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, you’ll understand.

( Link stolen from the ever-alert Tim Blair ).

that the BBC saw fit to go direct to the public with their account of the David Kelly affair and the Hutton enquiry in a 90 minute docu-drama on BBC1 last week. Hutton watchers and commentators, perhaps initially taken aback by the audacity, are coming up to speed on the issue. Anthony Cox at Black Triangle has been focusing on some interesting points, and put me onto an excellent article by Dennis Boyles in NRO that goes some way to exploring the political manoeuvring that surrounds the Hutton Enquiry. In spite of the simple moral that Boyles extracts from this very British mess for any impatient US readers, it’s complicated, if fascinating- and totally worthwhile.

Almost as good though much shorter is this piece by the mercurial Gerald Kaufman in the Times, flagged up by Anthony as a critique of that docu-drama- a programme that I for one hope will become infamous as a blatant attempt to flex media muscle in the face of democratic and judicial legitimacy. Incidentally, flexing media muscle seems to me to have been the driving force behind the BBC’s news coverage for a long time now, and the coverage of the war in Iraq, as well as the Kelly affair, might well become the case study of that phenomenon for future historians. If they can get away with events like Wednesday night, I certainly wouldn’t say that the BBC is losing in its arm wrestles with Government. There’s one cheeky parallel here I’d like to finish by making, between dictators and the BBC: democratic politicians come and go, but the BBC and dictators go on forever. Now I can’t think why I should have been drawn to think along those lines.

Those who don’t happen to think it’s a good idea for 16-year-old unmarried girls to have babies and contract STDs may have to put up with a bit of mockery and sexual innuendo from BBC reporter Richard Alwyn. He tries to claim that the abstinence movement is treading dangerously close to unconstitutionality with funding from the Federal Government under the Bush Administration.

The tightrope that these groups must walk, however, is at the heart of the American constitution, which demands the separation of church and state. The Silver Ring Thing cannot spend Bush’s bucks on God.

But is this ultimately possible? The Silver Ring Thing’s ringmaster, Denny Pattyn, is an ordained minister. Abstinence, he says, is the brainchild of God. He has been preaching it for many years, only now he has a secular medical case to add to his Christian arsenal.

Apparently, Mr Alwyn, the US Constitutional Scholar, sees something sinister here. After all, ministers should be seen but not heard unless, of course, they utter some PC mantra. Then, and only then, will the BBC withold judgement. [Note to Mr Alwyn: In point of fact, the tax revenues spent by the US Government are subject to review regularly when voters let their Congressmen, Senators and President know what they think of their revenue spending every two, six and four years, respectively, when they go to the polls.]

Onstage, 16-year-old Nikki insists that being single is cool. She exalts (sic) her young audience not to cheat, as she would have it, on their future wives or husbands.

[Note to any awake BBC copy editor– I think “exalts” should read “exhorts”. Yes, it is confusing, covering these strange gatherings. Don’t get too flustered, ok?]

Mr Alwyn, it would seem, views the Christian minister heading up the abstinence organisation behind this event as a bit of a nutter. The man actually seems to believe the Bible to be true and encourages the young people in his charge to take its teachings seriously! Whoa!

….Denny [the minister] confides that he believes that the end of the world is nigh and that Christ will return within a generation. And so where does abstinence fit into that vision? Well, abstinence, he says, is a tool to reach young people for God, safeguarding them for the Second Coming.

Amazing–a minister who believes in Christ! What will they come up with next?

A Daily Telegraph reader writes:

Re: Humble pie hard to swallow

Date: 24 January 2004
Sir – The BBC deserved to see its audience share fall away during the Panorama special, which amounted to a no-holds-barred internal examination of the role of the corporation (and others) in the matter that is the subject of the Hutton inquiry.

It was both disingenuous and discourteous to broadcast this piece, no matter how much humble pie and some would say well-timed self-criticism it included, only a week before Lord Hutton is due to report.

If a multi-million-pound independent inquiry has taken place, surely the BBC needs to be neither defiant nor apologetic in advance of Lord Hutton’s findings and must have strayed perilously close to impinging on his unfettered jurisdiction.

Had the Government proposed a prime ministerial broadcast of even a few minutes in the same vein in advance of the Hutton report, there would have been widespread outrage, and rightly so.

The BBC has further undermined its reputation by once again perceiving itself in some way to be above or outside the conventions that attach to the inquiry.

Ultimately, the corporation will have only itself to blame should it find its supposed impartiality further questioned – as well as the issue of whether it should continue to have unique financial and editorial status in its present form – after this ill-timed, ill-advised and heavy-handed pre-emptive strike.

From:

Simon Coulter, Fuengirola, Spain

, writing illuminatingly at Tech CentralStation, high-mindedness, prejudice and inaccuracy go hand in hand at the BBC.

The Panorama show last night on the Hutton Enquiry was riveting viewing. The most interesting part was where the unbroadcast interview with Dr Kelly was shown:

‘INTERVIEWER (SYNC) Are they an immediate threat?

DAVID KELLY (SYNC) Yes, they are. Even if they’re not actually filled and deployed

today, the capability exists to get them filled and deployed within a matter of days

and weeks, and so yes, they’re a real threat.’

I think Natalie was being kind to the BBC on this point – the BBC has even spun this.

Democrats Slam ‘go it alone’ Bush.

Umm, for a start, why did the BBC website give this top headline billing, many hours after Bush’s speech? At the same time yesterday evening on CNN, the headline was ‘Bush: ‘Stay The Course’ ‘- which may be hinting that Bush is a beleaguered President, but is not influencing the political momentum much either way. Meanwhile, the Democratic response was given a subheading at CNN, ABC, and CBS, and on alternative British sites the Bush speech itself was a subheadline. My understanding is that the State of the Union Address is the President of the United States’ big moment, when he gets the opportunity to be heard and to make his assessment of the, uh, state of things in the Union. Yes, the opposing side get an official chance to respond, but that’s secondary, not of equal billing. Just what did the Democrats do that was so exceptional as to overturn this? It was Glenn Reynolds who said ‘Bush looks better now that the Democratic reply is on’, but obviously the Beeb didn’t agree.

The second thing is that, although it may seem unfair to reasonably well informed people for the Democrats to attack ‘go it alone Bush’, on reading the BBC site we don’t find that bit of the Address where he himself listed many of the thirty-five countries that have sent troops to Iraq. This is suspicious, partly because the multilateral thrust of Bush’s comments have been described by conservatives as the strongest part of it, and the Democrats are thus naturally trying to take away whatever gloss they can. This ‘money’ quote in particular is noticeable by its absence:

‘There is a difference… between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few.’

The BBC, by not reporting that emphasis and instead headlining the Democrat attack on ‘isolation’, give the Democrats a chance to score points unopposed- kind of a reverse of State of Union logic- in spite of the actual record of Bush’s speech. A related issue is that the ‘Key Point’ page the BBC devotes to Bush’s speech is clearly a ‘Most Boring Key Points’ page, with colour and specificity drained out. Since the BBC has a history of describing Bush as isolated over Iraq, and has frequently ‘forgotten’ the range of countries assisting the US militarily, at this point the Democrat’s strategy and the BBC’s editorial slant coincide to negate the impression that George Bush’s policy on the War on Terror is reasonable or sustainable. Biased old BBC. For any US readers or Bush sympathisers who would like a British antidote to this particular anti-Bush slant, Alice Bachini is a pick-me-up from point 1 on.

The late Dr Kelly, reports the BBC with an audible sigh of relief,

… said it would take Iraq “days or weeks” to deploy weapons of mass destruction.

Whole days, eh? Sheesh, what’s all the fuss about then? No one cares about what happens days or weeks from now.

His view, at odds with the claim Iraq could launch weapons in 45 minutes, is in a previously unbroadcast interview to be shown in a BBC Panorama special.

And with those words “at odds with” the BBC is vindicated. Isn’t it?

We’re doomed anyway. Pass me that burger.

: Those pesky unilateralists.