Category Archives: pro Obama

THE DETROIT SPINNERS

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I was interested in this BBC report hailing The One’s advice to the bailed out US car-maker’s not to “squander this chance to reform bad management practices”. Well, I fully agree that bad management practises SHOULD indeed be reformed, but how about not squandering this chance to reform extortionate and unaffordable trade union practises, as in those that lie so close to the heart of the UAW and which has made such a devastatingg contribution to the Detroit car manufacturing industry? Why is that Justin Webb sees no reason to ponder on the one-sided nature of the statement made by Obama? Is this the start of what we will now experience for years to come – with the BBC just pliantly going along with the Obama PR machine, just as it has been going along with the Labour PR machine for well over a decade here in the UK?

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BURNING DOWN THE HOUS

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By the way, did you read the BBC report detailing how the Church where the Obama family go to worship has been burned down in a suspected arson attempt? Alright then, it didn’t happen but if it did, I figure it would be splashed across the BBC. Fair bet? So, isn’t it interesting that when the Church where Sarah Palin worships is torched, not a word from the BBC. Maybe she never existed?

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Is it just me … ?

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Imagine it’s December 2000, and that Texas Republicans stand accused of auctioning off newly elected President George Bush’s recently-vacated governorship to the highest bidder. I can’t help thinking that would be the number one BBC news story for days if not weeks. There’s no way it would be squeezed out of the headlines by more euthanasia plugs or the government’s latest series of welfare reforms.

Of course, during the campaign, BBC correspondents would have shone a spotlight on the institutionalised corruption of the Republican heartland, with its long and dishonourable history. How exactly, they would ask, did George W Bush rise to the top of the most corrupt political machine in the United States ?

Wouldn’t they ?

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OBAMA-FEST.

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I happened to tune in to Radio 5 just after 9pm and caught John Piennar interviewing some liberal US journalist on just how wonderful a job President-Elect Obama is doing. It was a five minute tribute to Obama with Piennar joining in the adoration of The One. Honestly, now the BBC have their man in the White House the very notion of criticising the US President will desist. Makes a change after 8 years of non-stop BBC led vitriol!

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It’s the double standards that get you.

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Obama’s set-piece press conference debut contained three nice little nuggets- Obama referred to former First Lady Nancy Reagan as being into a “seances thing”. He referred to himself as a “mulatto” “mutt”, and he said that people were more interested in his new dog than in his policies. All this was there, accompanied by the anxious looks from the assembled Obama team members, yet the BBC headlined their story “impressive debut” and excerpted for video the deliberate joke that Obama planted about the “serious news” of the family’s planned dog. Have you noticed how quite a few of Obama’s joke moments don’t seem intentional? Just saying. If George Bush had said that his dogs were more interesting than his policies…

But actually the double standards I had in mind wasn’t a comparison with the coverage that has been habitually afforded to GWB’s “gaffes”. It was with the treatment of Sarah Palin whose brisk on the fly conference with the press in Alaska was reduced by the Beeb to comments about the “jerks” who were criticising her. You can get much more video here than the BBC offers. In fact the comments were contextualised in a fairly substantial response to a precise question about anonymous allegations against her. These were not criticsms but allegations which she refuted. The Beeb’s treatment made her look intemperate and peremptory where actually she was thorough and open in her response. But by cut, cut, cutting away at that response, and tacking on another, the BBC shaped and ran with the story about Sarah hitting back at “‘jerk’ critics”.

Update: you might like to check out this audio interview with Palin giving her point of view most completely.

They did it!

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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the result is historic. As for the BBC’s coverage, well thanks for your comments. Iain Dale was also unimpressed, and as evidence of the Beeb’s standing at home and abroad, here’s an American perspective:

The real fun network of the night was BBC America, which picked up the BBC feed being aired back in England. The coverage played like a good-natured “Idiot’s Guide to the American Election,” with references to such states as “North Hampshire.”

After all the hard work, though, it’s only right that the last word goes to the Beeb. And who better than John Simpson (a troll challenge here: can anyone make a convincing case Simpson might have voted Republican?) :

The United States has seen the biggest transformation in its standing in the world since the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1960.

This is a country which has habitually, sometimes irritatingly, regarded itself as young and vibrant, the envy of the world. Often this is merely hype. But there are times when it is entirely true.

With Barack Obama’s victory, one of these moments has arrived…

UPDATE: Iain Dale fleshes out his criticism of the Beeb’s coverage here: references to John Bolton’s outburst, “car crash TV”, and a note that this should be David Dimbleby’s last election make it well worth reading.

It’s not a big thing…

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But it is irritating that the Beeb consistently reports allegations against those it supports only after they’ve responded to them. So while Obama’s illegal aunt was making headlines in the Sun, Mail, Times, Guardian, Express and over on Channel 4 hours ago, the Beeb only reports once it can lead with Obama’s response: Obama Unaware of Illegal Aunt

Bad Racism, Good Racism

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Bad Racism, Good Racism

The BBC are worried about the Bradley effect.

The theory goes that some white voters tell opinion pollsters they will vote for a black candidate – but then, in the privacy of the polling booth, put their cross against a white candidate’s name.

And the fear among some supporters is that this could happen to Barack Obama on 4 November, when the country votes for its next president.

Now if it were true, it would indeed be sad. But what’s this ?

Other polls, meanwhile, suggest that white Americans have steadily become less reluctant to vote for a black person in the last few decades.

A recent Gallup poll suggested that 9% of Americans would be more likely to vote for Mr Obama because of his race, compared with only 6% who said they would be less likely to vote for him.

Brings a whole new meaning to ‘less reluctant’, doesn’t it ?

You could use the Gallup evidence to write a BBC piece suggesting that McCain is the victim of racism. I wouldn’t wait up for it though.

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JOE THE PLUMBER

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Fascinating to read this example of character assassination the BBC runs on Joe Wurzelbacher aka “Joe the Plumber”. The way this US election has turned out, the BBC has become a partisan propagandist for Democrat talking points. At every point away, it has chosen to run the Democrat perspective on every issue and when an unscheduled item such as Joe the Plumber breaks through the MSM filter – and challenges Obama – the knives are out. I’m sure B-BBC well read readers will know that criticisms repeated here of Mr Wurzelbacher are spurious but they are part of a well co-ordinated attack dog strategy by the Democrats and the BBC obliges by parroting them.

Added by Natalie Solent: I trust David won’t mind if I add to this post, as the same BBC story had also attracted my attention. The BBC’s title (Doubts raised on US ‘plumber Joe’) came close to being libellous in my opinion. Its use of quotes around “plumber Joe” implied that Mr Wurzelbacher was a fake – either that he was not really a plumber at all, or at the very least that he was not really an ordinary member of the public but some sort of Republican plant.

Yet the worst the tireless investigators of the BBC, who as we all know were pulled away from their feverish round-the-clock investigations of the financial affairs of the front-runner for President of the United States to attend to this vital matter, could uncover was that he was not a licensed plumber and that he owed back taxes. Oh, and he prefers the name “Joe” to that of “Samuel”. That these facts are trivial is covered well in this comment by DB. My point is not so much their triviality, but their irrelevance to the BBC’s claim that

Doubt has been cast over the story of “Joe the plumber”, the man who unexpectedly became the star of this week’s US presidential debate.

What story was this, BBC? What words did Mr Wurzelbacher say that constituted a “story” that, it now emerges, is dubious? Alternatively, what part his “story” as told by the world’s press – that of an ordinary citizen who simply answered frankly when Senator Obama approached him – is subject to the BBC’s ever-passive “doubt has been cast”? If the BBC had offered some evidence that Mr Wurzelbacher was a Republican operative with a pre-arranged plan to trap Senator Obama, then it would be justified to refer to doubts being cast over his story in that sense. (In fact such tactics are commonplace in US politics, and have been exposed repeatedly – but since the plants were Democrats pretending to be undecided or to be “lifelong Republicans” the story was of no interest to the BBC.)

As things stand, both of the two possible readings of the BBC’s first paragraph are unfair to an ordinary man whose crime was not to know his place.

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I have an idea

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let’s play “guess the blanked out email addresses” (click image to enlarge). Guido has the details of how the BBC are planning a rerun of their 1997 celebrations, US-style. Don’t forget how the BBC enjoyed that occasion, as documented in our right-hand column: “ the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles.” Unforgettable- and just look at how well it’s all turned out. Can hardly wait for The One.


(thanks to those in the comments eg. G. Cooper and George R who have already highlighted this story)

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