BBC Salivating Over Possible Race Riots?

Yes, I know that’s a bit over the top, and I’m deliberately phrasing it as a question because I’m not categorically stating that’s what they’re doing over the possible result of George Zimmerman’s trial. But it sure seems that way. Having said that, let’s all note that this is the first BBC mention of the trial since just before it actually started. They’ve been absolutely silent about the trial the entire time it’s been going on, and it’s not difficult to suspect their silence has something to do with the fact that most of the testimony – from both sides – has discredited the case for the prosecution. BBC reporting on the incident before the trial has been dishonest, misleading, and has censored key facts in order to lead their audience to the approved thought: Zimmerman killed an innocent boy from a distance, in cold blood, due to racism and racial profiling, and Trayvon Martin was murdered simply for what we call “Walking While Black”. Let’s also remember that the BBC tried to stoke racial tensions with their World Have Your Say segment in which they encouraged discussion about how the US is essentially run by white supremacists, with a legal system driven by white supremacists. They did everything in their power to suggest to the audience that Zimmerman remained free initially due to a racist State, again misleading the audience to the desired thought. After five-plus years of Beeboids in the US finding racists under the bed and telling you that opposition to the President has racist underpinnings, the Narrative is all but assured.

Now that it’s pretty much over, bar the closing statements, and a verdict is coming soon, the BBC can resume normal operations. Notice that they continue to use the “undated family photo” of a smiling, angelic, pubescent Martin, instead of the more updated photos Martin himself posted on Facebook. This is a deliberate editorial choice to lead the reader in a specific direction. If they had shown the more recent photos of Martin in a hoodie, with the golden “grill”, the gun, etc., that might prejudice the reader into thinking maybe the lad was a possible troublemaker. What’s particularly galling about this editorial decision – for that’s what it is, the photo didn’t come up randomly – is that the mere fact that Martin had grown into being a bit of a troublemaker, and was all about the gangsta act, absolutely shouldn’t make anyone think he had it coming. Yet the BBC News Online geniuses decided that they didn’t want to portray Martin as anything other than in the best light possible. It’s only natural to wonder if someone with thuggish tendencies would start the fight, which is why the BBC kept all this from you. This is dishonest, and a failure of journalism. Of course, BBC journalism on this story has been a failure from start to finish.

Reminders of the BBC’s failure can be read here, here, and here. Note especially how the BBC has censored the fact of the physical altercation between Martin and Zimmerman from all reporting – except for one article. This physical altercation is the key to the entire case, as Zimmerman’s defense is that Martin was beating the crap out of him and then, when he noticed Zimmerman’s holstered gun, made a reach for it. It was then that Zimmerman grabbed his gun and shot Martin. This should be included in every single report about the case, from start to finish, because it’s the single most important element on which the jury will base their verdict. If one doesn’t know about this very close physical contact – and BBC audiences who blinked and missed the lone mention don’t know about it, as its been deliberately kept from them in nearly all reporting – then the entire case looks dramatically different from reality. Even though the BBC didn’t mention the fight once, I think they got away with it as they’ve never mentioned Zimmerman’s testimony that Martin was reaching for his (Zimmerman’s) gun, which would then make a clear case for self defense. An acquittal would seem like a sham of a travesty of a joke. Which would then mean that BBC audiences would not only be unsurprised at a resulting race riot, but would be inclined to understand and support the outrage. I think that’s the goal of BBC News producers and journalists here: to direct their audience to a specific opinion on the case.

As far as I’ve been able to determine, the BBC has never reported on Zimmerman’s history of fighting against racism, or his efforts in support of blacks. Nor have they every made mention of Martin’s checkered recent past. Can’t have those inconvenient truths interfere with the Narrative.

The  way the BBC opens the report betrays their agenda:

Florida officials have appealed for calm as the trial of a neighbourhood watchman who shot dead an unarmed black teenager enters its final phase.

“Unarmed”. This is “accurate”, but at no time does the report mention the physical altercation between the two. The BBC is once again censoring the most important fact of the case, and it’s important to call them on it. This makes it all the more bizarre for the BBC to then mention further down that both Martin’s and Zimmerman’s mothers said that the screams heard on a recording were their own son’s. Why was anyone screaming? Without the key fact of the fight, this is a non sequitur. Expecting the reader to remember the one mention of the fight from two weeks ago doesn’t work. Just in case anyone might possibly start edging toward an unapproved thought, the BBC makes sure to tell you that Martin’s mother was “absolutely” certain it was Trayvon. Wasn’t Zimmerman’s mother also sure? I guess the BBC thought her opinion was not as relevant because she didn’t qualify it with such a strong word. By elevating one mother over the other, the result is that the BBC guides you once again towards the desired conclusion that Martin was completely innocent, and that Zimmerman was possibly beating the crap out of him before drawing his gun and murdering the lad in cold blood. They reinforce the notion of Zimmerman’s complete guilt by informing everyone that the prosecutor told the jury that Zimmerman killed Martin “because he wanted to”. Again, without the knowledge of the physical contact – especially about Zimmerman’s repeated testimony that Martin was reaching for his (Zimmerman’s) holstered gun – people already inclined to believe the racist Narrative – which the BBC encouraged – will draw the desired conclusion.

It’s entirely possible that the BBC journalists who put this together believe in their hearts that Zimmerman is a racist who killed an innocent boy in cold blood. But that’s no excuse to censor the most important fact of the case, or to emphasize one side’s argument over the other.

In actual fact, the only racist remarks made were by Trayvon Martin to his girlfriend moments before the incident. He referred to  Zimmerman as a “creepy-ass cracker”. This was all over the news after her testimony in the trial, yet the BBC censored it, as they have everything else during the trial. So BBC audiences have no idea about reality, and know only the dishonest Narrative forced on them by BBC journalists. As it became increasingly clear that the racism angle was a non-starter in the trial, Martin’s own family made a public statement that it wasn’t about racism. Yet the BBC kept that from you, and are now wringing their hands over a potential race riot in the event of an acquittal, because, well, that’s been the Narrative from their friends and acquaintances and thought leaders in the US mainstream media, as well as their friends and acquaintances and thought leaders in the far-Left blogosphere.

Just in case anyone doubts where the BBC’s sympathies lie, just look at the one report which mentions the fight. As always, we get the angelic photo of Martin, plus a sympathetic picture of Martin’s mother wiping tears from her eyes. Of course everyone is going to feel sorry for her, feel her pain. It’s still manipulative for the BBC to juxtapose that with the angelic, smiling image instead of the more recent and relevant thug shots. The BBC has also censored the recent news that the judge blocked from the trial a load of texts from Martin about learning to fight, how he could sucker punch somebody, and getting a gun. Again, this might make Martin seem less than angelic, and possibly responsible for his own actions and starting the physical altercation. It might lead the BBC audience to suspect that this wasn’t a cold-blooded racist murder after all, so they left it out. They know about it because even the Guardian made a brief mention.

John Anderson in the open threads has been keeping us apprised of the craziness of this trial, including how even prosecution witnesses end up supporting Zimmerman’s case. A couple of examples here, here. and here. The BBC certainly doesn’t want you to know any of that, and it’s not included in this report, either. So BBC audiences will have absolutely no idea why Zimmerman might be acquitted, if that’s what happens. There’s a reason the prosecution has demanded, and the judge has in one case allowed, that the jury consider lesser charges instead of the one they brought. Their case is a disaster, and they’re desperately trying to get a conviction on something, anything. But BBC audiences don’t know about the reality, so this news of a lesser charge being introduced must seem very curious indeed.

Quite simply, you cannot trust BBC reporting on this story. And it’s because of the personal ideological biases and prejudices of BBC journalists.

Invasive Species

Every now and then, someone will sneer at me, demanding to know why I, a United Statesian, am so concerned about the BBC, a foreign broadcasting organization. I usually bang out a quick diatribe about various issues, but now there’s a very clear example of why I see the BBC as a problem for people in the US to be concerned about.

Last year, the BBC hired a young German immigrant, Franz Strasser, to produce various “bespoke” video magazine pieces about, mostly, racial issues in the US. First he did a dishonest series about immigration. The US division head also had several Beeboids produce a series of videos about – again, mostly racial – issues in the US in the year leading up to the 2012 election entitled, “Altered States”. One of the installments by Strasser found him making a dishonest race-baiting story about a “racial divide” in St. Louis, MO.

I discussed it at the time here.  Please read the whole thing before returning to this post. In summary, my point was that Strasser and his editor deliberately left out the real key to the situation in St. Louis: absolute control of the city for decades by Democrats. Furthermore, nearly half the Aldermen (the equivalent of a city council, the real decision makers on city policy) are African-American. It was 13 out of 28 last year when Strasser did his initial race-baiting report, and there are 12 now. All but one of the 28 people who essentially run the daily business of the city of St. Louis are Democrats.

Why do I care? Because apparently Stasser’s story went viral, and got the attention of racial justice activists and politicians who knew a good angle when they saw it. Strasser’s report became a big hit, got lots of attention, and now there’s a renewed racial dialogue of some kind. What will this change? Not a damn thing. As I explained in my initial post, it’s the Democrat policies which have caused the situation. I submit that it’s simply not possible for a truly racially divided city where the rich white man is keeping the black man down to have 12 Aldermen. Additionally, I say that, if we’re to take the story seriously that white politicians in St. Louis have kept the black man down, this also puts the lie to Jonny Dymond’s and the BBC’s contention that the Republican Party is the racist one, because the city has been ruled by white (and black) Democrats for decades.

This new racial dialogue which will ignore the elephant donkey in the room will only worsen racial animosity in the city. It will increase the anger, the sense of victimization among the African-American community. One only has to listen to the locals in this latest video report to see the obvious. What’s most appalling is that the African-American community really has been victimized for decades: by the Democrat Party and the African-American leaders who have willingly contributed to the destruction of their own people’s futures.

Yet the BBC doesn’t care about that. They see only race, and refuse to admit that Democrat – Left wing – policies might be part of the problem. Now the city of St. Louis is going to be come more polarized, all thanks to the intrusion of a foreign broadcasting organization, one which is actually the official state broadcaster of the UK. And the BBC is clearly proud of what they accomplished here. After all, their report garnered lots of attention, and started a “dialogue” on the very issue they were pushing. Never mind that it’s dishonest and biased. The BBC will tell me that it’s no such thing, of course, and that they got it about right.

Imagine the outcry if Fox News set up shop in Britain and started sending reporters around to try to achieve change, to engage in a bit of social engineering, to highlight issues US natives who work for Fox News thought were important, and reported it all from a right-wing perspective. Yet defenders of the indefensible and worshipers of the BBC have no problem with the reverse situation. The BBC is spending more and more money, and doing more and more to increase their footprint in the US, in pursuit of both filthy profits in the form of advertizing revenue and – more importantly – as Jeremy Paxman put it, to “spread influence”. This is beyond their remit as laid out in the Charter, yet the BBC continues to grow and spread influence unchecked. Everybody’s worried about some silly management culture when the real problem is the attitude of the people making the broadcasts.

The BBC is now having a real effect on US politics. It is an invasive species, a malignant foreign body invading my country. Next time somebody tries to ridicule me for caring what a foreign media outlet gets up to, I’ll point them to this story and leave it at that.

TRAYVON MARTIN

I see that “America’s first black President” (to quote Mark Mardell) has decided to weigh on and heaven forbid, gain a little political capital from the killing of the black teenager Trayvon Martin. Naturally this is reported with bated breath although even Mardell admits that  “These remarks are rare and deliberate, and some will find them controversial.” I guess the “some” Mardell refers to might be the parents of all those non-black teenagers murdered and sent to their graves without a word from “America’s first black President”?

Here’s the sort of analysis that the BBC would run a mile from allowing on their channels;

Why should the leader of the free wold dive head first into a racial controversy that has been blown far, far out of proportion by those who seek to use the death of a young black man for their own personal agendas? 

A Hispanic man shoots a black kid where no one knows the exact circumstances in which the shooting occurred and where we are likely never to know what happened. Instead of waiting for the facts, narratives have replaced truth and we have a full blown racial incident when it isn’t even clear that race was a factor. Obama could have said – should have said – “no comment.” Instead, he sought out an opportunity to stoke the fires of race hate:

Obama as a stoker of race hate? Surely not? I can remember being admonished by the BBC for referring to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as race hustlers so I can but imagine the reaction if I included their President of choice in the same category.

IS IT COS I IS A CRIMINAL?

Well then, it’s been a busy morning on the BBC pushing the old “Institutional Racism” narrative. I do hope Diane Abbott was listening. It seems that whether we like it or not, the Met just can’t stop themselves from stopping and searching disproportionately large amounts of black youth.
As Lord Adebowale puts it, “this is poor customer service”. Just one point. Wonder why NO ONE on the BBC mentioned this little detail?  Still, never let the facts get in the way of the narrative, right?.

BLACK IS BLACK

The BBC obsesses about race whilst most of us just happily get on with our lives treating individuals as we find them, disinterested in such group collectivism. Biased BBC Contributor Alan notes;

Black is a Country’

‘….exploring the extraordinary underground music generated by the Black Power movement of the late Sixties and early Seventies: radical, beautiful and rare.
Black music as a whole became far more vocal in its opposition to white mainstream society. Meanwhile Africa became as a powerful symbol for a younger generation of black American artists, a source of political identification, spiritual sustenance and often exotic, musical inspiration.’

A coincidence surely and not conspiracy by a left over Marxist revolutionary at the BBC romanticising the Black Power movement and hoping for a similar Black revolutionary movement to spring up here….but you have to question the BBC’s timing on broadcasting this programme right after the convictions of Stephen Lawrence’s killers.

It is a good programme without doubt but it is unquestionably crafted not merely to inform but also to excite and incite….any disaffected black youth listening to the sensual tones of the narrator overlaid with the almost poetic rants of the radicals and all uplifted by rousing rebellious music would certainly be drawn into the romantic image and then the ideology underlying that ‘image’…..are they intending to turn ‘Black is a Country’ into a rallying call?

Nonsense….just me going off the deep end. Or is it? When a Black MP plays the race card and is clearly intent on separating out Black people from society as a whole…..although who is ‘Black’ is clearly contentious…..the tweets reveal some are not ‘black’ enough….

HackneyAbbott Diane Abbott MP @bimadew White people love playing “divide & rule” We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism

HackneyAbbott Diane Abbott MP @bimadew Ethnic communities that show more public solidarity & unity than black people do much better #dontwashdirtylineninpublic

Jonny Dymond And The BBC Want To Inspire Your Hatred

In the Open Thread, Anthony Masters calls our attention to Jonny Dymond’s hate-mongering piece about an alleged “explosion” in hate groups in the US because we have a black President. Stop me if you’ve heard this Narrative before…..

I say it’s hate-mongering and not reporting, because the intent here is to make you hate millions of people like me by falsely associating them with a few ugly extremists. This isn’t about raising awareness of anti-Semitism or racism: it’s about creating the impression in your minds that any opposition to anything done by a black President is due to racism and extremism rather than any legitimate policy concerns. There is no valid journalistic reason for this report.

Dymond’s only real source for this story is the Southern Poverty Law Center. Well, while it used to be a respectable advocacy group with a history of fighting the Klan, it’s come to resemble a far-Left hate group with a pro-Democrat agenda in the last few years. They started this Narrative that we’re all out to get the black man over two years ago, and don’t care about facts. They’ve become a propaganda outlet, so it’s only natural that the BBC would look to them for information.

Here’s all you need to know about the SPLC:

Southern Poverty Law Center Still Peddling Lie That Giffords Shooter Was Right-Winger


What a shock: it’s the same lie the BBC peddled. (Bias bonus: Rachel Kennedy tweeted a link to the HuffPo to support the lie.)

Unlikely Foes

A group of leading genocide scholars this month sent the center a stinging letter, obtained by Inside Higher Ed, that charges the center with getting out of a lawsuit in part by assisting “unscholarly and unethical” efforts to cast doubt on the Armenian genocide.

They’re even being sued over libel on this issue:

Scholar’s libel suit proceeds against Southern Poverty Law Center

Guenter Lewy’s very interesting libel case against the Southern Poverty Law Center can proceed in the District of Columbia, a trial judge ruled Tuesday.

This one is worth watching.

Lewy is an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. A survivor of German violence against Jews during World War II, Prof. Lewy has written numerous books and articles about the history of persecuted peoples. In 2005, the University of Utah Press published his book, “The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide.”

Dymond and the Beeboid who hooked him up with the SPLC probably have no idea. It’s not important to the Narrative.

Does the Southern Poverty Law Center think Barack Obama is spreading hate?

They’re adding 13 new groups to the list of hate groups for opposing homosexuality. Now some of those groups do appear to be a bit extreme, but others such as the Family Research Council and National Organization for Marriage are hardly outside the political mainstream, and still others seem to be condemned by the SPLC for no reason other than adhering to biblical teaching on homosexuality.

This is perfect fodder for Dymond. Don’t agree with the BBC’s core values? You’re an extremist and hater. (Unless you’re Muslim, that is.)

Liberals desperate to connect the Tea Party with domestic terrorism

Tea Party leaders say a series of reports by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) attempting to connect the Tea Party movement with domestic terrorists in the militia movement shows how desperate the left has become trying to stop the political juggernaut.

The group says individuals such as Glenn Beck, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann — all regulars at major Tea Party gatherings — have given widespread visibility for ideas espoused by the militia movement, or the “Patriot movement” as SPLC calls it.

No wonder Max Deveson or someone similar sent Dymond to the SPLC to form the foundation of his report. Too bad they’re not very reliable these days.

The SPLC said there was a big KKK rise in Rhode Island, but police found no evidence.

In short, the BBC had a Narrative they wanted to establish in your minds, the same one they pushed down your throats before the 2008 election, and the same one they shoved down after it about the rise of the Tea Party movement. Now that their beloved Obamessiah is in trouble, they’re doing the exact same thing again. They had a story they wanted to tell, so some Beeboid in the US hooked Dymond up with the SPLC. These people see racists and extremists in every closet, under every bed. Everywhere except where they really ought to look.

Where were they when Leftoids were calling for the lynching of a black Supreme Court Justice?

Don’t trust the BBC on US issues. Ever.

Sometimes Racial Voting Is Approved by the BBC

The BBC approves of voting for one’s own ethnicity: when it’s Mexicans doing it.

Border politics in Texas ahead of the mid-terms

I know I’m late in getting to this, but it’s been a long week. In any case, at the beginning of the clip (just after the intro voice over) listen to what the candidate on the stage says: “…we need workers…” Remember that for later.

Andy Gallacher is in a town where both the Democrat and Republican candidates are Mexican-American. The Democrat (the guy who says we need workers) says it’s an honor to be elected to serve, and diversity is what makes this country great. We’ve all heard that before.

Gallacher talks about how the race of candidates matters, but asks, since both candidates are of Mexican descent, how do the voters feel now? He gets a couple of Mexican-American vox pops to say that issues are more important than race. What a shock.

For what seems at first like no reason, Gallacher then speaks to a Mexican-American academic who says his research shows that, regardless of what they say beforehand, most people vote for the race in the end. The Beeboid even helpfully says, “for their own kind”. In stark contrast to all BBC reporting about white people, either in the US or UK, this is presented as a good thing. Hispanics need Hispanic representation. Never mind any non-Hispanics living in the area. If one non-white ethnic group has the majority, then it’s important for someone of that ethnicity to represent them in government.

I say it seemed at first there was no reason for Gallacher to bring in this academic to talk about racial voting because both candidates are of the same ethnicity. So why talk about whether or not the voters will vote for a Hispanic candidate? It’s a moot point.

Then we got to the part where he talks to the Republican candidate. Horrifyingly, he’s wearing a US flag pin on his lapel. He says he’s proud to be an American, while still being proud of his heritage. But for him, American comes before Mexican, as one is his cultural background and the other is his country. He also has lighter skin, no ethnic mustache, and no trace of the Mexican accent like his Democrat opponent does.

So he’s presented to the viewer after the academic who speaks of racial voting because he’s clearly a traitor to his race. He doesn’t talk about diversity, so he is no good. The subtext here is that the Mexican-American voters will and should vote for the candidate who is more proud of the Mexican part than the American part.

Remember the beginning of the clip where the Democrat said in his speech that “we need workers”? Of course he’s talking about the racial politics of illegal immigration. When he spoke of diversity to Gallacher, he was spouting the same old theme we heard a few months back on the BBC that it was racist to be against illegal immigration. Of course the qualifier “illegal” is absent now, as it always is when advocates speak. The Democrat doesn’t care about the law: he cares only about his race. When he’s talking about “diversity”, he means we should grant amnesty to people who look like him. How bringing in more of the same will lead to diversity is beyond my tiny little brain.

The Republican doesn’t talk that way. Or at least isn’t encouraged to by the Beeboid.

The thing is, there’s racial politics everywhere in the US. Right here in New York, former mayor (African-American) David Dinkins endorsed the non-white candidate for State Senate in the Democrat primary in my neighborhood. Here’s his reason:

I grew up in Harlem where we taught that New York City is a melting pot. Well I don’t agree with that. I have always said that we are a gorgeous mosaic. We have as many separate ethnic identities as the United Nations. That’s why we have a parade about every hour and a half. But it is important, it is so very important, particularly for the people of this district who vote on Tuesday to recognize how important it is to understand that the city is changing. Most people in the city are going to look more like us than others and that’s just a fact. It is not a bad thing. It is frankly a good thing.

Imagine if Giuliani had said the equivalent. The BBC would be all over it. Not only that, but Espaillat’s opponent was a Jew. You’ll never hear from the BBC that anti-Semitism is common in the African-American and Hispanic communities. And NYC isn’t a border town, so it’s inaccurate to portray the racial angle in that Texas town as being due to its proximity to the border. The fact that they’re Mexicans is obviously connected to the border, but not the racial angle in the abstract.

But the BBC approves of racism when it’s not white people doing it, so never mind.

"You can’t be racist towards white people"

Here’s BBC favourite Jo Brand during an interview with stand-in host Phil Williams on Radio Five Live’s Simon Mayo Show yesterday:

Jo Brand: My personal opinion is that you can’t be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced about them but being prejudiced isn’t an illegal act whereas being racist can be.

Phil Williams: Don’t you think racism is just being derogatory about a race, regardless of the colour?

Jo Brand: No I don’t. I think the definition of racism also encompasses political power. So you can’t be racist towards a race that’s politically more powerful than a minority. That to me is the correct definition of racism. I think you can be prejudiced towards a group of people who are more powerful than you, but I don’t think you can be racist towards them.

Have at it.

(The guest immediately before Labour Party luvvie stalwart Jo Brand was Labour Party luvvie stalwart Patrick Stewart. Both just happened to have signed a letter condemning the Tories for their links to the Polish Law and Justice Party. Coincidence?)

Dowd’s Political Quotes

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd claimed that when Joe Wilson shouted “You lie” during Barack Obama’s speech to Congress, what he really meant was “You lie, boy”. This made quite an impression on BBC correspondents Kevin Connolly and Mark Mardell who both quoted it approvingly. They therefore might be interested in the Ace Of Spades Top Ten American Political Quotations (As Recollected by Pulitzer Prize Winning NYT Columnist Maureen Dowd). The number one quote is particulalry interesting, and unlikely to be repeated by a BBC correspondent for the usual partisan reasons.

Update. BBC correspondents were very keen to highlight Joe Wilson’s past as an aide to one-time segregationist Storm Thurmond. In 2005 one-time segregationist and ex-Klansman Robert Byrd opposed the confirmation of the first female black secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. If you can find that mentioned in the BBC’s news reports you will have done better than me. Byrd is of course a Democrat and Rice a Republican, so naturally racism can’t have been an issue.

RACE RERUN

Further to my earlier post about the BBC’s obsession with racism in America, Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent (13.20 in) has served up yet another piece on the subject which goes over much of the same ground already covered this week by Mardell, Connolly and Esler. For this one the BBC invited Guardian columnist Gary Younge, the tiresome left-wing race obsessive, to do the honours. (You may recall that Younge’s brother Pat, the new chief creative officer of BBC Vision, recently demanded that TV bosses be sacked if they fail to meet diversity targets. Perhaps they should follow Radio 4’s example and employ members of the Younge family to help tick the boxes.)
Younge went over the Wilson/Thurmond connection for anybody who missed it when Mardell, Connolly, and Esler brought it up. He also took aim at Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Fox News. Pretty much what one would expect from a left-wing commentator like Younge, in fact. In a recent column for The Nation he described the tea party protestors thus:

Annoying, bizarre, incoherent, divisive, intolerant, small-minded, misinformed, ill informed and disinformed… the proportion of the country with whom there is no real means of engagement. These are the birthers, Swiftboaters, climate change skeptics, Obamaphobes and Palin-tologists–the base. They live in a politically parallel world where everyone they know believes the same as they do.

Savour the irony of that last sentence, coming as it does from a left-wing Guardian columnist who has just been employed by the BBC to echo the same views on “racist America” that numerous other BBC correspondents have already expressed. He continues (emphasis added):

They don’t like established facts, so they come armed with their own. The left has such people too, but they are marginal. With no news channels to promote them or Congressmen prepared to advocate for them, their views rarely reach the mainstream.

How about that Bush/Hitler poster in the BBC newsroom? How about MSNBC?

Would a right-wing columnist who made similar observations about loony left supporters of Obama ever be invited to do a piece for From Our Own Correspondent? Has a right-wing columnist ever be asked to do anything on From Our Own Correspondent, full stop?

Another point about Younge’s article in the Nation. He discussed the case of Kenneth Gladney, a tea party protester who was hospitalised after “a fight broke out”. Younge conveniently failed to mention that Gladney was beaten up by pro-Obama thugs from the SEIU. And in an unusual departure for Younge, he also neglected to mention that Kenneth Gladney is black. A left-wing journalist who smears conservatives and plays the race card when it suits but leaves it in the pack when it doesn’t fit his agenda. Just the kind of guy the BBC likes.