Category Archives: Up All Night

OLBERMANN ON THE BBC

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This is another post about the Tuscon shootings, but I’m not apologising because the BBC seems to be getting even more partisan about the affair, difficult as that may be to believe. Tuesday’s Up All Night on Radio Five Live gave Keith Olbermann the best part of twenty minutes to slag off the American right while presenter Rhod Sharp tossed up softball questions and agreed with every pompous sanctimonious comment from the MSNBC blowhard. Sharp’s evident political bias was matched only by Olbermann’s stunning self-righteous hypocrisy. Once you’ve listened (if you can bear it, that is) compare the butter-wouldn’t-melt moral posturing from Olbermann with this little collection of anti-Bush rage:

Incidentally, I know many of you have commented on the contrast in the BBC’s coverage of the Tuscon massacre with Jon Leyne’s report about the murder of a Christian man by an off-duty Muslim policeman in Egypt. No Pasaran has a blogpost about that very subject (and it’s attracted the attention of Instapundit).

UPDATE 17.20: More evidence emerges to undermine the BBC/MSNBC narrative:

“He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.”

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CASH PETERS UPDATE

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Rhod Sharp, regular host of Radio Five Live’s Up All Night, returned from holiday this week and on Wednesday morning received an update about recent events from Cash Peters:

Cash Peters: About three weeks ago I got into a little trouble with the very first stand-in we had, I got into a little trouble. We were talking about this RightNetwork, which is a conservative network, and I was going on about how I didn’t think it was very good – y’know it’s sponsored by Kelsey Grammer and he’s on it and I just didn’t like it very much. Well, I shouldn’t have said I didn’t like it because apparently I’m terribly biased for saying so [*]. Well then we breezed by that, I got over that crisis, then this week Kelsey Grammer writes to me and says…

Rhod Sharp: Oh, you’re kidding!

Cash Peters: Yeah – he’s following me on Twitter! I’ve now got Kel… I call it intimidation frankly, who knows what I’ll say about him next? But yes, Kelsey Grammer is following me on Twitter. It’s very exciting. I keep wanting to say something about him but then think nyah, better not. I better not say anything , it’ll only stoke the fire.

Rhod Sharp: That’s wonderful. Terrific. Terrific.

“Kelsey Grammer writes to me and says…”

Yeah, right. Try this – whoever runs Kelsey Grammer’s account decided to follow Cash Peters (probably as a consequence of Biased BBC) and Peters got the automatic “xxxx is following you on Twitter” email that everybody gets when someone follows them (such as nearly 10,000 other people have received from @Kelsey_Grammer) For the benefit of the BBC this became an ‘OMG Kelsey Grammer wrote to me personally!’ moment. And Rhod Sharp lapped it up. I’ve asked Peters about it on Twitter (yes, Twitter – like Stan with Facebook I’ve tried to avoid being sucked in but can resist no longer). I’ve had one somewhat evasive reply from him so far.

[*] “and I just didn’t like it very much. Well, I shouldn’t have said I didn’t like it because apparently I’m terribly biased for saying so”

Where might people have got that impression? This description of RightNetwork, perhaps?

“It’s all ‘Big business is more important than people, the rich shall not pay taxes, whatever makes a profit is far more important than people suffering.'”

Yes, nothing “terribly biased” about that at all.

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MORE CASH

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On his blog, Cash Peters is taking a stand against “the nutjobs and loons”.

He has responded to my post about him yesterday by comparing it to “Opposition arsonists who spread fear, irrational and baseless rumors, and a raft of lies about Obama in the hope of destabilizing his power to govern and discredit him and his administration.” Gosh! And armed only with his trusty raw vegetable and a healing crystal, Cash is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it any more.

“Read More…”

Of course, he refutes the claim that he is in any way biased:

For a start, I can’t remember when I have ever spat venom on the BBC… Second of all, I genuinely don’t have any political axe to grind in my slot… And lastly, I honestly don’t remember – and trust me, my memory extends back years – the last time the host and I discussed politics in relation to TV at all.

I’m not a regular listener but I’ve caught the Cash Peters segment enough times over the years to know this is rubbish. Sarah Palin in particular has been a target for his abuse, and he’s never slow to air his hatred of Fox News. There isn’t an Up All Night archive to which I can refer, but I do have a transcript of Peters talking to regular Up All Night host Rhod Sharp the week after Obama’s election victory:

CP: It was absolutely huge, and I know it was worldwide huge, but when you live in America and basically everybody’s waiting for a certain nincompoop to get out the office and they’re just praying, everybody’s on bended knee waiting for this idiot to get out the office and suddenly he is and he’s gone, he’s gonna be gone, it’s just the best. In fact you know Oprah was terribly partisan in all this..
RS: Almost as partisan as you, in fact…

So even the host has noticed.

And a bit later:

CP: [Still talking about Oprah] And now she’s said to Sarah – she banned Sarah Palin from her show because she was not going to be political (unheard word) – and now she’s said to Sarah Palin ‘You’re welcome to come on’. But who wants to give that woman any more publicity than she’s already had? That would be crazy talk.
RS: I think quite a lot of people do.
CP: Well she was on the Today Show this morning again. Matt Lauer went up to her home in Wasilla in Alaska in her home eating food and it’s like STOP IT! If you give her any… if you feed this monster, if you give her any more er, oxygen, she’s gonna be in, like, the Senate before you know it. It’s ludicrous.
RS: There you go being impartial again.
CP: No, I love all human life but she’s A MONSTER!

No political axe to grind? No venom? I beg to differ.

In his blog response Peters doesn’t really help his case by describing Christine O’Donell as “Tea Party neo-loon”.

He goes on to say:

“People are tired of fighting. Tired of untruths. Tired of the crazies getting air-time. And downright annoyed that the media affords them even a grain of credibility by discussing their nonsense views.”

And there we get to the heart of the matter. The media should be there to represent only those views acceptable to the likes of Cash Peters. Fortunately for him, Radio Five Live seems to share his opinion of what is and isn’t acceptable.

One more thing – given some of the New Age wacko nonsense he’s into, Peters should perhaps think twice before throwing around words like “nutjob” and “loon”. Some might say that he himself is one of the “crazies getting air-time”.

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LEFTNETWORK

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Daily Politics reporter Giles Dilnot is the stand-in presenter on Radio Five Live’s Up All Night this week. On this morning’s show he and the show’s regular conservative-hating US TV reviewer (and New Age goofball) Cash Peters discussed the new right-leaning TV network backed by Kelsey Grammer. Here’s the sneering, mocking exchange in full:

Listen!

Sweet irony – Cash Peters deriding a broadcaster for being one-sided when the BBC has provided him with a platform to spew his venom about conservative America for over ten years. A BBC correspondent who was as openly antagonistic to the American liberal left would have been dropped after one week. (Incidentally, are there any regular TV or film reviewers on R5L who aren’t lefties?)

Earlier in the show Dilnot asked USA Today’s Bill Nicholson about the success of Tea Party candidates in the latest round of primaries . “We should remain polite,” said the presenter, knowingly, before immediately pointing out that some see the movement as “down right fruit loop!” Clearly Dilnot has been watching the BBC’s coverage.

At least RIGHTNETWORK is open and honest about what it is.

UPDATE 21.15. Heh:

UPDATE 21.30. Don’t worry Cash, your star can only rise in the BBC firmament after this.

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