Now They're Being Stupid

The BBC take their skewed reportage of the subject of the Swiftboat vet. allegations even further away from balance with this article about President Bush's response to the advertisements.

It may change, but I'll quote the introduction as it stands (and I've saved the original):

'US President George W Bush has praised the military record of his election rival, John Kerry, and called a halt to unofficial negative advertising.'

Surely there's been some mistake? Bush does not have any power to have 'called a halt' to 527 advertising, as has been clear from the preponderance of MoveOn.org ads which work against the President. It would be illegal for him to coordinate them in any way. It certainly does look like the BBC are trying to assert the Kerry line that the Swiftboat vets, all 254 of them against Kerry's 13, are Republican stooges, and that Bush should MAKE THEM STOP! - or he'll cry.

[After drafting this first thing this morning, I noticed Chrenkoff's very similar observation, which I posted at another place. Just for the record tho', I post what I observed. There are other niggles from the BBC article too, like why absurd criticisms of Bush such as this one-' "The moment of truth came and went, and the president still couldn't bring himself to do the right thing," John Edwards, Mr Kerry's running-mate, said'.- should be aired when the detail of the Swiftboatmen's accusations and the implications of them have passed unnoted by the BBC. The BBC even sign off with a niggle, saying that 'Mr Kerry's team has released a new set of ads in which the men who served under him on a naval vessel in Vietnam pay tribute to his bravery.'- when the bald fact is that one of the men who served under Kerry is actually part of the anti-Kerry swiftvets campaign- so it ought more properly to be 'some of the men' who served under Kerry.

When you have criticisms of fact like this to make, you just don't get around to saying that the Beeb haven't pointed out the incredible numerical disadvantage that Kerry is suffering from- with over 250 Swifties against and only a baker's dozen in his favour. This piece of information is probably the most important thing for the general public to understand- it's not some six-of-one and half-a-dozen-of-the-other shenanigan- it's, as near as could be imagined, Kerry's nemesis. Or at least it shapes up that way. Plus, according to searches I have made, the BBC has not made a mention of the Kerry/Cambodia exploding myth, which just confirms their dismissal of the whole Swiftboats genre. That's something they seem to feel they can get away with given their ambiguous position as international media. This makes an interesting contrast. Or this. Or this.

All examples of the BBC's impartiality at work.]