Election Selection

In the BBC's coverage of the British election, they take care to include a page about Iraq's WMD's and the partys' stands on them. This is surprising, in a way, because I don't think Howard ever accuses the Prime Minister of fabricating the reality of Saddam's WMD threat- what he deplores is Blair's casual use of the broad brush WMD argument, and in a deceptively direct way he calls this lying. Strictly speaking I think Howard is right, and Kennedy is wrong in saying that Blair misled us. Kennedy sounds like a good guy as usual, but in fact is calling Blair a fool as well as a knave. Howard is in fact the moderate because he accuses Blair of playing fast and loose with facts, which is a safe bet with Mr Blurr. There is no doubt he and the Sun did that.

Meanwhile, the Beeb were only too pleased to state its own definition of Charles Duelfer's conclusions to add a spin to a band wagon which doesn't represent the views of the main political opponents to Blair. Howard of course should make this clear, but he doesn't seem to see the need, relishing any criticism of Blair rather than the right criticism.

However, Captain's Quarters in a well argued post says that the MSM, with of course the BBC at the fore, have jumped far too soon and far too clumsily onto Duelfer's WMD negatives. The story's an old one, but it's important not to lose sight of it.