Now that we’re approaching the mid-term elections in the US, the BBC has been ramping up the rhetoric against those who don’t approve of the President’s policies. In fact, to hear it from the BBC, it’s not His policies at all, but rather evidence of bad attitudes, inadequacies, and racism among His opponents.
In the last few days, BBC North America editor Mark Mardell has told us that it’s not the President’s fault at all, because the unwashed simply can’t relate to His intellectual behavior. When critics say He’s aloof and people don’t feel like He hears them, it’s not that His policies and statements clearly go against what most of the public wants and believes, but that He just hasn’t communicated the message in a dumbed-down enough fashion for the masses to understand.
Mardell has made other posts highlighting the “anger” of people dissatisfied with the current Government’s policies, as has Katie Connolly, which is an easy trick to disqualify those voices from the start. When someone is presented as angry, that context automatically reduces their credibility. The thing is, it was okay for people in the US to be angry when Bush was in charge; the BBC never looked for nefarious forces underlying that anger. Yet they do spend an extraordinary amount of effort trying to make it seem to their audience as if racism and extremism are the only things which would compel someone to oppose the President. It’s never because of His and the Democrat leadership’s policies. It’s just “the economy”, which is of course not His fault as it was inherited from George Bush. Does that sound familiar?
This Narrative is spread across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting, from BBC World News America to Newsnight to HardTalk to The Culture Show (h/t Oliver on the Open Thread).
Of course, it’s only natural that the BBC would take this position, because they can’t understand why anyone would oppose anything He and the Democrats have done. Even Matt Frei is concerned that the Coalition Government in Britain is taking a “gamble” with these austerity measures, as opposed to the spending and debt-increasing policies of the US President.
The problem is that the BBC has focused almost entirely on the vox pops angle. Mardell and other Beeboids have been traveling around the country talking to various people about their personal feelings. The only other views presented are from Washington Post or Time elite (JournoList) media figures, who, unsurprisingly, support the BBC’s Narrative.
So I believe it’s important to inform people about something the BBC has almost completely ignored: the policies themselves.
I’m sure everyone will remember just how much time and effort the BBC spent promoting ObamaCare (called “Health Care Reform” by the White House and the BBC). Can anyone recall the BBC spending so much time on the domestic policy of a foreign country? Yet, now that many of the predictions of its opponents (including myself) are coming true, there’s total silence from the BBC. It was the announcement of the ObamaCare plan which lit the fire under the Tea Party movement well over a year ago, which was played down as racism, even though the same people were opposed to it back when it was called HillaryCare. Was it racism when Clinton was President?
At the time, many of us knew that this wouldn’t work as advertised, and that it would harm the economy. We’re seeing that now. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office even says that ObamaCare “discourages work” because it gives people an incentive to stay unemployed. Does that sound familiar?
ObamaCare is about to hit small businesses with higher costs over health care, so much so that at least one business owner is opting to give all his employees a raise of $3000 pa ($250 a month) instead of taking a bath, because the Affordable Care Act supporters promised us that private insurance was going to be “affordable” at last. Principle Financial, one of the country’s largest providers, is getting out of the business altogether because of costs. Are they racists? That was one of the primary talking points of ObamaCare, about which the BBC spared no effort in reminding you.
Unfortunately, it has actually increased costs already. The BBC chose to censor that news. Is
one of the top health care organizations in the country now run by racists? There’s also the question of whether or not it violates the Constitution by forcing people to purchase a product from specific, government-approved vendors, health insurance in this case. Several states are challenging the law, including Florida. Are they all racists?
And it’s not just ObamaCare. Other things the President has said and done have caused harm, and the citizens have taken notice. For example, just a couple weeks after He was inaugurated, the President scolded companies for having conventions in Las Vegas, and told them not to go there. Earlier this year, he made a similar scolding comment about how it was wrong to go to Vegas when people ought to be paying their bills instead. It’s no surprise that these careless statements have compounded the pressures of a struggling economy on the city, as well as the state of Nevada. Unemployment is over 15%, and the people are not happy. Senator Harry Reid, one of ObamaCare’s chief architects (the President had little input Himself: it was created by Congress and “experts”) is fighting against a newcomer to keep his seat because of it. Is Nevada racist now? In 2008 they weren’t, 55% – 43%.
The other chief architect of ObamaCare, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, is also getting hit. Even Democrats are making campaign ads positioning themselves against her and her policies. Are all these Democrats racist now? Do they not blame the current Administration’s policies for harming the economy and damaging our future?
People are calling for reform and reining in government spending everywhere. Even in New York where, while writing this, I got a robo-call featuring former New York City mayor Ed Koch – a lifelong Democrat – telling me to vote for someone who has signed on to the New York Uprising Reform pledge. The call was paid for by the Republican Party, but if Ed Koch is in on it, things must be bad. He supported The Obamessiah during the election, and called Sarah Palin “scary”. How much more BBC-approved can you get? Is Ed Koch a racist now? Are we all racists now? Or is it about the actual policies?
The BBC wants you to think it’s the former, and not the latter, because they are ideologically biased in favor of His policies, and cannot accept that His Administration has made poor decisions, so they color their reporting accordingly.