The Left Turns as One (almost).

Some people claim the BBC isn't biased. That's why it's interesting for me when the BBC and such publications as the Guardian execute what appear to be almost synchronised maneuverings.

Brownie from Harry's Place has a terrific conclusion to his latest post, where, having ridiculed The Galloway's latest blunderings, he says

'People of Iraq, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability…

And you can quote me on that.'

Yes, but, the point of Brownie's post is to say that not everyone who is/was a 'stopper' is as stupid as Galloway. In fact, he notes

'the emergence of a new breed of Stopper: the ‘I wouldn’t have done it like that’ strain. Unlike the Stalinist celebrities that lead their cause, it’s not that these people don’t want to arrive at a democratic Iraq, it’s just that they wouldn’t have started from here.

This variety of Stopper appears ready to concede that, whilst much remains to be done, and whilst nothing can make the war ‘right’, the future of Iraq suddenly doesn’t look quite so bleak as it did 48 hours ago. There are some real giveaways, but one line more than any appears to dominate post-election, moderate Stopper discourse. Today’s Guardian editorial, quoting Kofi Anan, is perhaps the finest exemplar:

This election is…only a first step in deciding Iraq's future.

How many times have you heard that line today, or something like it, from Stopper friends and family desperately searching for a cloud to go with the election’s silver lining?'

If I might paraphrase this latest Guardian wheeze: 'it's taken us TWO WHOLE YEARS TO GET TO THIS BLODDY ELECTION!'

Meanwhile, Niall Kilmartin at B-BBC makes an interesting point along similar lines, describing the BBC's exit strategy as he noticed how John Simpson ended his Panorama programme on an incongruous high by saying, of the Coalition effort in Iraq, "I think it is bound to succeed. It’s just a pity that it has been so badly botched by so many people along the way.” :

To quote Kilmartin,

'If, a few years hence, Iraq has not subsided into chaos or a brutal regime like Saddam’s, they could still claim that the process of moving from Saddam to the present was so badly botched by so many people that it nevertheless fully merited all the hostile coverage it got.'

That's how the Guardian and the BBC think alike, aided by weighty public figures like Annan in discerning which way the political weather is blowing. Of course they shouldn't get away with it, but they do.