Texans. (BTW, I heard a rumour that those executed were convicted murderers but I guess that is just an insignificant detai in BBC land) Leitherd then talks about the GOP being “dragged to the right” as if that what a bad thing. Naughtie opened discussions on Bachmann’s performance by suggesting that she is “gaffe prone.” More balance. Thing is, I’m desperately searching the BBC for coverage of President Obama’s studied silence on the thug Teamster leader Hoffa’s threats to Tea Party folks but nothing there. The BBC are panicking that the GOP will choose someone other than the elitist beltway candidate Mitt Romney, someone who can challenge their hero Obama. We can expect a sustained onslaught on the GOP between now and election day as the BBC become more and more fretful about Obama.
BBC bias was on wonderful display this morning in this CRINGING interview with Ed Balls. Listen to Stephanie “Two Eds” Flanders set up Naughtie’s sycophantic interview with her former boyfriend by suggesting that the “arguments on the state of the global economy are running his way.” Really? I missed that but then again Stephanie has a very unique insight into Balls. On the economic substance of the matter, Balls is trotting out the infantile leftist argument that we need to get “growth” by increasing State expenditure and hiking taxes on “the rich” – so nothing new there. He even got away with suggesting that our fiscal problems are ENTIRELY the fault of the Banks, so absolving the recklessness of the Government in which he served. This was not an interview, it was a pathetic supplication and the BBC should be ashamed of itself.
Middle of the Week and time for a new Open Thread to share your thoughts on Big Brother…
“Demonising Muslim organisations which have been key to reducing Al Qaeda’s recruitment and influence in Britain has resulted in a counter-terrorism policy that is “damaging, dangerous and demeaning”.
I noticed that BBC favourite Justin Forsyth from the fake charity Save the Children was allowed a platform on the BBC this morning to put forward his curious views that there are 1.6m children in the UK living in “poverty” (No there is not; He was using the contrived left wing formula of relative poverty which is never corrected by the BBC since it too uses the same biased euphemism) Justin was there to tell us that thanks to the (imagined) wicked cuts by the evil Coalition, many parents (esp single parents) are struggling with childcare costs. It seems that in some cases, the cost of travel and childcare equate to the salary being earned. Justin’s solution is for the State to provide reduced costs, thus increasing Government expenditure. I don’t think Justin quite grasps the concept of economics, do you?
“Michael Buerk in a trailer for the ‘Moral Maze’ commented upon the dangers of broadcasting live…’unusual and dangerous…you cannot tailor it or shape it or sanitise it…’
Unfortunately this is precisely what we get with most BBC programmes, tailored to suit an agenda, shaped to shape your ideas, sanitised to remove difficult and contrary questions.
Eliza Manningham Buller, ex spook, in her first Reith Lecture on ‘Terror’ must have followed the BBC handbook to the letter and has managed to pen a tract worthy of any member of the Stop the War Campaign or the Socialist Worker’s Party….or indeed many a BBC journalist. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0145x77
The lecture was, considering the source, laughable in content and in its intended outcome. What has made this worse is that it is the result, presumably, of much thought and consideration by someone who has unique knowledge and privileged access to information and analysis of events….and yet manages to put together a discourse on the War on Terror which lacks logic, reason and insight as well as coming to conclusions that clearly have no basis in reality.
Just a few contradictions from our ex intelligence chief;
9/11 was a crime not an act of war, or 9/11 was a war in defence of their political establishment, culture and society; Muslims attacked us because they were angry about our support for dictators, or Muslims attacked us because we removed a dictator; force of arms and intelligence cannot defeat terror, or we had to attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban and intelligence and arms were critical to success in Northern Ireland; It was the Palestinian’s plight that recruited Al Qaeda terrorists, or it was a need to belong and search for excitement that recruited terrorists; It was nothing to do with Islam, but Al Qaeda wanted to restore the Islamic Caliphate.
And of course we must negotiate with Al Qaeda….presumably we will be negotiating with an ‘idea’, but if we cannot go to ‘war on terror’ then how can we ‘negotiate with terror’?
Her final nonsense was to claim that she was encouraged that most people did not give victory to the terrorists as they refused to be intimidated and refused to support the diminution of our civil liberties.
Really? The whole of this speech is an historic example of cultural cringe, a cowering before the Muslim terrorist intimidation and his apologists in the Liberal media that it shall surely count as one of the most pitiful examples of a nation’s ’Establishment’ , its political and intellectual leadership, surrendering its values, culture and right to exist.
And what is the most telling aspect of this whole sorry charade is that throughout Manningham Buller makes no reference to Islam itself as the source of the ideology that drives these attacks.
Bin Laden couldn’t make it clearer, Islam is the banner under which he marched, he intended to restore the Caliphate and take Islam to power across the world.
Rule one is know your enemy, know his intentions and beliefs. For a senior Intelligence officer to be in denial or ignorance of that is an absolute betrayal of the people of this country, the whole West in fact and those that rely upon the support of the West to defeat those much derided ‘dictators’ in their own lands.
If the West falls and takes her democratic values with her the world will be a much poorer and dangerous place. Her every word could have tripped off the tongue of any BBC journalist or flowed from his pen without thinking twice. Shouldn’t be surprised if we look in the back of one of Jeremy Bowen’s ‘lost’ notebooks that we find the first draft of this speech….in Arabic naturally.
I wonder if pillow talk influences her in any way?….”Her husband, David, is the son of a former Lieutenant Colonel and a former lecturer in moral philosophy at St Andrews University. He has recently retrained as a carpenter. An Irish Catholic by birth, he is said to have once held strong left-wing views.”
A Biased BBC reader notes;
“Has anyone noticed the following on the BBC website – it is linked to from the homepage:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20110829-shopping-and-noshing-through-the-holy-land
It refers to certain cities as being in Palestine – which does not currently exist. Even for supporter of the Two State solution, surely this is erroneous? Perhaps the areas could be called “occupied” or “disputed” territories in the article. Even the British government does not currently recognize Palestine as a state, and will probably not support the UN vote in a few weeks from now. Please note that the link from the BBC homepage (one of the options under “Travel” towards the bottom of the page) includes the following: “The markets of Israel and Palestine will lead to bargains, unique souvenirs and some of the best local food.”
Yes, he’s the BBC North America editor, the man with his finger on the pulse of political events in the USA. I recall back in January when Mark Mardell brought us to near tears with his moving commentary on Obama’s calls for “civil discourse” (Remember that meme, the one that suggested the evil Sarah Palin was more or less directly responsible for the Arizona shootings?) But here’s the problem; For some inexplicable reason. Mark has overlooked the Democrat supporting Jimmy Hoffa calling “to take these sons of bitches out” and the ..erm..Vice President referring to opponents as “Barbarians.” I’m sure Mark will get around to highlighting these examples of outrageous hypocrisy from the Obama camp…..any minute now…..
