Hating Reagan and Bush with the BBC.

I know where Tom Carver stands on US politics: I've seen too many of his sneering performances on NewsNight (where Greg Palast has enjoyed so many of the 'triumphs' of his journalistic career) to doubt his conviction that US politics is skewed to the right, that America is riding for a fall etc etc.

Seeing him report the virtues of Reagan (albeit through second-hand sources) can mean only one thing: Carver is on the Bush-Bash trail.

And so it proves when Carver spectacularly lays into Bush:

'Can you imagine a website with George Bush's top 10 speeches?

Though denounced at the time as inflammatory, Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" remains an undeniably influential phrase, whilst George Bush's "axis of evil" already seems like a cheap rip-off with no coherent logic.'

The reason I find this startling (apart from the fact that my state sponsored broadcaster is using praise of a deceased US President to intervene crudely in the public perception of a sitting US President) is that the 'axis of evil' phrase and speeches were really of the same order as Reagan's 'evil empire' comments (not a 'rip-off' but the application of the same moral logic to a different, and fresh, and frightening challenge). To some extent this Bush approach, like Reagan's, was a necessary leap in the dark, given the unpreparedness of public opinion to accept 'enemies' rather than 'issues' and 'problems'. Carver reveals the fact that, like the critics of Reagan themselves, he just does not 'get' the Reagan legacy- or George W. Bush- at all.

To the rhetorical question posed by Carver I can say definitely 'yes, I can imagine a website devoted to GWB's best speeches.' Not only can I imagine it, I think that whether GWB is re-elected or not (the conviction underlying Carver's scepticism being that he will not be: 'A Los Angeles poll conducted the week of the funeral shows the gap between Bush and his opponent John Kerry continuing to widen, with Mr Kerry leading by seven points.') his speeches will be remembered because people will find things Bush said, that others ridiculed, to be correct, just as Reagan was correct- but Bush will be judged to have been more ambitious, and consequently more fundamentally right at a crucial moment in history. (Actually, this website listing important speeches from GWB already exists).

Meanwhile, at this time when Reagan is eulogised for his humility, Carver mocks Bush, Reagan's spiritual legatee, when he says 'There are more references to Reagan's phrase than those of Mr Bush on his own website'. Er, Tom (I feel like saying), isn't that kind of thing potentially the hallmark of a humble person?

And when a Beeb journalist says that Reagan was 'astonishingly successful at reaching out to Democrats' you know that means they think he was some kind of warlock in his way with the voters, but surprisingly he's dead so they can admit his wizardry now, and use it to bash loser Bush.

As for saying that 'George Bush, however, is loathed by Democrats.'- Roger Simon, Jeff Jarvis and co obviously don't count (his website quota is clearly limited to the Daily Kos and the DU). It was Jeff Jarvis who said recently 'We are not a nation divided... We're not red v. blue.'

But, fundamentally, praising Reagan is ok because what was reassuring about Reagan (in many people's view, his strong stand against the USSR which cemented US military/economic confidence and precipitated the end of the Cold War) was 'illusory or insubstantial'. Er, hang on a second. Wait a minute. Aside from being slanderously untrue, isn't that the same accusation that's often made these days by the Beeb against Bush's convictions and confidence over the 'so-called War on Terror'?

Naturally from a true-dyed BBC perspective the battle for international socialism never ended: they lost their red flagbearer, their broader vision suffered the illusion of failure; that's all. Like many British institutions they're so busy fighting the battles of the past, they don't notice where the battles of the present are unfolding- even when their own journalists are on the front line.