Category Archives: US presidential elections

SHOCKER: Mark Mardell Spins Romney, Then Plays An Obamessiah Campaign Video

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This is why I call Mardell the BBC’s US President editor instead of his official title, BBC North America editor. Mardell’s report about Romney’s trip to Israel leaves out the most important thing he said, and the second half of it is devoted to defending the President on the domestic economy issue.

Mitt Romney: US will stand with Israel

In the accompanying blurb, the BBC mentions that Romney said that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Yet Mardell strangely left that out. Why? He instead says that Romney’s show of support for Israel and strong stance against Iran is less about appeasing US Jews and more about portraying him as being stronger on foreign policy than the President. This is actually correct, and I’m left wondering why Mardell strayed off the BBC reservation here. He’s previously fretted over the Jewish Lobby, so it’s interesting that he doesn’t see them as the main factor here.

First, though, let me whine for a moment about Mardell’s offensive use of the term “Wailing Wall”. While I don’t expect him or any Beeboid to use the Hebrew, ha Kotel (literally, “the Wall”), as showing that much respect is reserved for Muslim holy sites, I do expect him to use the correct English term, “Western Wall”. The “Wailing Wall” is an outmoded stereotype, which comes from non-Jews observing the orthodox Jews’ style of praying. To the uninformed, it was said to sound like wailing. Plus, there’s the historical emotional connotation of this being the only part left standing of the Holy Temple, the only actual holy site in all of Judaism. This is also the only part of the Temple Mount at which Jews are allowed to pray, or even wear religious garb. Mardell should show more respect, and the BBC ought to educate it’s staff better, the way they do for Muslim issues. To many Jews today, the term “Wailing Wall” is offensive. The New York Times (admittedly with more concern for its Jewish audience than the BBC ever could have) uses the term “Western Wall”, and Mardell has no problem taking a page from their playbook when he refers to Bibi Netanyahu as Romeny’s “old friend”, so one would have thought he’d at least get that right as well. But no, he uses an outmoded stereotype temr instead. Whine ends.

It’s especially curious because he fails to mention Romney’s statement about Jerusalem, which is meant to speak to Jews everywhere, and specifically US Jews who are worried about the President’s increasing betrayal of our ally on this issue. Did I say “betrayal”? Yes I did. Has the BBC reported this? Of course not.

We all know by know that Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is not approved by the BBC’s editorial policy. Several people here have shown how they refuse to show it on, for example, the Olympics page for Israel. Yes, everyone knows it’s “controversial” because the Palestinians don’t accept it, and that the Muslim World hates it and wants Jerusalem to be Judenrein, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Knesset is in Jerusalem and it’s the functioning capital of the country. Outside factors do not decide the capital for any country. The BBC, of course, bows to the Muslim position here, and decides not to acknowledge Israel’s sovereignty on the matter.

Fortunately, the BBC has reported elsewhere that Romney said that about Jerusalem, and used the dodge of reporting other press reports about it as a means of showing how awful it was without having to make any messy editorial decisions themselves. Yes, the Muslim press is all about anger at appeasing the Jewish Lobby. So why does Mardell omit what many see as the most important statement Romney made? Could it be because he knows this will highlight the President’s increasing betrayal of a US ally on this issue?

I say betrayal because that’s exactly what it is. In 2008, when running for President, Candidate Obamessiah said Jerusalem was the capital of Israel. Now, He’s been distancing Himself increasingly from that position. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that His press secretary (personal friend of BBC Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News Ameirca, Katty Kay, and husband of her friend and business partner) refused to answer reporters questions about it. Watch the video below:

Yes, you saw that bit at the end right: the President now says that Jerusalem is up for grabs, going back on His word. No wonder the BBC’s US President editor didn’t want to admit what Romney said. If any defenders of the indefensible want to say that doesn’t matter because it’s in the blurb or on that other website page featuring Muslim anger about it, remember that most people will see only Mardell’s video report and not the website text, and so most will remain blissfully unaware of it. And for those wishing to play the source and not the ball, attempting to dismiss this because of who made that video, dispute this quote if you can, and dispute the video evidence above of the President’s original statements and Carney’s sad display.

In reality, Romney’s trip to Israel was meant to show everyone in the US who cares – remember, we hear about how evil Evangelical Christians are equally concerned about Israel’s safety just like the nasty old dual-loyalty Jews are – that he will not betray Israel like the President has been doing. Regardless of which side of the issue one is on, the facts of both candidates’ positions and behavior are there. Mardell spun all that away very nicely.

But that was only a fraction more than half of Mardell’s report. The rest was spent defending the President against the charges that He can’t handle the economy. In fact, Mardell merely states a few words of Romney’s criticism – the only acknowledgment by the BBC anywhere of that “You didn’t build that” gaffe!!! – then plays about ten seconds of the President’s own campaign video rebuttal, complete with the President Himself smiling and speaking to the camera. This is the BBC’s tacit admission that it was a big deal after all. Mardell then closes his report by saying what he thinks Romney’s stop in Poland will cover.

Basically, the President gets a chance to speak for Himself in a report about Romney, while Romney’s campaign gets only Mardell uttering one sentence from their side. In the end, Mardell spins away Romney’s trip to Israel, refusing to mention the most important issue from it.

UPDATE: Oh, dear, it seems I’m 100% wrong on this one. As we know, the standard line on things like this from defenders of the indefensible is that the BBC can’t be biased because other media outlets are reporting the same way. The killer line:

Instead of sending political reporters who report on politics, the foreign affairs reporters might have given us serious reporting on the international issues raised when the Republican nominee for president traveled abroad.

While Romney was in Israel, for example, he proposed a U.S. policy fundamentally different from the one President Obama has given us. Most of the political reporters on the trip missed the significance of the announcement.

Missed, or censored? So either Mardell is a useless tool who just follows along with what his DC Beltway colleagues say, he deliberately censored the key bit out to protect the President, or he’s just a poor political analyst and doesn’t deserve his job. But the BBC expects you to trust him anyway.

Mitt Romney and Lech Walesa Fail

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In the open thread, I made a comment that Lech Walesa was now on the BBC’s sh!t list for having spoken positively of and essentially endorsing Mitt Romney. Since Romney is the enemy of the President, I just knew the BBC wasn’t going to look favorably upon the hero of Solidarity and Polish freedom from Soviet oppression.

No prizes for guessing if I was right.

Mitt Romney Poland Visit Stirs Solidarity

Why, what do you know: it’s a negative perspective.

The Republican candidate is due to lay a wreath on Tuesday, to mark the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939.

But trade union movement Solidarity has distanced itself from the visit.

Mr Romney has just travelled from Israel where comments he made about the Palestinian economy angered a senior Palestinian official.

Yep, there’s even more space spent on the Israel visit, spun negatively, so even less room (On the internet? There are no space limitations. -ed) to mention that Walesa might have kinda sorta endorsed Romney. In fact, as of this writing, only half the news brief was given over to Poland. Wasn’t there enough slamming of Romney in your other reports, BBC? (If News Sniffer or The Wayback Machine show that the story “evolved” later and they make the piece at even slightly more about the actual Poland visit, I’ll post an update.)

The only part of Walesa’s remarks the BBC will allow through the censors is this bit, which is at least positive:

“He’s very open, and brimming with values, his wife is always by his side, he’s got five kids — we’re very much alike, I really like him and am pleased we met,” Mr Walesa told reporters.

Curiously, the BBC chose that over this bit:

“I wish you to be successful, because this success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe and the rest of the world, too,” Walesa told Romney at the end of their meeting Monday. “Gov. Romney, get your success — be successful!”

I wonder what editorial thought process went into that choice? In the interests of balance, of course, this is immediately followed by harsh words from the BBC’s trade union friends in Poland:

But the trade union movement, which originated in Gdansk and toppled Poland’s communist regime in the late 1980s, said it had nothing to do with Mr Romney’s trip to the city.

“Regretfully, we were informed by our friends from the American headquarters of AFL-CIO (trade union in the US), which represents more than 12 million employees… that Mitt Romney supported attacks on trade unions and employees’ rights,” Solidarity said in a statement.

I guess this is the best the AFL-CIO can do these days since they pulled funding from the President’s campaign in order to focus on themselves. Anyways, Walesa is then dismissed.

Mr Walesa and Solidarity have not seen eye to eye for some years.

In other words, Walesa’s words are now to be taken with a large grain of salt, right, BBC? Negative, negative, negative. To judge by BBC reporting, in the last few days Romney has angered the entire planet and appeased only a few wealthy Jews. Can’t wait for the stop in Warsaw to see how awful things are next.

The Foreign Bureau Of The White House Press Office Is At It Again

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The President and Mitt Romney have both given what they say are economic policy stump speeches in Ohio this week (on the same day, actually), and the BBC is right there to tell about it. Or, as this is the BBC, some of it.

Obama and Romney offer US voters election choice

US President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney have laid out competing visions of the road to recovery in back-to-back speeches in the battleground state of Ohio.

Looks like we’re going to learn about both visions, no? Well, this is the BBC, so:

Mr Obama offered what aides called a “framing” of “two very different visions” facing US voters in November.

The President “offered”.

Mr Romney accused the president of failing to deliver economic recovery, saying “talk is cheap”.

Romney “accused”.

Then follows six paras of the President’s criticisms of nasty Republicans who are responsible for blocking His Plans, with a bit of class war thrown in for good measure, plus shifting blame to Congress in general, as well as criticism of Romney. Then the BBC tells us the President is going to a fundraiser hosted by Vogue demoness Anna Wintour and Sex & The City’s (a favorite of Beeboids) Sarah Jessica Parker. The BBC does not tell you that the Republicans are having a field day making fun of the elitism in the ad campaign featuring Wintour. They probably think it’s great, and certainly their fellow travelers in the mainstream US media haven’t dared to criticize it. What the BBC also isn’t going to tell you is that this is just more proof that no amount of campaign cash for Romney can match the combined power of the MSM, the liberal elite, and Hollywood. That would detract from their “money talks” Narrative, which we’ll get to shortly.

Romney gets four less substantial paras, followed by a line about his own campaign agenda. That last sentence is very dry, but it’s not the BBC’s fault that Romney doesn’t have Hollywood and the liberal media elite firmly behind him.

Next, “correspondents” tell us the White House talking point for His speech. Then we’re reminded once again that the Republicans have raised more money than the President recently. This is to continue the “money talks” Narrative the Left-wing media and the BBC have fed us about Wisconsin. In case the reader is too stupid to get the point, they set up the money line by mentioning that Gov. Walker outspent his opponent. We don’t get any talking points about how to interpret Romney’s remarks, though.

The BBC then mentions the President’s latest gaffe about how the private sector is “doing fine”, and His backtrack. Except we know that the BBC believes that this was not a mistake and it’s only something opponents are trying to use against Him because BBC US President editor Mark Mardell has already written a blog post defending the remark.

They were wrong: the point was Europe and the president’s “prodding” paid off at the weekend with a big bailout for Spanish banks. But they’re not interested in that.

What they did seize on was the president saying the private sector was “fine” and then hours later having to say it was “not fine”.

You can see what he was trying to do. There are very sound political reasons why he wants to point out that it is the failure to maintain jobs in the public sector that is the problem. They are shrinking, whereas the private sector is growing, albeit very slowly.

Poor Mardell was not inspired by the President’s speech. Naturally, He still thinks the President is right about Romney’s economic ideas, even though it’s a gross misrepresentation. Romney’s criticisms of the President, however, are pretty much correct. The Stimulus didn’t work, ObamaCare is about to cause massive economic problems, and His Green Energy Plan For Us has been an unmitigated disaster. The problem is that, while the BBC has often reminded its audience that the President inherited a bad economy from a Republican Administration, they have never reported about just how catastrophically bad His Green Energy Plan For Us has been. They mentioned Solyndra once, but I think they got away with it. At no point has the BBC ever made a real report about all the billions thrown down the Green toilet, so the reader who relies on the BBC for information about US issues will know only about how Republicans got things wrong in the past, and not about how the President has gotten things wrong.

To complete the lack of balance, the BBC gives you video of some of the President’s speech at the very top of the article. At the bottom is not an excerpt from the Romney speech, but instead a campaign ad making fun of the President’s gaffe, which Mardell has already told you was the right thing to say but merely expressed poorly, and which this article has already explained as an attack piece, thus diluting its effect.

In the end we get no substance from Romney, only criticisms of the President, while we do get some substance from the President’s vision, along with some White House talking points for the defense.

Your license fee hard at work. Now it’s time to go watch some more “bespoke” video magazine pieces about the iPhone and some large hail stones in Texas. No need to report on anything that hurts the President like Atty. Gen. Eric Holder appearing in front of Congress regarding Fast & Furious and looking like James Murdoch in front of Leveson, calls for his resignation, calls to hold him in contempt, or anything of the sort, right, BBC?

Mardell Drones On

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The New York Times has a big feature out about the President personally approving every single unmanned drone attack, and boy is the BBC’s US President editor distraught. It’s been making the rounds of the media today, lots of debate, and Mardell is not taking it well.

Is Obama’s drone doctrine counter-productive?

It doesn’t make the President look bad in the mainstream media, but it sure angers the anti-war crowd. The report features several high-ranking Administration figures, and even Mardell realizes that they’re talking with His approval. It was clearly coordinated with the New York Times as an opening move in the official election campaign now that the Republican race is finally settled. I’m not sure this is going to go over very well on either side, and I don’t think it’s going to give Him any kind of boost in approval. What I think may be going is that this was all going to be revealed in a book due out soon, and the White House coordinated with gave some interviews to the New York Times to give His side of the story in an attempt to head that off at the pass.

The President has to tread a very careful line on the war against Islamist military and terrorist action. On the one hand He needs to keep the anti-war crowd on side and withdraw the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other, He has to reassure the rest of the country that He’s still taking strong action to fight our enemies. So on one side He’s ending the official war business in Iraq and Afghanistan, drawing criticism from those who say it’s retreat and leaving a mess before our work is really done, but on the other side He gets to have Bin Laden’s head figuratively on the spike outside the Tower of London.

These drone attacks are supposed to help Him walk that line, and it’s pretty obvious from the NY Times piece that’s the message He’s trying to send. He’s telling the people whom Mardell loathes as wanting justice “from the barrell of a gun” that He’s still keeping us safe. He’s also telling the anti-war crowd that He’s really on top of things, and doing this to avoid civilian casualties and not to worry because He has the moral authority to make these decisions. I guess when you win the Nobel Prize for Peace, you get to choose your targets.

And it’s killing Mardell inside. So he spends most of his piece giving you different voices critical of the whole drone process, the usual journo trick for expressing views by proxy. Some say they’re murder, he writes. Some say they’re illegal, and other say the strategy doesn’t work. Then he frets that the President will find the “sci-fi” aspect too attractive anyway, which is him expressing his disapproval of the drone attacks. Not a single word from anyone holding the point of view that maybe killing Al-Alwaki or Zawahiri might have prevented more attacks on civilians or troops or anything of the sort. It’s all negative. Regardless of which side of the issue one is on, there can be no question that this isn’t a balanced or impartial take.

It’s not difficult to guess which side of the issue Mardell is on. One can almost hear him sighing as he types the words. This warmongering continues to be the only one of the President’s policies about which Mardell is critical or has written anything negative. He eventually had to figure out a way to spin Gaddafi’s death as vindication for the President’s supposed strategy of “leading from behind” on Libya. He’s even criticized the fact that troops will still be in Afghanistan for a while longer, until security is finally handed over to the Afghans, showing that he doesn’t know the difference between that and a cease-fire. Amusingly, even though this reads like an angry letter from a spurned worshiper, Mardell still can’t quite bring himself to remind you the very relevant fact that the President has killed more people with these drone attacks than Bush could ever have dreamed of. That would just be too much negative about Him in one place, and we can’t have that.

His piece isn’t journalism: it’s an op-ed disguised as a question. But I guess that’s what he’s really paid to do, isn’t it?

Life In These United States – No. 5

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It’s time for another one. This one lasts 16:15.  I try to keep them down to 15 minutes, but I don’t have the benefit of all those BBC editors and producers.

As always, it’s meant to be a rebuttal to BBC coverage.

Life In These United States – No. 5

(Audio hosted by EyeTube)

SOURCES:

Insurers Must Credit Obamacare When Isuing Rebate Checks

Health insurers to pay $1.3 billion in rebates: study

White House website with Presidents bios

Judge deals setback to state unions on dues withdrawals

BBC US Election section (click on the map for Wisconsin page)

Wisconsin: DCCC Involved In Gubernatorial Recall

Marquette Law School polls

Daily Kos Wisconsin Poll

Wisconsin State Assembly

Wisconsin GOP Loses Senate Majority, After Recall-Targeted GOPer Resigns

Legislators file to run in new districts
Others won’t seek re-election

Obama Crushes Romney in Ivy League Campaign Donations

Calif. watchdog sees budget gap topping $17 billion

A gold-plated burden

How California Unions Hijacked the Golden State

Has the Golden State gone bust?

State bond ratings (PDF file)

California Cities Face Massive Budget Cuts, Default, Bankruptcy

New California Law Will Restrict Cities’ Access To Bankruptcy Under Chapter 9

Untouchable Pensions May Be Tested in California

Losses of factory jobs in California blamed on regulation

California companies fleeing the Golden State

California slipping toward bankruptcy, again (info about Redevelopment Agency fiasco)

Explainer: The end of redevelopment agencies

Reporting The US On The Bias

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“Cutting on the bias” in wood or textiles means cutting diagonally against the grain so that it accentuates the lines. That’s what’s going on at the BBC’s special section on the US 2012 election. It hasn’t been updated in a couple of days, and here’s how it appears now:

White House propaganda, White House propaganda, and more of it, with a couple of fluff pieces thrown in. The top story at the moment is the BBC’s explanation of the President’s first ad attacking Romney for his association with Bain Capital. It’s become more balanced than it initially was, as people here pointed out earlier this week, and presumably after somebody at the BBC realized it. It’s still not entirely balanced as they’ve got the President’s ad embedded right at the top of the piece, while including only a link to Romney’s rebuttal. The link below that is to a second attack ad on Romney on the same topic. No links to anything from Romney.

The “Latest news” section is slightly out of date, but the bias is still obvious. Besides the news brief about Ron Paul ending his “active campaign”, the other featured reports are about Hollywood feting the President for His recent endorsement of homosexual marriage, a piece about Romney reacting contritely to that Washington Post hit piece – now proven to be less than accurate, although the BBC has never bothered to inform you of that – about him allegedly bullying a homosexual a few decades ago (another score for the White House campaign machine), and a piece lamenting Sen. Richard Lugar’s defeat in the Republican primary for Senate in Indiana. We’re told by “correspondents” that this will make the Senate more partisan than ever. Translation: the Democrat majority won’t get their way so easily. This is a biased position, of course, shown to be all the more ludicrous since the Senate just rejected the President’s own budget proposal 99-0. You can’t get more bi-partisan than that, which is why the BBC has so far censored that news.

The video features also reveal the biased grain in the BBC’s perspective on the US elections. The section on Battleground States isn’t all that bad in general, and I won’t try to read too much into a perceived emphasis on Democrat optimism. But there is a blatant lie in the section on Wisconsin. You have to click on the State in the Battleground feature to read the following:

Barack Obama will be hoping to hold on to the sizeable majority he won in 2008, and will be helped by the state’s strong union movement. The unions have been leading the opposition to new Republican Governor Scott Walker’s controversial bid to restrict workers’ collective bargaining rights. The proposals led to mass protests and a successful attempt to trigger a recall election for Mr Walker’s job.

The bit I’ve bolded is, quite simply, a lie. What Walker did was restrict the right of public sector unions’ rights on collective bargaining. The BBC admitted that part when they first began reporting on this story, yet here they deliberately mislead you to think it’s an attack on all workers, full stop. I simply don’t accept the excuse that this was simplified due to space constraints or because it’s an unimportant distinction. And of course, by “controversial”, the BBC means that the unions didn’t like it. Another issue of bias here is that the BBC gives you only the Democrat unions issue, and not the budget disaster Gov. Walker faced upon taking office, which just as much a concern for voters. The budget concern is why Walker sought to restrict public sector union power and their burden on the State. It’s not all union workers everywhere, only the public sector ones, which is why I maintain that it’s an important distinction. As most people here will know, their coverage of the Wisconsin situation has been extremely biased and at times dishonest. Plenty of background can be found here, here, here, here, and here. I don’t expect the BBC to update this section with the news that the union-backed candidate lost the Democrat primary for the recall, which kind of puts a damper on the whole issue, making the BBC’s take even less useful.

The magazine piece explaining why candidates’ wives don’t win elections is reasonable, no bias there, for a change.

Next up is the piece by Justin Webb – Mark Mardell’s predecessor as North America editor, whose gushing reports about The Obamessiah during the 2008 election won him the coveted seat on Today – explaining why the Republicans aren’t ready to lead. My fisking of ol’ Justin’s piece is here.

Then you get Jonny Dymond’s biased piece telling you how the Republican Party is just for white men, freezing out Hispanics. It’s just one in a series of race-baiting pieces from Dymond, whose remit seems to be proving that Republicans and any opponents of the President are racist. See here, for example.

If you still aren’t convinced that Republicans/conservatives are awful, then you can move on to former Obamessiah activist Matt Danzico’s “bespoke” magazine piece about yet another one of those studies showing conservatives are inspired by negatives while liberals are inspired by positives. The study’s goal was to prove a biological and cognitive difference between liberals and conservatives. I won’t bother to address how this leads us down a path to eugenics, but suffice to say that it’s always liberals these days who want to use “science” to prove that they’re superior. Danzico, of course, slightly misrepresents the findings. Another way of describing the findings can be found in the University of Nebraska’s own school paper: conservatives tend to be more realistic while liberals tend to be more idealistic. I find it amusing that a student journalist spins the study less than an adult professional journalist.

And finally, there’s Adam Blenford’s piece worrying that too many people in the US aren’t registered to vote. Setting up the article by using a Republican as an example of a dedicated voter betrays the bias, if one understands that voter “disenfranchisement” is the primary motivation behind ACORN and Left-wing activists who encourage absentee ballots (Blenford uses the youth vote, another Left-wing target demographic, as his example there), same-day registration, and who attack laws requiring ID to vote, all methods behind voter fraud. Some people here may remember Newsnight hiring Left-wing activist and “investigative journalist” to do a special report telling you that only white Republicans engage in voter fraud, and specifically to disenfranchise black people. He also defended ACORN against charges of voter fraud by saying that, even though they do it, it doesn’t affect elections. If that’s not enough to convince you, just do an internet search with the term “voter disenfranchisement 2012” and see who’s worrying about it and what issues are the focus. It’s obvious.

While not every single report is riddled with bias, much of it is, and nearly every single piece on the BBC’s US Election 2012 page is written from a Left-wing perspective one way or another. There’s no memo handed down to make this happen, no directive from on high. It’s due to the BBC hiring what seem to be exclusively Left-wing staff. If they all think that way, there’s no need for an organized institutional bias: it will happen naturally.

The BBC Reporting On Behalf Of The President

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The other day, DB posted about the BBC’s dutiful promotion of White House propaganda about Mitt Romney’s earnings from investment in Bain Capital. They put up the President’s campaign video, and helpfully explained how awful Romney was for earning money off of a failed company and sending poor innocent workers to the unemployment line. The campaign meant to attack Romney’s business record, attempting to tarnish his track record of successfully turning businesses around, and hoping to undermine the growing mood of trusting him more than the President on fixing the economy. In short, it was an attack ad. And, as DB pointed out, it was misleading. The BBC still reported on it without question, and only belatedly (after someone called them on it, presumably) added a mere link to a Romney video hosted elsewhere.

This isn’t the first negative campaign piece from the President, who was supposed to be above it all. There was the attempt to hurt Romney with that silly dog story, which of course backfired. There was the charge against Romney and the Republicans for supposedly waging a “War on Women”. The President tried to frighten everyone by telling them that the Republican budget would be “radical”, and harm the middle class, the elderly, and ruin everything while helping only the wealthy. And of course there’s all the class war rhetoric, culminating in the ill-fated “Buffet Rule”. Most recently, we had the relentless coverage of what turned out to be a less than truthful account of Romney as a homophobic bully.

Now that the President is trailing Romney in voter trust on five different issues, the BBC, perhaps inspired by a piece in the New York Times last week, worrying about attack ads from Romney while at the same time encouraging the President to “push Romney’s face down in the dirt”, is rushing to His defense.

Obama campaign and Democrats raise $43.6m in April

Pity the poor President, they tell you, because He’s the financial underdog in this race. Sure, He’s raised more money than last month, but the awful Republicans are making these nasty attack ads. Worse, the poor President doesn’t have the same wealthy Super PAC to help Him.

Making the announcement, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said large sums were being spent by special interest groups against the president.

So you’re already prepared not to raise an eyebrow when reading this:

At the end of March, the Democratic Party reported about $124m of cash reserves, while Republicans had about $43m in the bank.

Correspondents say the Obama campaign could see a further burst of donations after his recent endorsement of same-sex marriage.

I bet “correspondents” aren’t even remotely cynical in that analysis, or suspicious of any motives for that endorsement other than sheer honesty and integrity, either.

Although Mr Romney’s direct campaign funding has lagged behind the Obama campaign, Republican super political action committees (super PACs) are spending millions of dollars backing his candidacy.

In a sign of the gathering super PAC offensive, one group, Crossroads GPS, backed by Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W Bush, said it would spend $25m on anti-Obama ads.

He’s the underdog, a victim, I tell you!

About $57m has been spent on negative advertising against the president since October, Mr Messina said in the Obama campaign video.

Are you pitying Him yet? Ire raised enough against the vicious Republican machine? No? Maybe the closing line will help.

Meanwhile, a super PAC supporting the president, Priorities USA, has struggled to match that level of funding, raising just $10m by the end of March.

And that’s it. Not a single mention of the attack ads His own PAC has been making. Like the one they released Tuesday, showing the poor former workers of that plant Bain closed, the same one with which the campaign and the BBC have tried to tar Romney by indirect association the other day. The workers likened it to being attacked by “a vampire”. Oh, and apparently Romney’s opponents used this exact same tactic against him in his failed 1994 campaign for Senate. The BBC won’t bother to tell you that, unless they can find a way to praise Him for the brilliant strategy.

Ads from the President’s Super-PAC are also going to be aired in several states over the next few days. Vice President Biden is out there now doing the class war thing as well, telling the people in swing-state Ohio that Romney is bad because he was a venture capitalist. But He’s the underdog, and only it’s all the Republican’s fault for going negative, right?

The thing is, campaign cash is only half the story. The other half – and perhaps the more important one – is the media being in the tank for Him. Again. Think it’s sour grapes from one of His enemies who imagines bias in every report, and finds conspiracies under every media hack’s bed? Think again:

Déjà vu: ABC’s Robin Roberts Admits She Got “Chills Again” When Interviewing Obama

Not so subtle Obama-rooting in the media

CBS’s Rose Fishes For ‘High Marks’ For Obama From Robert Gates

Then there’s that Newsweek cover. Plus, Hollywood is in the tank for Him again as well. Tom Hanks has narrated a 17-minute propaganda campaign film, all of Hollywood is re-energized for Him on the heels of His half-assed endorsement of homosexual marriage, and there will be a film about His heroic killing of Osama Bin Laden coming out in October. Even the BBC thought you should know about that one.

Despite the White House campaign’s attempt to portray Him as the underdog, and no matter how many times the BBC worries about all those negative Republican ads, no amount of money from any Super-PAC or the evil Koch brothers or Fox News can compete with the full power of the entire mainstream media, from the New York Times and the Washington Post to CNN and MSNBC and ABC and NBC and the LA Times and Time and so many local papers, plus all of Hollywood and much of daytime television.

Yet the BBC dutifully pushes that Narrative anyway, like a foreign branch of the White House press office.

Life In These United States

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I’m trying something a bit new and different here. After asking David Vance and the All Seeing Eye, I’m starting a real rebuttal to the BBC’s lame output about US issues. I can’t compete with the “bespoke” video magazine pieces, but I can provide a bit more information and analysis of real US issues that get spun by the BBC or simply censored out of existence. There’s much more to what’s going on over here than what affects the President or the latest racial issue or celebrity gossip, and there seems to be a vacuum which needs filling. So this is my humble attempt.

It’s not possible to provide a proper rebuttal in fifteen minutes, but consider this an opening salvo. If enough people agree, I’d like to expand this from just me providing some info to a live audio or video discussion, where everyone here can call in or whatever, beginning next week. But more on that later.

I’m also going to try and provide sources for everything I talk about, so everyone here can decide for themselves what’s going on. The BBC may not be held accountable for their actions, but the inhabitants of this blog deserve better. Hey, if you don’t want to listen to the audio, just check out these links instead.

Hmmm. Embed not working. Link to audio file on EyeTube below:

Listen to “Life In These United States No. 1” on EyeTube

Audio hosted on EyeTube. My thanks to ASE.

SOURCES:

BBC article on the President defending against criticism about Romney’s wife

USA Today/Gallup poll the BBC references without naming

April 12 poll showing Romney over the President

April 16 poll showing similar

NBC/Wall St. Journal showing the President over Romney

Foreign Status poll

Media Matters coordinating with the White House and feeding stories to the mainstream media

More on Media Matters working with the Administration – DOJ

Maldives/Malvinas Betrayal Gaffe

Mardell at Obamessiah Chicago HQ

Jake Tapper admits media influenced election

New York Times admits killing ACORN story

Joe Scarborough admits media in the tank

Washington Post in the Tank

Time Magazine says bias was disgusting

Washington Post Publisher selling access

Poll showing it’s the economy, stupid

BBC on the Buffett Rule

Buffett Rule reality

Wisconsin plus here, here, and here.

BBC on the GSA scandal

The President telling people not to go to Vegas

Vegas Remembers

Mardell on Mormons

BBC anti-Mormon film

Sen. Hatch is forced into primary

Alternative States’ Rights health care reform

Wisconsin Tea Party

Romney at Philadelphia Tea Party

San Francisco Tea Party

Chicago Tea Party

South Dakota Tea Party

 

 

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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The Knives Are Out At The BBC: It’s U.S. Election Time Again

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The second-most important election in human history is a mere 445 days away, and the BBC is already focused on informing you how awful the President’s potential opponents are. They’re especially focused on telling you how awful the people are who will vote against Him.

The BBC Narrative picks up right where it left off after the mid-term elections last November: racialism and fear-mongering about Christian Evangelicals.

The first sentence of Jane O’Brien’s report on the poll features her calling the winner, Michelle Bachmann, “the latest darling of the Tea Party”. I’m still waiting for a defender of the indefensible to show me an example of any Beeboid referring to a Labour or Democrat figure as anyone’s “darling”. It’s a pejorative, plain and simple, yet seems to be firmly established in the BBC style guide and is used time and again in this fashion with apparently full approval by the BBC’s editorial policy. And this is what’s used to start a BBC report allegedly intending to impartially inform you about a story.

Bachmann, O’Brien informs us, “narrowly” won the poll. How narrow? We aren’t told. Who came in second? We aren’t told. The next potential opponent of the President O’Brien mentions wasn’t even in the poll: Rick Perry. The only other name mentioned is Mitt Romney, who also didn’t even take part in the Iowa poll. Already the actual agenda is revealed here. This isn’t a report about the Iowa poll at all, or what the results mean: it’s about casting a harsh light on threats to The Obamessiah.

The BBC actually did a whole separate report on Perry already, so what’s the point of bringing him into what’s supposed to be a report about the Iowa scene? Iowa wasn’t the point at all, of course. It’s just an excuse for a BBC editor to tell his correspondent to do a quick report on who might be the potential threat to the President. Which they’re already doing elsewhere, as we’ll see in a moment. In other words, this was a complete waste of time, unless one has a specific agenda.

In fact, Michelle Bachmann won by a mere 152 votes. Congressman Ron Paul came in a close second. Tim Pawlenty came in third, and then dropped out of the race altogether. He never had much of a chance anyway. The three candidates pictured in this HuffingtonPost article aren’t even mentioned by the BBC at all. The actual results, out of a possible 16,892 votes:

1. Rep. Michelle Bachmann: 4,823 (29%)

2. Rep. Ron Paul: 4,671 (28%)

3. Tim Pawlenty: 2,293 (14%)

4. Rick Santorum: 1,657 (1o%)

5. Herman Cain: 1,456 (9%)

6. Write-in votes for Rick Perry, who wasn’t even a candidate yet: 781

7. Write-in votes for Mitt Romney, who skipped Iowa entirely: 567

8. Newt Gingrich: 385

9. Write-in votes for John Hunstman, Jr. who also skipped Iowa: 69

10. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter: 35

Notice who came in 5th, and remember it for later.

So Rep. Paul came in a very close second, barely off the margin of error, and not a single word about him from the BBC. Why? Quite simply because they’ve already written him off. Remember, the Beeboids believe that their mission isn’t really to inform you but to interpret stories for you, so you know what to think about them. You don’t need to know what actually happened at all. Paul has a devoted following. His advocates are very dedicated, hardcore, and like all extremely motivated groups are able to put a good number of bodies on the ground for things like this. That doesn’t mean his result here will translate into equal results on a national scale, but it’s worth telling you that. Imagine if he does rather better for a while than the BBC expects. He’ll be up there as a top contender, and you’ll all be going: “Who the hell is that? I thought Rick Perry came in second in Iowa or something?” Just like, for so many at the BBC, the Tea Party movement “came out of nowhere” (© Emily Maitlis during mid-term election coverage for BBC News on Nov. 2, 2010).

This is the inherent danger of trying to create, as the departed Matt Frei put it, “a rapport” with an entire country, rather than just straight-up reporting. The BBC should have just done a simple news brief on the actual results, with a couple paragraphs about the whos and whys of the top three or five. Job done, public informed, context provided for the larger picture, then move on to the big fish.

As others have already pointed out on the latest Open Thread, the first thing on Jonny Dymond’s agenda (after scoring some drugs, that is) is to tell you that the Iowa Straw Poll attendees are mostly white. Apparently he’s the new North America correspondent to replace Kevin “Teabaggers” Connolly, who has taken his own bias to the Middle East.

The reason to point out their skin color, of course, is simple: to create the impression that, whatever these voters want, it’s not “representative”, as Dymond makes sure to point out, of the rest of the country. Also, ultimately there is a racist subtext here, as we must always remember that racism is of course a primary motivating factor in opponents of the President. But, you may well ask, why didn’t Dymond or any other Beeboid cry “racism” about Herman Cain’s fifth place showing? Well, they don’t like him because he stated in the last debate that he didn’t want Shariah Law to become part of US law, and previously said that he’d want to know if any potential Muslim cabinet member of his supported jihad. You see, the BBC is capable occasionally of seeing past skin color when it suits them. But, as we saw over and over again in the BBC’s reporting on the 2008 Presidential election (the most important election in human history, from the way they covered it), and in their early reporting on the Tea Party movement, when it comes to a black man who holds the approved thoughts, any opponents have racism as at least a partial motivation. Like when Dymond describes the crowd as “white” in the same sentence he says they “really, really want to get rid” of the President. There is no escaping what he’s done here. Racism is clearly a card for them to play at the appropriate time, and their opinion on the matter is based on emotion and not facts.

Although, sometimes the BBC approves of and understands people who vote for their own ethnic group.

As for the demonization of the candidates themselves, note how Dymond and his editor frame their statements. Do the Beeboids ever use the term “red meat” when reporting on Labour or Democrat events? Dymond gets in an early scary code word: “revivalist” as a sort of subliminal set-up for the Narrative. It’s interesting that twice we hear the word “freedom” from the unnamed speaker celebrating Bachmann’s victory, yet the Narrative you’re given from Dymond and the rest of the Beeboids covering this is that religion is the key.

The problem is that the three vox pops featured have nothing to do with race or religion, but talk instead about economic concerns. It’s very clever how the BBC plays this. They give you the vox pops, the actual opinions of the voters, so they can claim impartiality in that they’ve provided the balance of opposing views. But Dymond and his editor bookend these statements with his racialist qualifier and then afterward by saying that Bachmann is popular because she’s a “social conservative”. Did anyone hear that given as a reason in the vox pops? No. It’s almost as if the BBC is telling you not to listen to them. The Beeboids sure as hell don’t, so why should you, eh?

Naturally, the bit of Bachmann’s speech they let you hear is the religious stuff. This is the BBC Narrative in action, making you forget all about the actual statements of the voters. Then he skips the rest of Iowa to talk about the same thing O’Brien did: someone they see as the real potential threat to their beloved Obamessiah, Rick Perry. In case there’s any doubt about the agenda here, the title of Dymond’s piece is about how the Republicans “lash Obama”. Do you need to know what happened? What the voters really want? What the candidates are really about? No. All you need to know is that they’re white, Christian, and are attacking the President. All this silly economics stuff the country has been talking about is by the by. Social Conservatism is the real issue here for the BBC. I guess that means Justin Webb’s book about its “strange death” was a load of BS? Nah, it was that kind of brilliant insight which got him the Today seat.

In case there are any lingering doubts about the BBC’s agenda here, and what they want you to think is the real problem, just read the first words at the top of their piece on Rick Perry:

Perry led 30,000 worshipers at a prayer rally

Yes, of course the excuse here is that the video clip is of Perry at a prayer rally. What about his actual track record as Governor of Texas? Did he turn the state into an Evangelical theocracy or what?

To his supporters, he’s the man who fixed Texas and can answer the country’s economic prayers. Could Rick Perry, who has announced his intention to enter the presidential race, overcome his doubters and end up in the White House?

Oops, the focus is on the economy here. Must switch gears.

The Texas governor ticks many of the boxes on the party’s wishlist. He’s a socially conservative Christian with a record of cutting spending, who can boast that he restored to health the finances of the second largest state in the US, without raising taxes.

There, that’s better. But hey, what’s that about solving the state’s economic problems without raising taxes? The BBC never mentioned this during the whole debt ceiling agreement saga. Curious.

Mr Perry also shares one important quality with his other main Republican rival, Michele Bachmann, who topped a straw poll in the crucial state of Iowa at the weekend. They can both fire up an audience, as he demonstrated a week ago at a prayer rally in Houston which left some of the 30,000 worshippers in tears.

Prayer. And, horrifyingly, he left people in tears over whatever Christian stuff he was talking about. See, it was okay when The Obamessiah went to church. It was okay when He spoke with black church leaders. Did anyone ever see such an emphasis on His Christianity? No. In fact, it had to be played down a bit because of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright problem.

Here’s the thing. I’m not saying that the religion and social conservative thing is a non-issue in the US, or trying to make you think that it’s not at all important to non-Leftoid voters or anything of the sort. What I’m saying is that it’s not the most important issue at all, and that over and over again we hear from the public that the economy is the number one concern which dwarfs all other issues, while the BBC continues to frame things as being the other way round.

Getting back to the piece on Perry, though, it’s amusing to see the BBC suddenly remember that someone was fixing economic problems with the kind of small-government attitude the BBC was denigrating so recently. The problem for the BBC here, though, is that Perry might start looking too good to the reader, so they make sure to bring out the big guns: he’s only “Bush on steroids”. This is enough to strike fear into the heart of any Beeboid, and they expect in your hearts as well. Actually, Bush was barely a small-government kind of President. He let Congress ramp up all kinds of debt under his watch, and was too powerless to stop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Frank/Dodd to blow up the mortgage bubble which led to all our current woes. But that’s not what the BBC wants you to remember. Just remember how much you hated Bush for being a Christian and a social conservative.

When it comes to Michelle Bachmann, the Beeboids are confused about what to do with her. They’ve already admitted that they can’t play her as a buffoon like they do with Sarah Palin. But they’re clearly scared of her, and it makes their reporting look a little silly at times. Rajesh Mirchandani (how many Beeboids are covering the US scene these days?) opens his report by speaking of her “fiery rhetoric”. And what bit of this rhetoric does the BBC provide for you in the video?

“Barack Obama will be a one-term President!”

Oooh, scary. This is only “fiery rhetoric” if one is a die-hard supporter of the President whom she’s trying to unseat. Surely with all the footage available of her the BBC could have found something a little stronger. That would mean, though, that they think this isn’t strong enough. Clearly they do, and went with it, which is a bit silly.

But hey, at least he only called her a “favorite” of the Tea Party movement and not a “darling”. Then Mirchandani is off to talk about Perry again. Redundancy ‘R’ Us at the BBC. That’s now three Beeboids making the exact same report but with slightly different words. The only thing different is the aegis under which each report is made. The results, though, seem to be exactly the same.

No discussion of the BBC’s coverage of the US (read: coverage of anything which might affect the President) is complete without the BBC North America editor, Mark Mardell. Just back from his hols, Mardell gives us an idea of the impression he’s gotten of the public mood.

The Republican race has moved a little closer to the finishing line while I’ve been taking a few days’ break on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Bad timing, but it reinforced some of my views about next year’s election. More on that in a moment.

Um, has anything not reinforced his views on the US? Ever? Mardell says this about Bachmann and Perry:

They are tailoring their message to the times.

Are they, now?

But for all the Tea Party movement’s insistence that it is about fiscal responsibility and economic conservatism, these two candidates are both evangelical Christians, with a strong line on social conservatism. Perry signed a law that makes a woman about to have an abortion look at an image of her foetus. The stand out question to Bachmann in last week’s debate was whether she still believed, for religious reasons, that a woman should be “submissive” to her husband, and how that would touch the authority of the commander in chief.

Bingo! That’s all three elements on my score card: Evangelical Christian, social conservatism, and abortion. Narrative? What Narrative? What about the economy? Jobs? Small government? Nope, not interested. Scare-mongering against Christians is what works best. Wake me up when a Beeboid takes a similar tone about a Muslim candidate in Britain. But see, Mardell knows all too well what he’s doing, and has a handy riposte:

The right has attacked the media for focusing on such questions. But it is the media’s job to look at weakness, and it may be that social conservatism is not the priority of most Americans right now.

Yes, it may be. But that’s not stopping him as he simply doesn’t care. His opinions have been reinforced, remember. Mardell gives a brief description – in class war terms, naturally – of the area in which he vacationed, and then says this:

We didn’t meet anyone who was following the Republican race. But we did meet plenty of bewilderment at DC politicians and the state of the economy.

Well, thank goodness he didn’t run into any nasty old Republicans to ruin his vacation. And notice how he cleverly makes the problem into a bi-partisan one, shifting blame as always away from the President.

There was a couple running a bar who still seemed slightly surprised they were having their best three business years ever, but worried about what would happen next. There was the woman in the state park depressed and ashamed about the state of America, its education system, and the difficultly of setting up a business.

Whose fault are these oppressive regulations and taxes on small businesses, Mark? It sure ain’t the Republicans, who have been calling for less and less of it. But he still tries to play it as just a generic Washington problem.

There were late night drinks on the balcony of a motel with a Democrat who still had faith in Obama, but shook his head over the state of the economy.

They do seek out their own kind, don’t they? I’m sure Mardell doesn’t even realize what this says about him.

There is huge uncertainty in this country. Wise candidates will focus on that, as well as the more concrete issue of jobs.

Then why the constant focus on Evangelical Christians and social conservatism? Oh, that’s right, since the BBC audience can’t vote in US elections, the real agenda is to demonize the lot of them, and the voters along with them, so you know whom to hate and why when we don’t vote for The Obamessiah.

The stage is now set for future BBC reporting on the 2012 election. All these reports, all these Beeboids working on your dime, one clear Narrative.

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