Category Archives: Shielding Obama at all times

Mark Mardell Writes Criticisms Of The President, But Doesn’t Blame Him For Any Of It

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The BBC’s US President editor (“North America editor” is a misnomer, as Mardell never discusses – with the lone exception of the heroic Pvt. Manning – anything other than US politics and things which affect the President) wrapped up 2011 with an assessment of where things stand for Him as we head into the election year. Mardell actually writes critically of Him, admitting that things haven’t gone so brilliantly, but manages to avoid blaming Him for any of it. It’s really an amusing bit of sleight-of-hand.

Before any defenders of the indefensible chime in with “There’s no pleasing some people: even when the BBC criticizes the President you’re still unhappy,” let me explain what he’s done here, and how this Mardell is writing from a partisan position.

The headline is a bit OTT, and can actually be interpreted as a sign that it’s not His fault:

Is Obama doomed in 2012?

This notion is supported a couple of times when Mardell states that the President was “dealt such a poor hand”, and how the economy will doom Him. None of it is His fault, you see. So let’s look at each of Mardell’s pretend criticisms and see how he doesn’t actually blame the President for anything.

He starts right off with this bit of dishonest Democrat spin:

Whoever wins the election in November, the result will leave the losers with a sour taste. The US could be a fractious, jittery place by the end of the year.s

 And it’s not fractious now? Haven’t we’ve been hearing how bitterly divided we’ve become from the Left and the BBC ever since the Tea Party movement rose to prominence? The country is already divided. What does Mardell think the 2010 midterm elections were about? The only question is what the percentages are now. By saying this, Mardell is shifting blame away from the President for the fact that the country isn’t as united as we were promised. Any real problems will be due to sour grapes, nothing to do with His divisive rhetoric.

Mardell then lays out what he sees as the two major factors in the President’s chances of re-election. Whoever becomes the Republican nominee will largely determine His fate. Personally, I don’t see any of them winning against the overwhelming combination of the mainstream media, Hollywood, and Wall Street money. Romney might do better than the rest, but I’m not sure he’ll excite enough of the non-Left or the Reagan Democrats to bother doing anything other than a protest vote for some fringe party. So that’s one factor which is going to benefit the President no matter which way it goes, I think.

The other factor, of course, is the economy. Here’s where the blame-shifting really begins.

There are glints of light, indications it is getting a little better. But another set-back in Europe could blow the US further off course. And whatever story of slight optimism the statistics tell, most Americans won’t be bathed in the glow of a feel-good factor.

It all started in Europe now?  See, if things go south, it won’t be His fault. Not a single mention of any of His policies which might have contributed to where we are now. Nothing about the failed Stimulus, nothing about the crushing regulations of the EPA or the looming 16-ton weight of ObamaCare or the $4.7 billion thrown down the Green Energy toilet. Worst of all, no mention of the fact that we haven’t had a budget passed since He took office. Whose fault is that, Mark? Can’t blame Europe or 2008 for that one. So he keeps silent. In fact, neither Mardell nor anyone else at the BBC has ever even mentioned it.

Any reader who relies on the BBC for information will have no idea, and so will buy into the “Trapped in a world He never made” Narrative. Which sets things up nicely for the one genuine criticism:

It is hard not to look back on the mood in 2008 without shaking your head slightly. There is little doubt President Obama has been a disappointment. He has disappointed many supporters, disappointed those in the middle ground, and even, curiously, disappointed his enemies.

The disappointment, of course, is that He hasn’t completely transformed the country as He promised, and as the far-Left hoped He would. But as we’ll see in a moment, that’s not His fault. Mardell has admitted elsewhere that he, too, bought into the hype, although he didn’t quite spell it out. The middle ground voters who bought into the hype will be genuinely disappointed, but as I’ve said, I don’t see too many Reagan Democrats voting against Him. Many of them still share Mardell’s mindset of “It’s not His fault”. As for the bit about the President having “disappointed his enemies”, I have no idea what that means. Who thinks He’s worse than expected? He’s been exactly as awful as I predicted.

In any case, Mardell’s choice to use the term “enemies” merely serves to further set Him up as a victim. The less emotive “opponents” or “critics” would have been better.

Obama loyalists will point out that no mortal could have lived up to the expectations heaped upon his head, especially when he had been dealt such a poor hand. They argue that he has saved the country from ruin, while accepting no-one gets credit for preventing disasters.

 There you go: nobody could have lived up to the hype, so any disappointment among His followers – or even among the middle ground who took a chance – is not His fault. We read that His worshipers claim that He saved the country, although I guess this piece isn’t the time or place for substance.

But it is also true that many of those who strongly backed him, and will still back him, think he has not been bold enough and has not confronted those who were always going to tear him down. 

 “But”? Usually, beginning a sentence with this conjunction leads to a conflicting idea. Yet it really doesn’t. Instead, it’s more of how worshipers will still support Him. And there’s more emotive terminology from Mardell: “those who were always going to tear Him down”, further contributing to the victim portrayal. Does he think there’s any possibility that someone could have a legitimate criticism of Him from the other side? It appears not.  No, anyone who opposed Him was always going to, no matter what He did.  It’s not His fault, you see.

Now it’s back to avoiding blame:

Many in the less ideological middle ground have the opposite complaint. They are often disappointed that instead of the dawn of a new politics, there has been a exacerbation of politics as usual.

One of Obama’s key appeals was as a healer, a bridge as one biography put it. He preached a future where Americans would work together, reaching across party divides. Instead, the bitterness, distrust, and gridlock have grown worse.

 Whose fault is that, Mark? Perhaps we got a clue during the first week in office of President “I won”?  Who allowed the Democrat leaders in Congress to write their dream legislation without bothering to reach across the aisle? Whose leadership is responsible for that?  Mardell isn’t forthcoming. Instead, we just get a “things are worse”, with the expectation that He’ll be unfairly blamed for that as well. In case you had any lingering thoughts of blame, though:

While he talked of changing the way politics was done, we have seen the same old Washington grow in strength and obstructionism, more broken, even less desirous of reaching solutions than before. Maybe that is not his fault. But it is not his triumph either. The obstacles have been piled higher, not blown out of the way.

 Again, we’re told that it’s more of a failure to change the world – an impossible task for which no one can seriously hold Him accountable – than anything He actually did. Not a single word about what the President might have done to contribute to this situation. What about the two years of Democrat super-majority where He was able – or rather the Dems were able while He sat back and watched – to ram legislation through Congress without real bi-partisanship? Was that out of His control as well? What about all the class war rhetoric in His speeches? What about all those lame “car in the ditch” metaphors? Has nothing He’s done contributed in any way to the gridlock and bitterness?

Nope. You all know the drill.  Say it with me: Republican intransigence. Now for some more of that victimizing language:

His enemies were never going to like what he was about, and what he stands for. They would never applaud his economics or his foreign policy.

Enemies. What He stands for. Again with this. So what’s your point, Mark?

But the best politicians earn a sneaking admiration for their skills even from those who detest what they do with their talents.

 So what? You’ve just reminded us for the third time that His enemies would never vote for Him no matter what, so who cares whether or not there’s a hint of admiration?  The whole point is that He needs to keep the middle ground interested.

Mrs Thatcher did. Tony Blair did. FDR did. (It’s probably true Reagan didn’t.)

Reagan didn’t?  What about all those Reagan Democrats, Mark? And please don’t expect me to believe that the virulent hatred for Thatcher – among her enemies at the BBC, for example – is any less than that of Reagan among the US equivalent. Not a bit of it. But again, so what?

But Republicans think Obama has handled the politics badly, and Congress worse. He has been politically clumsy handing both allies and opponents.

Hey, at long last, an actual criticism. But it’s a bit late in the game. Who could have imagined such behavior from a neophyte who had never handled major administrative tasks or been a real leader or had to actually work with anyone or done anything other than expect to get His way no matter what? Not Mardell, that’s for sure. Which is a shame, as he’s supposed to be such an expert political junkie. It just shows how much he bought into the illusion of Him, and how blind he’s been to reality the whole time.

So the charge sheet against him is long.

Nearly all of which Mardell just told us isn’t really His fault, or avoided placing any blame. Not a single reference to any actual criticism of Him or His policies from the other side. Only statements about “enemies” who always wanted to “tear Him down” no matter what. And there’s so much of His “rap sheet” left unmentioned: the ATF scandal and Solyndra, for example. Oh, that’s right, the BBC has barely mentioned any of that, so most of Mardell’s readers will have no idea. Equally, many on the far-Left are unhappy with His ramping up of Bush’s war policies: eternal rendition without charge or trial, and the worldwide drone apparatus allowing Him to do targeted assassinations of anyone He pleases, US citizens included. Oops, I forgot: the BBC has censored all of that stuff, too.

The odds are about even. So much depends on his opponent, the economy and his strategy. I will be following all three very closely, and you can read about it first here.

I think he’s a little scared. But we all know what the strategy is going to be: The Republicans will ruin everything, give the country back to the evil rich, and we need four more years to achieve all the Hope and Change. And the BBC US President editor will be right there to encourage all of it.

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Mardell Links to Conservative Publications, But Then Uses White House Propaganda to Defend the President

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First, let’s celebrate the fact that Mark Mardell has actually linked to two conservative publications in one blog post!  Must be a new record, and probably takes care of his quota for the next six months.  In any case, as usual, Mardell is wrong about most of what he writes, and pushes White House propaganda instead of the truth.  Although, there’s actually one – very rare – criticism of the President from the US President editor.

Whatever happened to the reset button?

Mardell reminisces about the pathetic “Reset Button” incident where Hillary Clinton was sent to Russia as part of the President’s attempts to prove to everyone that He’s not George Bush. He actually pokes fun at the translation fiasco, calling the whole display “cheesy”. It’s nice to hear him actually criticize something about The Obamessiah Administration, even if it’s nearly three years after the fact. He was still Europe editor at the time, so no record of his opinion then, although curiously his predecessor, Justin Webb, didn’t bother to comment on his blog. Actually, the first BBC report about it, from Paul Reynolds, censored news of the error, and it was only later after Hillary caught some heat in the US media for it that the BBC dared discuss it.

Obviously things are not going well these days between the US and Russia, so the BBC US President editor has to explain why it’s not really the President’s fault.

The first excuse is actually valid: Sec. of State Hillary correctly criticized Russia for the rigged election. There’s a hint of disappointment from the US President editor as well, which is pretty rare, about how His Administration spoke out against Russia much faster than against Iran or Bahrain. This is where Mardell links to the non-Left Washington Times (I had to look out my window to check for airborne pigs) for a negative opinion on the President’s reluctance to speak out against those governments.

It’s not really His fault that relations are bad right now, you see, because both Russia and the US have been in the middle of an election cycle. So naturally the rhetoric spikes up on both sides, ruffling feathers everywhere. This, of course, excuses the President for not having His Administration speak up sooner about Iran and Bahrain. It also kind of gives the idea that Hillary’s criticism wasn’t that serious, in part just a bit of noise to please the home crowd in an election cycle. An unintentional error by Mardell there, I think.

Then Mardell tries to prove that the President really has had some successes in dealing with Russia.  First, he tells us that Dmitry Medvedev is the President’s best friend among world leaders. That’s a really, really bad sign of His priorities and diplomacy if true. What’s funny is that this apparent fact makes Mardell and his Beltway buddies utterly confused about why Russia is reacting so strongly to Hillary’s scolding. Maybe Medvedev is actually useless and has no real influence and does not speak for Russia except as a figurehead to sign treaties? Anyone ever thought of that?

Now the spin really starts. Sensing that there’s concern about the President’s apparent lack of success in negotiating with Russia, Mardell points out what he claims are three successes.

First is the START Treaty. Mardell shamelessly links to the White House’s own propaganda page on it. He must be hoping that nobody has any idea that in reality the President caved in to Russia and told our allies in Eastern Europe that we were going to ditch the plans for a missile defense system there in exchange for Russia signing on to…um…agreeing to think about considering not making more nuclear weapons for a while. When even the BBC’s favorite rent-a-Leftoid from the US, Michael Goldfarb, says it’s not cool, you know it’s pretty bad.

Basically, we got schooled. Yet the person the BBC tells you to trust for an insight into US issues denies it and shoves actual White House propaganda down your throats instead. Couldn’t he find a nice JournoLista article about how it was a triumph?

Next up is the trumpeting of a joint-military action against some Taliban heroin traders. Here Mardell links to the second conservative publication (miraculous), the Telegraph, except instead of an “important agreement”, it’s apparently one operation and not much else. Grasping at straws there.

Lastly, Mardell portrays Russia agreeing to let yet another NATO country move military equipment (really just a step-up of a pre-existing agreement) through its territory into Afghanistan (a country they have an interest in keeping to heel) as a special success for the President.

Assuming that nobody bothered to look any of this up and his readers believe the propaganda, Mardell continues to defend the President.  It’s also not His fault because He really is pushing that missile defense set-up in Europe against Iran. Russia feels threatened and is behaving badly.  Wait: isn’t this the missile defense system the President caved on already? Anybody think Russia is really scared this time?

Another sad effort from the BBC US President editor.

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Stop the Presses: BBC Reports Obamessiah Gaffe! At Last!

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I had to pick myself up off the floor just now.  The BBC has actually reported a gaffe by The Obamessiah.  It’s another geography error.  He was in Kansas, but told the crowd it was great to be back in Texas.  Complete with video.

Of course, the BBC only reported it because He immediately corrected Himself. So it’s hardly even a mistake, right?  Safe to report. Unlike when He said He was in Asia when He was actually in Hawaii, or that He had visited 57 States, or said that Abraham Lincoln was the founder of the Republican Party (the BBC actually edited the error out before showing the speech to you!), or when he yelled “Don’t call my bluff!” during debt-ceiling negotiations with Speaker Boehner, or that He actually spoke out of turn during that toast to the Queen (rather than blaming the band), or wrote the wrong year in the royal guestbook, or showed that He doesn’t know the difference between King Arthur and Henry VIII, or when He confused a dead Medal of Honor recipient with a living one in front of the dead soldier’s unit, or when He talked about the building of an Intercontinental Railroad, or when He said, “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries”.

This marks the second time ever that the BBC admitted that He made a gaffe.  The only other time they reported something was the only other time He admitted a mistake.  He made a joke about the mentally and physically handicapped on national television, and even the BBC had to acknowledge it.  Otherwise, they refuse to report His errors.

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BBC Censorship: Billions Down The Green Toilet Edition

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Everyone here is by now well aware of the Solyndra scandal, where the deadly combination of campaign cash influence and the Warmist ideology of Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, led the White House to give over half a billion dollars to a solar energy company, owned by a top Democrat money man, which they knew was going to fail.  Several people (DB, John Anderson, and Cassandara King, to name a few off the top of my head) have posted comments about it over the last few months as the damning facts keep coming out, and I think it’s worthy of a full post.

The BBC has done exactly five reports on it (plus one brief mention during a Daily Politics segment on how government behavior might possibly drive up energy costs, and one even briefer mention in a story on Republican complaints about government spending).  Can’t say they’re censoring the Solyndra story, but it’s pretty poor reporting considering what they’ve left out. As far as I’m aware, the story has never made it to any of the flagship news-oriented programmes, and even these news briefs never seem to stay on the front US & Canada page very long, or get noticed in the Features & Analysis section.  In short, BBC News Online whips up a news brief every couple of weeks, and that’s about it.  Mark Mardell, the BBC US President editor, has never blogged about it, nor have any of the other correspondents dared bring it up.

But this problem is much more than just the one company.  The ideologically twisted Chu has thrown money at several failed or failing green energy companies, nearly all of which are connected to Democrats or Democrat campaign cash.  None of the battalion of Beeboids working on US stories has reported on any of them.  So now I’m going to tell you what the BBC doesn’t want you to know.

First, the money thrown down the Solyndra toilet was $535 million.  Even the BBC was forced to admit that the White House gave them the money even though they knew the firm wasn’t viable.  But notice that they censored the fact that the majority owner was the Kaiser Foundation, owned by one of the President’s top money men.  Since the subpoenas and Congressional investigation started, emails have come out showing that Kaiser was pressing the Administration for the money, even though they all knew the company was doomed from the start.  The best the BBC could do was admit that “a Democratic fundraiser warned that investors did not rate the chances of survival for the firm.”  They don’t want you to know – or, as difficult as this is to believe, felt that it was unimportant – that this particular Democratic fundraiser owned the company, and was the one pushing for the cash.

The House investigation is ongoing, and the most recent BBC report on it framed it as a strictly partisan affair, reporting that voting to subpoena the White House records on the loans was “along party lines”.  Pathetic.  So the BBC has massively played down any possibility of cronyism or political reasons for the loans, and tried to paint the investigation into this fraud as partisan behavior by Republicans.  The BBC’s coverage is mostly from the White House perspective.  The BBC has also censored news that the White House told Solyndra to postpone layoffs until after the November mid-term elections.

But as I said, this is just the tip of the Green Iceberg.

SolarReserve got $737 million.  That company part-owned by a firm run by Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law. Oh, and partners with another Kaiser Foundation company.  Cronier and cronier.  The company hasn’t gone bankrupt yet, but surely it’s only a matter of time.

SunPower, also in California, got $1.2 billion, thanks to lobbying from the son of a Democrat Congressman.  The company is now $820 million in debt, and rapidly heading down the green toilet.

Abound Solar, mostly owned by Democrat donor billionaire Pat Stryker, got $400 million.  So far, it seems the company hasn’t done much more than count the money.

Granite Reliable Wind Generation got $169 million.  That company is owned by CCMP Capital (NB: pdf file, pg. 29).  A former Managing Director of CCMP is none other than White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Nancy-Ann DeParle.  She was also head of the ObamaCare communications department back when the President was pushing for it.

The National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado got $200 million from Steven Chu. A top Democrat Congressman from Colorado works with them (whatever that actually means).  It’s now failing.


Beacon Power in Massachusetts, who were supposed to be building storage devices to make the highly inefficient wind turbines more viable, has gone bust.  They got $43 million of taxpayer cash, now down the green toilet.  Beacon was first brought to the government’s attention by Democrats: Sen. John Kerry and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.  Beacon is a spinoff of Satcon Technologies, who are cozy enough with the Democrats that they provided a fuel cell power plant for the 2004 Democrat National Convention.  That’s the one where John Kerry was the nominee.  Say no more.

Evergreen Solar got $5.3 million and SpecraWatt got $500,000 of that Stimulus money the BBC was so enthusiastic about.  That cash wasn’t directly from the Dept. of Energy, although it was from local authorities handing out Stimulus money allocated to them.  Both firms are now bankrupt.

Last, but certainly not least, is BrightSource, which got a whopping $1.4 billion in bailout funds from the Dept. of Energy. The principal investor is co-owned by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., co-conspiritor of Newsnight-trusted investigative advocate, Greg Palast. BrightSource was in deep financial trouble at the time, and the Dept. of Energy bailed them out.  The project for which it got the money is being led by NRG,

UPDATE:  I forgot to add that, while the NRG Political Action Committee sends campaign cash to both political parties, the majority of their cash goes to the Democrats.  Worse, the two top NRG bosses themselves seem to donate exclusively to Democrats.

To sum up:

Apparently something like 80% of the taxpayer cash doled out by The Obamessiah Adminstration to allegedly promote Green Energy and “green jobs” went to firms heavily involved with Democrats or Obamessiah campaign donors.  This adds up to nearly $4.7 billion thrown down the Green toilet, all for ideological and partisan reasons.  It’s a combination of irresponsible ideology and old-fashioned corruption.  Some may call it Venture Socialism, but I call it Crony Corporatism.  This is all hidden from you because it makes the President look bad. 

As the Solyndra investigation goes on, we’ll start hearing a lot more about this stuff, and the BBC will continue to hide it from you. I think the end result will be calls for Chu to step down. As the 2012 election looms and we approach next November, the President just might throw him under the bus. It’s not like this has been ignored by the press, either. The BBC figures this isn’t as important as Natalie Wood’s death or sexual abuse scandals in college football, or celebrity gossip.  But they won an award for their online coverage of the US, so what do I know?  Your license fee hard at work, I guess.  Still, one can only imagine what the BBC editorial decisions would be had this stuff happened while Bush was in charge.

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