Political limbo dancing: how low can they go?

Pols behaving despicably. For every pseudo-example of the politics of the gutter, such as when Michael Howard raises the question of UK immigration, there are many more examples of the real thing which happen when no one is paying attention.

The basic definition of gutter politics I'd offer is that it's politics which puts lives at stake for the sake of personal satisfaction.

The sharp intake of breath taken by liberals when they heard whisperings that Bush was pursuing his aggressive War on Terror strategy 'because he could', ie. because of the US' power and unique position, was the sound of affronted hyprocrites.

The reality is the Left does everything it does because it can, and thirsts to do more whenever it can.

John Kerry, for instance, is talking about intimidation at the US polls, claiming his voters were cowed by Republican rottweilers- because he can- despite the fact that he knows well what use his words will be put to in the prejudiced and propagandised world media. American lives may be lost due to the perception he fosters of American corruption. Kerry talks of having 'no magic wand' to end this corruption (though he has a magic hat, as we know), but I am just struck with a saying such as 'once a traitor, always a traitor', to sum the Senator up (Chrenkoff also reports)

Oona King, in the UK, is facing a torrent of abuse and pressure from anti-war 'ethnic communities'- despite her own ethnicity, and, certainly in part, because she's Jewish. George Galloway is opposing her in her constituency, playing on all these factors to gain personal revenge for his near-brush with political extinction, and lucrative notoriety- because he can (because no one saw fit to put him behind bars already). In so doing he is stirring the anti-Semitism which endangers Jewish lives everywhere, and stoking the Jihadic drive which endangers us all. (Arthur Chrenkoff also reports)

The BBC are questioning the anti-Aids strategy of perhaps the only good example of a country that has combatted the disease effectively: Uganda. Where is the sense in that, when Mbeki's gross ignorance and stupidity in allowing the disease to take hold in Southern Africa is the continent's big political story, allied to his tolerance of the stinkingly flea-bitten and diseased Mugabe regime? Why are they doing this kind of journalism? Let Uganda tinker with its policy however it wants since at least it has a successful policy to tinker with. The Beeb are doing this kind of journalism, in fact, to satisfy anti-religious and anti-US prejudice- because they can, having been given the carte blanche of the licence fee for another ten years.

French Chauvinism

While in perfect nuLabour Britain we're supposed not to have any illicit stirrings of nostalgia in the nether-regions of our hearts and minds for British power and influence (maybe it's best to keep quiet while we still have some- but rather than shaking Mugabe's hand I'd have been inclined to break his wrist, as a sign of peace, of course (though, when you think about it, what on earth was Robert Mugabe doing at the Pope's funeral, and what esteem do the Pope's lieutenants hold Charles in that he was seated just two seats away from the Thugocrat himself when there are stories like this circulating involving senior Zimbabwean Catholics???)), in France things are rather different.

The hilarious spectacle of French politicians muscling up to convince their ovine-like nervous proletariat that the big bad capitalist wolf wouldn't eat them if they said yes to the European Constitution was not only highly entertaining, it also provoked much more of le candour from our neighbours than is usual.

The invaluable Eursoc carries a plat principale of tasty soundbites that have been circulating during le campaign (I can't resist using some bad French-like language, any more than they can resist mispronouncing English). My favourites (but they're all goood!):

'* "This Constitution allows the French ambition to assert itself in the big Europe that General de Gaulle hoped and prayed for." - Education Minister François Fillon (Le Figaro, 7 April)'

'* "We have finally obtained this 'Europe à la française' that we have awaited for so long. This constitutional treaty is an enlarged France. It is a Europe written in French." - Justice Minister Dominique Perben (Times and AFP, 4 April)'

See- like I always always all my life said, a grand French strategy to dominate Europe. The only thing missing from the quotes is the name Napoleon.

Scroll down the last couple of Eurosoc posts for more frogdiculous antics.

See also this from the Times on BBC bias and Gavyn Davies their former CoG- via Mr F&M.

So full of crap he needs an enema.

Yes, yes I know. Crudeness. And from me, too. But Justin Webb really merits it, and I hope that having expressed my disgust so obviously I can take a few breaths and examine an article that could actually tell us much about what is wrong with today's BBC, and what is wrong about the BBC's Britain too.

I said a lot about the tragedy of the Schiavo case, but at least it made Webb feel better about America. As he concludes his article he says:

'It is common to mock at American attempts to export Jeffersonian democracy, but after these two weeks the mocking should stop.'

Now that Schiavo has died her legalistic death he can rhapsodise about the 'complex and vital soul of America' .

Really, this is straight out of LiberalLarryland.

The calm Webb feels after his humanist prejudice has been satisfied with its ultimate sacrificial vindictation allows him to be even more candid than usual. He admits a significant amount when he says:

'America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge.

I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture'.

It's funny. As a product of the Beeb's Britain I've been brought up to believe that no stereotype can ever really be true (that is, I've rejected the Beeb's favourite nostrums and bugbears, and what's left to stereotype?). Stereotypes exist in defiance to reality. This is evidently an invalid assumption as far as Justin Webb is concerned. He adds to the above quoted stereotype:

'that picture is in many respects a true one.'

Webb finds his comfort in the thought that many Americans agreed with him that Schindler should die (I was going to say Schiavo but I think that her husband effected a common-law divorce long before her death). He may say that it's the following of due process that he finds has revived his faith in America- but what's telling is that it's the following of so-called due process against what he believes is religious bigotry that he finds comforting:

'Americans do believe in God and they do believe in life, but they also believe in law, and rules, and the need for democracy to restrain, not satisfy, the wishes of politicians.'

It's quite interesting that Webb's faith in America depends on its subordination of so-called religious values to secular protocols.

These so-called religious values clearly include the right to life, which I wouldn't have thought was any more religious than many a secular nostrum. To believe in this right to life though is to be prejudiced, and to depart from acceptability. All that is acceptable is summated by the grey mass of humanist consensus (in other words, a world where humanists win votes):

'Plenty of honest disagreement among reasonable people, religious and non religious, Republican and Democrat.'- and death on demand.

What's weird for a self-styled ratonal man is when Webb disparages the power of observation, and the medium which he relies on for his life's work and his credibility:

' the television news showed pictures of Terri Schiavo looking responsive, even affectionate, and above all looking vulnerable.'

Yeah- almost as if she had something approaching those qualities.

It's not Webb's rationalism that impresses me about this article- as the Voice of Reason tells us all is well now Terri's dead- it's the coercive irrationality of it.

So what have we got so far: condescension, humanism and socialism, all mixed together to give us Webb's view of the world. He offers us subtle inducements to follow his position (by praising the heart of the US, for instance), but all the long he has a little spiteful wishlist to impose on the unlovely subjects of his journalism (that's you and me, as much as it is the hicks who are, in Webb's vision, beyond feeling like Schiavo herself, almost).

I've gone on long enough- maybe I even went off topic, but as the intro made clear, I was dismayed and angry. Anyway, you can find a parallel take here at the Rottweiler Puppy. Thanks to DumbJon for introducing me to this excellent site.

Death in the Americas

It just seems to me that the Beeb, as well as their liberal transational partners and proteges, are in a horrible twist over the death penalty.

When the Beeb reports a rise in the number of death sentences it somehow winds up in the 'Americas' section, which is wrong not just because the US is a minor contributor to their statistics, but also because at the present time falling numbers of death sentences are being given there, and of course an immensely lengthy judicial system is devoted to cases, frequently alotting more time than was alotted to Terri Schiavo.

What you can say is that the US' death penalty is the big attention-grabber, thanks to the policy of media such as the Beeb, so it makes 'media sense' to put it there- though the Beeb always carefully retains the State's financial and moral support while applying it.

This comes after the BBC asserted- via a journalist's manipulation of an interview with Iraqis concerning instability in their country- that the death penalty was inconsistent with democracy, a common prejudice it seems. In the latest article they pointedly mention that the US is 'one of the very few democracies on the list' (of killer-nations).

But the twist comes when China (responsible for the vast majority of death sentences) says that it

'would improve its justice system so the death penalty would be given "carefully and fairly", the official Xinhua news agency reported.'

and, following that, we find that

'Sarah Green, a spokeswoman for Amnesty in London, welcomed the announcement, but said the group wanted action, not words. '

Whereas, when it comes to the US, we find that

'"There is so much evidence that the death penalty is being applied unfairly, the very possibility of executing anybody who is innocent is reason not to have it," she said.'

So it's good news that China is insisting on a 'fair' death penalty (which, you have to say, seems to need a pinch of salt adding to it), while in the US there's soooo much unfairness in the death penalty waaaaah waaaaah.

To cap it all the report ends by quoting Ted Heath, who has been conpicuous in his admmiration for totalitarians, Chinese in particular. I recognise the unfairness comes via an interlocuter, or 'proxy', as I prefer to see these mouthpieces, but the BBC knows all about selectivity yet fails to apply it when it suits them.

Such inconsistency is consistent with only one thing: a bandwagon, whereby fairness is nothing and the end is everything. The BBC is firmly on it, generally whip in hand.

Sorry to harp on Paul but...

Reynolds versus Coleman...

also known as...

Elected politician versus Koffi's state-funded cheerleader:

Says Reynolds-

'UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will be hoping that the latest report into the Iraqi oil-for-food programme will help put his ship back on an even keel, though there are still squalls ahead.


Annan said he expected the highest standards of integrity from Kojo


The report effectively cleared him of corruption, though he must be wishing that the lawyers' language it used was more definitive.'

Says Norm Coleman-

''The Volcker report did not "exonerate" Annan, as many have claimed; to the contrary, it pointed the finger directly at him. Indeed, one member of Volcker's committee, Mark Pieth, made that point loud and clear: "We did not exonerate Kofi Annan."

With that in mind, I reiterate my call for Annan's resignation.''

Some reading... and things... a little different.

Anyone who has read this website at all over the last year or so will know my views on the war with Iraq. For me it was always an unlosable argument that Saddam could be removed from power forcibly and his regime extirpated without the slightest danger of compromising the morality (such as it is) of the countries taking part in his removal from power. Plus, of course, we live in a world where weapons of mass destruction are a prevalent reality, and Saddam had a penchant for them. End of argument, boring readers to tears etc.

I only add that preamble (reluctantly, I have to say) to make clear that by recommending this poem (did you know Clive James was a poet? You do now.) I'm not endorsing its viewpoints- though it slips down a heck of a lot more easily than the NIMN antics that have passed for the antiwar movement. As usual with James he prides himself on being that bit broader-minded than the next man; I'm sure he'd like to think he was a man with 'bottom', and he'd make a lot of fun of it too.

In a similarly contrarian vein, here's Hitchens on Pope John Paul; a mixed bag as usual.

Meanwhile, this photo of an Islamic terrorist in Jenin from LGF tickled me, mainly because my Grandma (now 94) has always talked about her nightmares of early (orphaned) childhood where, based on the stories she was hearing of the First World War, she always imagined there was a German under her bed at night.

I'll be back to Beeb-bashing no doubt shortly, though there's no doubting they're aware of our existence.

How angry should I be?

A bit, certainly. Probably very.

In this article I originally thought the BBC were doing their usual talking up of obscure racial and tribal matters which makes them feel so good about themselves that a) They're the only global broadcaster global enough to pick up these things and b) They're the only ones who care enough to do so.

But wait! There are Jews involved, so it can't be so straightforward. No, we have not simply got the recognition of an interesting racial link between Israelis and people living in India, we've got a sinister Jewish plot to reinforce the Israeli population and deny the Palestinians their rightful demographic ascendancy. That's why they mention many times in some detail, that the recognition of this link to orthodox Jewry means that these 6000 people (6000! More people than several years of valiant suicide bombing managed to exterminate.) can all up sticks and settle in Israel.

But the extent of the BBC's pro-Palestinian paranoia against Israel can be seen in the choice of commentator they make to inform us of the sinister plot, a man they refer to as just an 'Israeli Social Scientist'. What that they don't mention is that Lev Grinberg is a supporter of Palestinian terrorists and a vicious critic of his own people, whom he likens to Nazis and psychotics.

Here is an example of his writings:

'The murder of Sheik Ahmad Yassin by the government of Israel is part of a major move carried out by the government of Israel, which can be described as symbolic genocide.'

Here's a critique of the same.

A great deal of bloggy goodness from the excellent EUReferendum blog. Go ye and read, is my advice.

Starting afresh. Thought I'd start a new post (but don't forget Steyn in the post from 'yesterday'- truly a tour de force). The reason? To give a proper frame to this excellent article (why is it we're coming up with this kind of clarity after the loss of Terri Schiavo when we couldn't put things so clearly before?) from William Anderson in the Weekly Standard. A taster:

''Students of law, medicine, and ethics will examine this tragedy for decades to come'...

'Much mischief is set loose when the uncertain judgments of medical diagnosis are conflated with the rigid categories of the law. Unlike coma or brain death, persistent vegetative state is a diagnosis that depends on subjective judgment. It requires a finding of unresponsiveness in an awake and alert person. Even skilled diagnosticians may disagree on this assessment. It does not necessarily preclude the possibility of improvement. It has no definitive laboratory tests.'

So Terri Schiavo has died, and I'm sad about that, but why did the BBC describe her in their headline as 'brain damaged'? (I mean, not as a person who is brain damaged, but a brain damaged person, which though it might seem a pedantic distinction, is in fact what disabled people have long complained about in the presentation of their identities: disabled first, person second). Is this their tacit admission that they always sided with the group that put her in a special category of disabled ie., the vegetative one? Next time they report ex-Home Sec. David Blunkett I'll expect them to put 'blind (ex-Home Sec.) David Blunkett', not.

Post Updated: Melanie Phillips underlines the point.

Forgive another update: there's so much to say about the Schiavo case. There are those who will say this is opportunistically reading political concerns into a personal matter, but I honestly regard the Schiavo case as emblematic of a point in cultural history where we can go in several directions, but it's clear which direction has the greatest momentum.

Steyn touches many of the points of interest, dramatically. So, fascinatingly, does the more prosaic G.W. Bush: Terri and the War on Terror? (Via R.C.P.) W. undercuts the columnists. Who else would dare put it that way?

Experiencing sexual problems? Thought not. Still, if you were, like these people, you'd want to go to the experts.

Does this sound like they think the UN might be happy to point a finger or two for a change this season? Echoes of Oil for Food and the allegations of CPA corruption in Iraq (a report always available at the BBC site, and always updated regularly), which John Simpson alluded to recently.

Whooeee the BBC's 'study' (er, not the BBC's study, if you get my drift): tranzis at their finest. If you've come within half a blogospherical mile of the BBC's website you can't have missed how they are hot on the case trying to save the world, plastering their front page with articles like this.

As usual the most sensible thing to do is follow the links (commendably placed there for the purpose, as is customary), but not before looking closely at a front-loading adjective such as 'comprehensive'. It you collect your thoughts about this one you realise that here comprehensive doesn't mean 'deep', or 'thorough', 'logical' or even 'scientific'. In this context it probably just means that a lot of people contributed to the study in some way. A dictionary defines 'comprehensive' here.

It's a good starting point, because when you follow the link of the link of the link you find (partially, you give up searching for clarity when the third link leads you somewhere your ill-equipped computer will not follow) made clear that this project involved 'natural and social scientists from developed and developing countries'. By my brutal arithmetic that means that you can divide the overall numbers involved by about four to calculate the number of contributors who theoretically were in a position to say something scientifically meaningful, as opposed to saying what they thought would be received well by the powers that were. Another way of looking at that; when I say scientifically meaningful I mean other than just intelligent hearsay or naked eye observation that you and I can engage in too.

Comprehensive here definitely means quantity rather than quality. When you factor in the extremely bureaucratic nature of the study, and its politicisation (it was engendered by the UN, included UN chief-advisor whatnots, and explicitly had one eye on immediate agenda setting for the great W.C. - world community), it is clearly a monster bred for one purpose only: to leap off the BBC's, and other organs', front pages.

To underline the desire of this study to intimidate the sceptics who oppose their bandwagon, the Beeb enlists a vociferous titled talking head as rottweiler-General:

'"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.'

(all textual shenanigans mine alone)

So, there we have it, a quangocrat on the world's greatest quangocasters' website telling us all to be good and obey the quangos or we'll be called very naughty boys and lumped in with the boys that nobody wants to play with.

It's all a long way from 'here is the news', isn't it?

Where the lawyers might have started.

No I'm not a lawyer, but I think I have a feel for the law (and not just because I've successfully defended myself in court, I just always tend to take narrow legal view of things, which has its drawbacks I can assure you. I thoroughly appreciated Lord Hutton's report, which was dry as dust really; not, I think, because the outcome suited me, but because it was so careful and precise. Hutton's errors are there for anyone to find as a consequence of this, though I would consider them negligible).

Mark Steyn's not a lawyer either, and I think he's just too rounded a person to be a legal sort. He can hobnob and talk morality too, and get on with backwoodsmen as well, apparently, as he shmoozes with the high and mighty. But I think that he appreciates the kind of solid framework on which justice is founded.

His take on the Schiavo affair is not arrogant, assuming he knows better than the courts, but he zeros in effortlessly on areas that could have founded a simple and effective case for Terri.

'There seems to be a genuine dispute about her condition -- between those on her husband's side, who say she has ''no consciousness,'' and those on her parents' side, who say she is capable of basic, childlike reactions. If the latter are correct, ending her life is an act of murder. If the former are correct, what difference does it make? If she feels nothing -- if there's no there there -- she has no misery to be put out of. That being so, why not err in favor of the non-irreversible option?'

'Michael Schiavo took a vow to be faithful in sickness and in health, forsaking all others till death do them part. He's forsaken his wife and been unfaithful to her: She is, de facto, his ex-wife, yet, de jure, he appears to have the right to order her execution. This is preposterous. Suppose his current common-law partner were to fall victim to a disabling accident. Would he also be able to have her terminated? Can he exercise his spousal rights polygamously? The legal deference to Mr. Schiavo's position, to his rights overriding her parents', is at odds with reality.'

'it behooves us to maintain a certain modesty about presuming to speak for others -- even those we know well. Example: ''Driving down there, I remember distinctly thinking that Chris would rather not live than be in this condition.'' That's Barbara Johnson recalling the 1995 accident of her son Christopher Reeve. Her instinct was to pull the plug; his was to live.'

The tragedy is, I think, that we don't have people who speak as simply yet as eloquently as Mark Steyn in positions where they can uphold justice; they're too rounded to fit into the system, preferring maverick roles with some kind of sex appeal (Steyn would laugh, I think, but it is the case that columnists are sexier than lawyers). Then again, the notion of 'due process' which I hear bandied around in all sorts of contexts (take note, BBC), strikes me as little more than playing the system, which doesn't appeal to narrow types like me who prefer the idea that 'due process' refers back to a common pool of experience and wisdom too wide and too rich to make justice a matter of legalism.

The Law really is in the news at the moment, and what's interesting is that the Left, having lost so many battles in the court of public opinion, are deciding to put their undoubted (by themselves) superior intelligence quotient to the test in the narrower arenas of the legal profession. Steyn also has things to say about this (at least, in one instance of it).

At bottom though the reason Leftists run to their mamma courtroom is that they know they have the energy to bore other people into the ground. The trick will be if the Right, in which I would claim a small demesne, has the energy to counteract the overwhelming will to self-justify and express their sacred POV which motivates their opponents.

Life and Death

The more I think about it, the more I agree with Orson Scott Card about the Michael/Terri Schiavo case:

'The incredible thing — to me, at least, and yet I have to believe it, don’t I — is that he was able to find a judge who would give him the right to kill this woman.'

I appreciate that most people would say, with some reasonableness on their side, that we can't possibly know the ins and outs that all those court cases involved. That we shouldn't comment from ignorance, driven mainly by our emotions. However I think that my interest has not be emotionally driven except by the curiosity (a kind of species of intellectual emotion) of seeing advocates of death saying that the moving eyes and lips and head of a clearly brain damaged woman are no evidence that she feels anything whatsoever. Perhaps there is a deeper form of logic at work there than that of traditional empirical observation, willing to bet all on the efficacy of those brain charts.

I agree with these Weekly Standard contributors that those who promoted the death of Terri Schiavo as part of the panapoly of right-to-interfere and right-to-die issues, apparently as a trial of their own strength, will be unleashing a perfect storm upon themselves. I think that the Schiavo case will be a wake-up call for many, and it certainly deserves to be on merit.

What's clear as well is that legal minds have been more concerned in the Schiavo case with the enforcement of 'due process' than with a sense of Terri Schiavo's right to life. Terri's parents (the Schindlers) do appear to have antagonised the profession by apparently ingenuously and passionately believing that to state the obvious ought to be sufficient. Unfortunately for lawyerly minds seeing and not believing is pretty much part of the reason for their profession's proud place in society.

I might just add one little point about the recent attempts by the Schindlers to claim that Terri recently uttered several syllables in answer to an invitation to indicate her will to live. To me this encapsulated the Schindler's naive approach. I'm not inclined to believe that it happened at all, frankly, but one could see in it an obvious attempt to echo the vague claims about Terri's wishes that were offered by Michael Schiavo's representatives, and accepted. The trouble is that proving double standards will not shame a court, or a judge, at all, if they already consider that you are troublemakers.

I honestly believe that savvier representations would have seen Terri's right to life upheld. That's the shame of it; not that I find the outcome unappealing, but that I find many of the steps involved to be brazenly counter-commonsensical and actually unfair.

To demonstrate that grasp of reason is not limited to the rationalists advocating Terri's death, have a look at Malkin's demolition of some unfair personal journalism. To show that I can listen to the other point of view, Donald Sensing makes as good a case as anyone (but I think he's wrong). Oh yes, and this a pretty intelligent anti-Terri case too (terrible to put it in these terms but she is dying)

David Frum wishes you a happy... well, a good... well, it's a nice day anyway, and he wishes you well in it, as do I. Mind you it has to be said that at this time of year it's traditional to set bad news alongside good (which is not even to mention Terri Schiavo- excellent article linked via Real Clear Politics. Actually a thought occurs to me- while I keep updating this post- that Terri Schiavo could die on Easter Day, which would be poignant to say the least.)

New Sisyphus has a terrific analysis of the trumpeted UN reforms where they set their legal minds racing to interpret what Koffis definitions and notions of enhanced missions really imply.

A New Offensive(ness)

I meant to get round to reading this Paul Wood article since I was sure that the Beeb's notion of an Iraq 'balance sheet' would interest me. Ok, I'm a bit late, but it didn't disappoint.

It's funny, maybe BBC journalists get so familiar with the medium of words that they think of them like numbers, so that if, in establishing a metaphorical balance sheet, it is loaded with extensive negative expressions, that can be balanced by one or two big plusses. Woods' article is like that. All negative bar the important inescapable plusses (which say nothing really about his desire to recognise all the data, since they couldn't be left out under any circumstances)- the end of Saddam (mentioned obliquely) and the Iraqi elections. The trouble comes if you are confused as to the overriding value of these latter two points, which is actually where the battle for public opinion takes place. Clearly the beeb are hoping to overwhlem these two strong positions of the pro-war crowd.

The mood music of Woods' article is entirely negative, the anecdotes (extraordinary and extreme) basically negative, the bottom lines assumed (positive).

It's just so Not-In-My-Name it's difficult to conceive it could be more so.

But, well, there's more from the Beeb in a similar, perhaps deeper, vein. This article is crazily lop-sided. What I object to most of all though is not the unrestrained negativity- or rather I do object to that but surmise that it is due to a lack of context.

It's a story from Matthew Price about the kidnap of teenage girls. The girls interviewed go to the same school, which gives a mixed Islamic/Catholic education in a compound surrounded by barbed wire and garrisoned by guards. Sounds dreadful, yes?
But what I want to know is quite simple. How rich are these girls' fathers? How unusual is a mixed religion school in Baghdad? What kind of muslims go there, Sunni, Shia or both (I am not satisfied with Price's idea of a 'crosssection' of conservative and less conservative when we all know the divide that counts in much of the troubles of Iraq is Sunni-Shia)? What kind of backgrounds do these girls have? Were they from families who had status within the old regime, or do their families have status within the new one?

The final point of call is another BBC article but not a specifically BBC issue: the legal justification for the war in Iraq, which is just one of the windows of opportunity that Stoppers have tried to open to justify their position against the removal from power of Saddam Hussein.

This is clearly an election-inspired put up job from the most radically leftist media broadcaster in the UK: Channel Four News (they would like to hear that, actually):

'The revelations came in a censored part of ex-Foreign Office lawyer Elizabeth Wilmshurst's letter, obtained by Channel 4 News.'

The silliest thing about this non-story (non- because it exactly accords with my memory of how things unfolded in the public eye. Goldsmith advocated a second UN resolution to make absolutely sure of legality, which seemed as equivocal then as it does now in the light of Ms Wilmshurst's revelations) though is Jack Straw's defence of his government against its closest challengers for the prize of governance of the country:

'He accused the Tories of trying to use the issue as a "smokescreen to avoid their own responsibility for the fact they voted for this military action".

Straw is an old woman of long standing on just about everything, but this is absurd and demonstrates why you can think that the Government did absolutely the right thing in supporting Bush militarily against Saddam, yet still deserves to lose the general election.

The main accusation against the Beeb though is in a way minor (with major implications): that they take all this at face-value and don't question the triviality of the news value because for them the anti-Iraq war view will be news until it becomes an active consensus.

Bush, Sharon, Podhoretz, his daughter, and me. I've rarely, if ever, found such as strong echo of my feelings and views about an issue as in this long essay about Sharon, and Bush, and the Gaza withdrawal plan.

Difficult to summarise, and not easy to select quotes from, it is a fascinating meander through one of this century's great foundational dilemmas. Podhoretz thinks that in the end it might come down to a question of faith, but then again, his discourse is one where reasoning, wrestling one might even say, abounds.

It's the travail of a principled thinker and writer.

Podhoretz defends his faith in Bush, whose motives and Sharon's form a kind of nexus out of which Podhoretz believes that security, and eventually peace, ought to come. Explaining his faith in Bush he refers to the kind of historical disappointment only a man of maturer years can have felt:

'I had expected Moynihan [Patrick Moynihan, hero of the Democrat right in the 70's, apparently] to persist in the battle we had all been waging against the steadily leftward drift of the Democratic party. But when he broke our hearts by joining in that drift himself, I resolved that from then on I would abide by the words of the Psalmist: “Put not your trust in princes.”
...

[of his misplaced trust] Is it now flying out again in relation to George W. Bush? I cannot in all honesty dismiss the possibility. And yet neither can I dismiss the possibility that this is one prince who, on the basis of repeated demonstration, deserves to be trusted.'

Here I think is where Podhoretz can rest easy, and on that rest can found his confidence, 'cause Bush ain't no Prince. Terrific article; took a long time to read.

The Mugabe Effect. Since the BBC have been unable to drag their eyes off Mugabe's lively personality and his anti-colonial rhetoric (or random dribblings, if you ask me), and since Bob went all neo-con by praising George Bush jnr, Mr Geldof's not had the best of presses. The Beeb have become critical of him, and the sign of this is that when few hundred Government inspired drones take to the streets of a random African capital because Bob questioned the divine rights of their latest dear leader, the BBC are all agog, and wish you to be too.

I was going to post the following post yesterday, but a combination of Blogger woes and time constraints meant I left it, and now Steyn has produced the perfect article to complement it. PS: see this also, a fine summary argument I found at Real Clear Politics.

Healthy Words from a woman I fancy

I don't normally bother to fancy women in the public eye- it's too obvious and well, rather futile. I'll make an exception for Joanna Jepson, though, because not only is she attractive, she's full of good works when it comes to following through against one of the scourges of our age, what she terms 'abortions for eugenic reasons'

She authored a fine article for the Telegraph yesterday (Sun), as at last a little controversy is being injected into the abortion debate by Michael Howard, Conservative leader.

I recently had to endure some Talking Head (on Sky) saying that it wasn't easy to get an abortion, in the same interview where it was stated that there had been 180,000 abortions in the UK last year. Not easy?

This all comes at a time when the Terry Schiavo case is so critically poised in the US (see also Michelle Malkin's updates).

Although the Schiavo case is clearly different in that the life in question is that of an adult reduced to an inability to exercise her own will rather than a child too young to have attained it, the variety of such cases demonstrates the way 'the system' is biased towards death rather than towards life, such that an exceptional intervention is required to preserve life.

I can also declare a personal interest in the age of abortion matter in that my niece was born prematurely at 24 weeks, and I only wish I had a photo available to show you how healthy and happy she is now, one and a half years after her early appearance (at which time she was thoroughly lively and quite responsive).

It's good that Joanna is around to highlight this issue (and its shameful there aren't more doing the same), and to raise questons like this:

'Mr England said, in response to my complaint about the abortion, that he was satisfied the two doctors who authorised the termination of the 28-week-old foetus in Herefordshire in 2001 had acted "in good faith".

What does that mean, exactly? It strikes me as the kind of phrase wheeled out by politicians when they've done something especially disgraceful, as if to say: yes, what I did was wrong but I was thinking the right thoughts while I did it. In the same way, Mr England appeared to be saying that as long as the two doctors did not believe they were breaking the law, their actions were justified.'

More about Jo Jepson and her family here.

Simpson's middle road

The BBC's John Simpson has quite a tendentious article at BBConline. The one point that I'd highlight is the centrepiece fact of his argument:

'the basic problem remains: the Sunni population is as angry, resentful and resistance-minded as ever.

As the supporters of the invasion are finding two years on, you cannot step in, change the structure of a nation fundamentally and make everyone happy. There is a ferocious price to be paid, and on average two coalition soldiers and 20 Iraqi civilians pay it daily. '

I'm not sure about the civilian figure, though I doubt it, but I do think that Simpson ought to have known the latest stats whereof his argument gains its stature. It's not enough to say well, on average, if you intend that average to be a current one, and then to get your figures about thirty percent wrong.

The Quieter Approach

The BBC has gone rather quiet over the quagmire that was Iraq. Paul Reynolds still keeps throwing up the spectre of Vietnam ('there is an interesting precedent...After the Vietnam War'- previously linked on this site), not because it was similar (that hope has evaporated), but because he's still hopeful of manipulating opinion in the same way. It can be like Vietnam for him and his ideology. Anytime there's a 'bang', you can guarantee the BBC will report it the loudest, but still, things are quiet.

Recently they took a break from making their lengthy compendiums of Iraq violence (often stretching over several days) to make separate reports- both of which linked to the anti-war protesters who parade with the BBC's heart with them alongside the mock coffins.

In their report about the marchers, or about the latest 'bangs', they don't find time to allude to trends like this (reg required), reported by Belgravia Despatch, though they do mention that 100,000 casualty figure produced by the Lancet and hotly disputed ever since.

However, in addition to highlighting Turkish anti-Americanism, they found time to bring to everyone's attention that Leftist professor Cole who tried to discredit IraqtheModel. The world according to Cole is a world of US neoImperialist oppression, and the Iraqi democracy's a sham. It's a subtler argument than usual, in that instead of condemning US attempts to bring democracy to the undemocratic, it criticises the imperfection of that attempt as all part of the evil conspiracy.

Meantime the insidious attempt to reconfigure Saddam as our fault in the first place was given a boost by the Dutch (and occupied BBC frontpage space for quite a while). This is pure scapegoatism (not that the Dutchman deserves any sympathy), but when you consider that brand new French missiles were fired at US forces in Iraq in the last two years, you have to say that the Euros are highlighting old chesnuts to deflect attention from newer ones. The same muddying tactics are working on the UNscam situation. To my mind the failures of the international community were greater in the 90's than in the 80's (all things considered) but it's much more convenient to root around in almost defunct criminality than to dig up less decayed corpses.

The BBC demonstrates again and again its commitment to the transnationalism of the UN and the EU, and all agencies in between.

The March of Freedom.

I'll just start by mentioning my surprise today when, on Sky television I saw the often anonymous and unspectacular (except for the shoes) Teresa May of the British Conservative party being given a chance to make a case against Cannabis as a 'C class' (ie. minor, unmeriting legal action for users) drug. She did a bad job, as did the interviewer in examining her, but the striking thing was that she was there questioning whether the Blair Government hadn't made a big, big mistake in previously declassifying the drug. The Blair government? Mistakes? Shsssssshh!

My point is that for the first time in a long time it felt that we might have the decency to engage in democracy in the UK.

Returning to the May interview, it was noticeable that she was allowed to criticise the Home Secretary (and former Home Secretary) without being made to 'win' the argument over Cannabis-as-a-danger-to-society first, or being browbeaten with a barrage of 'I used it and I'm fine even though I used to be middle class and now I live on benefits in a broken down semi' type personal testimonies.

To me this felt like freedom, as it appears that finally journalists might be considering that good compos mentis people might not automatically approve of Blair, so that it would not be necessary to subject them to the third degree 'normalcy' test before they criticise him or his representatives. In fact, I think even the Blair-Brown heavyweigtitis virus may be losing its potency (another Sky journalist thought that Brown was laughing at Blair as he floundered while trying to fend off a hostile question at a recent photo-op they took together.)

Strangely enough, what seems to underlie this change of heart is the wake-up that we've experienced over Sinn Fein IRA. I think that Blair's dynamic 'Good Friday agreement dash' in the early part of his reign, and his post-modern declarations that Britain was a young country, were designed, and had the effect of, putting people's critical faculties to rest. His other half (certainly their tiff seems like a lover's one) Brown played out similar tactics in the economic sphere with his rhetoric of 'prudence'.


In reexamining Adams and co. we reexamine Blair and co (shame on Blair that there should be this connection; long may the reexamination continue, and let's kick Adams all the way into the Atlantic Ocean and Blair from his office). There's a lot to reexamine. I look at journalists today and I get a sense they no longer like the Blair government very much. For neo-Conservative Thatcherites like me the Blair government has always been a sham and a shambles, though apparently a functioning one, but I did consider that Blair was right about Iraq, which goes to show that his belief that he can act as a statesman has reality at some level. The trouble is it's a level of absurd hubris and self-regard, as he and his minions thought that very little existed that couldn't be spun into something else.

It's surely a fact that very many socialists are fantasists, and there are also very many fantasists in today's Britain, so there was a very good match going there for a while. But the fantasy fragments and the centre cannot hold, and the terrible truth for the Blairites, and the BBC, and the neo-socialists (those fantasists who held their noses while Blair got entrenched through spin) is that only those with the facts of life straight stay standing.

Looking into the Ireland issue recently have been Mark Steyn and Simon Jenkins. I mentioned their articles earlier as differing about apportioning blame for the appeasement of Irish terrorism between the US backers and apologisers for Sinn Fein (sometimes at the highest levels) and the British ones. Curiously enough there can be no argument that Blair and Clinton between them could resolve the Jenkins/Steyn argument- since they united in this policy, as Gerard Baker points out in an article selected by Real Clear Politics where he illustrates what a fine writer he is, and with what good sense.

When to disagree.

Ok, here's the scenario: You're a person who becomes loyal to a commentator or opinion-former, and the person in question is very incisive and persuasive. When, or how, do you bring yourself to disagree with them?

I was tuning in, metaphorically, to Melanie Phillips' excellent take on the international appointments recommended by W. recently. This was after reading Steyn's definitive take on John Bolton's appointment as ambassador to the UN in the Spectator, an excellent magazine judging from what I read of it.

I was just leaning towards Melanie's viewpoint that Bush's actions actually showed that the 'neo-cons'- as the BBC enthusiastically calls them- were being cleared out of the main centres of political power in the US, though I was resisting a little because, reading Steyn, I had become very enthused about the magnitude of Bolton's appointment. Then I remembered Max's tip about the New Sisyphus's powerful assessment of the progress being made at the United Nations by the US perspective on world affairs. While there, I came across this post. Don't miss it- it's a nugget. The outstanding point regarding Melanie's thesis:

'We recently heard a high-ranking member of the State Department announce to a group of assembled junior FSOs that whoever the President picks as the next Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs will be a strong indicator of the direction the President intends to take not only this crucial component of our Department, but the Department itself.

What that means is that the President's appointment of Karen Hughes to that position has effectively ended the mini-debate about whether Condoleeza Rice's appointment could mean either that the President intended to engage the foreign affairs establishment or shake it up. The appointment of Hughes can only mean that the President intends to shape and bend the bureaucracy of the Department to suit his needs.'

Impossible without the Internet, the inside view of shifting sands within the US government ecosystem provided by the Sisyphus helped me to make up my mind.

P.S. Speaking of when to disagree, here's Eursoc disagreeing with Steyn and siding with Sir Simon, a bit. Maybe I would too. Here's Jenkins' effort- worth reading.

P.P.S. Thanks to Mike in the comments I realise I messed up the Karen Hughes link, which was, well, more or less the whole point. Duh. Apologies, but it's fixed now, and I noticed one more lovely quote to point out from the clever fellows at Sisyphus:

'If this keeps up, we'll be forced to implement the foreign policy of the United States.'

Heaven (and the BBC) forbid!

Clear-sight.

President Bush's nominations for key international roles are both excellent choices. Paul Reynolds makes an apt allusion to Nelson and his lieutenants, when the proteges of the master were sent out to greater responsibility away from their mentor. A strange one too, though, partly because a militaristic one. And since when was Bush regarded as the father of the neo-cons? Is this a promotion for Bush or a demotion for Wolf-o-Witz in Reynolds eyes? The only other comparison he can come up with comes from the Reynolds' list for Father Christmas- that Wolf-o-Witz will be another such 'repentant' warmonger as there was after Vietnam.

Of course the Euros respond as Euros do, with condescension or rudeness masquerading as humour, a human quality which in the case of most of Western Europe is notable by its absence.

The clear-sight of these so-called neocons is exceptionally necessary in the current period.

Clear-sight.

President Bush's nominations for key international roles are both excellent choices. Paul Reynolds makes an apt allusion to Nelson and his lieutenants, when the proteges of the master were sent out to greater responsibility away from their mentor. A strange one too, though, partly because a militaristic one. And since when was Bush regarded as the father of the neo-cons? Is this a promotion for Bush or a demotion for Wolf-o-Witz in Reynolds eyes? The only other comparison he can come up with comes from the Reynolds' list for Father Christmas- that Wolf-o-Witz will be another such 'repentant' warmonger as there were after Vietnam.

Of course the Euros respond as Euros do, with condescension or rudeness masquerading as humour, a human quality which in the case of most of Western Europe is notable by its absence.

The clear-sight of these so-called neocons is exceptionally necessary in the current period.

Continuing Boyles.

It was Dennis who was labelled a menace after he decribed Europeans as cockroaches. Well, he had a point, in the metaphorical sense of them being practically intolerable and hard to expunge from the mind. Once again this can be illustrated- when you look at examples such as the recurrent anti-war demonstrations, presently (at this general time) taking place in European capitals and elsewhere to mark the injustice perpetrated by the US and allies in removing Saddam from his golden toilet seat, for instance. Anti-war even when there's no war to be anti.

Amir Taheri has a great article where he labels these people 'Pests in freedom's way'.

Taheri thinks that we should worry about what the symptom of anti-war derr-brain demos means for the health of the West, and Europe in particular.
'Why are so many Westerners, living in mature democracies, ready to march against the toppling of a despot in Iraq but unwilling to take to the streets in support of the democratic movement in the Middle East?', he asks.

The answer seems to be that their idotarianism is tolerated, condoned even, in a Europe without a heart for the stakes and without a serious brain for analysis- yet needing excuses for itself. Our politicians, unable to argue coherently for anything in particular, are forced merely to lie or pander to the mob desire to be morally or socially significant. This applied to the Blair argument that took as to war in Iraq, and applies as well to the Straw argument to take us deeper into Europe. Both quite deliberately emptied of true content and filled with less true, or downright false, content (although I knew what Tony meant about Iraq ;-} )

EURef exemplifies this with their fearsome 'we are more powerful' series of posts, inspired by the FO's man of Straw.

They also link to an excellent blog intended to cut through the obfuscation of European thought. The Transatlantic Intelligencer inspired this current post. Its latest post exposes the 'pests' or 'cockroaches' (yes, these are the kind of Europeans Boyles had in mind) for what they are: dumb irritants scratching at the very surface of our culture, yet drawing everyone's energies and attention, not to mention the panderous activities of the politicians. The really amazing thing is just how ignorant, just how contentless, these people are. One keeps imagining that to shout so loud somewhere in their morassed consciouness there must be a clear idea, some kind of reality beyond their reflexive (insect-like, swarming and making noise) anti-Americanism. But no. 'Argument weak- shout loud', as a friend of mine liked to say.

These are the kind of people which media organisations like the BBC- which claims to be an intelligent broadcaster- unquestioningly admires, or of which it asks admiring questions, or to which it offers admirable representation.

Too Rude to the French?

No, you never can be. Once you start down that road you know they'll be taking l'avantage at every turn. It's France's fault that democracy in Europe is so stunted, and that Europe's idea of enterprise involves smoke-filled rooms and corruption.

That's why I welcome a new book by Dennis Boyles, who, having lived in France for several years, and with great experience of the world at large, is well placed to tell it like it is. Says Boyles in his blurbing effort:

'"What we mistakenly see as a craven, anti-Semitic, insecure, hypocritical, hysterically anti-American, selfish, overtaxed, culturally exhausted country, bereft of ideas, fearful of its own capitulation to Islam, headed for a demographic cul de sac, corrupted by lame ideologies, clinging to unsupportable entitlements, crippled by a spirit-stomping social elite and up to its neck in a cheesy soufflé of multilayered bureaucracy is actually worse than all that. It’s vile." '

In case that seems just a little OTT, consider this latest episode in France's proud history- their cosying up to China by attempting to open ways to sell arms to them and putting the frighteners on Taiwan. Never mind that they fail to offer any support for democracy's rise in the Middle East, they go looking for more shame to heap upon themselves, as the Taipei Times opines magnificently:

'when those who have influence can persuade the government to do their bidding, the result may quite possibly be terrible - France conniving at the destruction of a liberal democracy simply to enrich its "merchants of death" and their politician friends.'

(thanks to the moderately Franco-sceptical blog EUReferendum for the link.)

Got to mention Nicholas Vance. Talk about talking sense. He was linked at B-BBC just today but not for this. Nicholas has been pursuing the BBC in his own way at all sorts of levels for well over a year online, and getting better and better. The depth to which he has taken the argument is really a great example for people like me to follow.

Back to Ireland, and events are developing hearteningly. Powerline, most anglophile of US blogs (well, one of them does support Everton FC) reports George Bush's contempt for Irish terrorists (it is, sadly, necessary to make that distinction) and describes Gerry Adams as 'head of the IRA's political puppet group, Sinn Fein'

They also link to this timely Mark Steyn article (Steyn who has an ancestor for every occasion) about St. Paddy's day. It's about time for the full rhetorical broadside to be unleashed on the IRA/Sinn Fein, driving them into the political ocean.

Not forgetting of course that Teddy Kennedy has taken a tactical step away from the gangster group. It's all good.

Let's hope for more of the same, and some greater understanding than this demonstrates:

'"It's hard to understand how a European country in the year 2005 can have a private army associated with a political party," said Mitchell Reiss, the US envoy on Northern Ireland.'

Well, not really. Too many unquestioning friends for too long, not enough enemies, and an incurable nostalgia for a defunct fantasy called 'nationalism'.

One year early: you 'retire' or you're 'ousted'.

When Dan Rather left CBS one year before he had been due to because his vendetta against the Bush admin. had been exposed by bloggers, he 'stepped down', or 'retired' according to the BBC. They even found space to report that his last show increased CBS' ratings to their highest point since 2000.

However, when Michael Eisner of the Disney Corporation left his job a year before he was scheduled to, he was, apparently, according to the BBC, 'ousted'. Naturally this is what should happen to all fiendishly exploitative capitalists, in an ideal world. And since we don't have an ideal world I guess I'll just have to accept the BBC's pretence that there is one.

Of course, there's always a fly in the ointment: 'Mr Eisner is to remain on Disney's board till 2006. Under his contract, he is eligible for up to $18m in severance pay over three years, the Wall Street Journal reported.' the BBC report briefly, at the end.

Update: Admittedly the resignation statements of people in business, as in politics for that matter, are banal and usually covering themselves against the worst interpretations of their departure. However, if the BBC can accept the politicians' claim that he needs to spend more time with his family, why does the BBC always make big business seem like it emulates the mafia? Why not reserve that for the next IRA/Sinn Fein resignation? Forbes offers a different spin, Eisner 'yielding' to pressure, or 'stepping down'. Also, it's important to mention here that the BBC stealth editor has been fast at work since the original post. Sounds more reasonable now, though the ousted Eisner is still ousted.

Great response by IraqtheModel to the Hezbullah march: 'bringing too many people by buses doesn't mean that you're right'. The bottom line is that only anti-democratic forces could have created a demo that big, and the boys from The Model know of what they talk. Lacking commonsense like that, of course, is what makes the BBC's view of things so hopelessly skewed (ItM quotes a BBC report which appears to be suffering from Assad's shock and awe 'em tactic.)

In other affairs, I'm glad to see that Myers thinks Bush is about to make clear that Adams is N.I.'s Arafat. (thx ATW)

As a sidenote, for which I can't offer a meaningful link, my University of York Alumni magazine-(received recently) -gave their verdict on the US general election just as the Guardian might have (say no more), and then ran an article alongside a large picture of Diane Abbot, New Lab. supporter of the Iraq War, shaking hands two-fistedly with the Yasser in 2003 (the article was about Abbot herself, her background, career etc). Trying indirectly to make amends with the Muslims in her constituency, perhaps, by spreading around as widely as she can a picture of her with the Islamofascists' chief saint? More New Lab two-faced behaviour concerning the WoT. They really don't get it (all that well(at all)).

But Universities are among the worst offenders when it comes to building prejudice though appearing rational, as Melanie Phillips reports once again

American journalists can be pompous, says Simon Jenkins (snigger, snigger), as he says that bloggers have put him on his mettle like never before (snigger, snigger). (ps. Scott knocks his p.o.v. beautifully)

Debunking and Debating.

Got to start with this outstanding pigeon-holing of Hunter S. Thompson and the cult which seems to enthrall many middle-aged and not-so middle-aged liberal Americans. Hugh Hewitt blasts thus:

'Ah yes, the Nixon wars –when journalists bravely stood tall against the machine guns and machetes of the death squads roaming D.C.

I don’t have access to Lexis-Nexis on the plane, so I can’t search “Hunter Thompson w/i 1000 Pol Pot,” but I don’t recall any “fearless” reporting on the Cambodian holocaust, or the trials of Bukovsky, Sharansky Sarkaroff and Solzhenitsyn. Just stream of consciousness paranoia brought on by too many drugs, and later idolized by mid-life-crisis-enduring salary men with editors and small expense accounts/'

If there is a 'stupid America', it's the sort that idolised the likes of Thompson. The whole 'great American Novel' thing is about as dated as flares in my view, and a massive distraction from America's real concerns.

Speaking of which, I notice a lot of floundering about concerning whether the events in Lebanon are good or bad. Syria withdraws- but with Hezbullah's endorsement for its influence in Lebanon. Syria withdraws with assurances that its power is not resented and its influence will be undiminished (notice how the BBC (above link) give a leading role in this withdrawal process to the UN's representative, Roed Larssen- he arrives, Syria withdraws, coincidentally. Just another of those little nuances about who is moving events and who has authority to do so. The BBC's transnationalism at work. Also note the way that the BBC is prepared to report the stage-managed withdrawal- 'government supporters were bussed to the frontier for a carefully stage-managed occasion',- but not so much the obviously stage-managed rally; here, they limit themselves to saying the kind of thing anyone deviously organising a vast propaganda effort would be happy with: 'Hezbollah officials handed out Lebanese flags and directed the men and women to separate sections, but the crowds were so large they spilled out of Riad al-Solh Square into surrounding streets.' . This is in keeping with its general presentation of Arab regimes and allegedly popular terrorist-entwined organisations as manipulative to some extent, but largely benign). Children were bussed in to fill the square for the Hezbullah rally, according to this report, but the level of organisation, just viewed by itself, which swamped the anti-Syrian demonstrators was clearly daunting, and intended to be daunting, to those who hope for a pro-Western democratic resolution to the Lebanon's powerplay.

In related stuff, the Economist believes that the neo-cons are on the rise again (I don't watch events in this microscopic way, but they do), which is code for saying that events in the Middle East have vindicated the neo-cons convictions about Iraq, but not completely and nor will they do so.

Overall it looks like a soft-shoe shuffle between Iran-supported Hezbullah and a tactically-minded Syria. Its the old case that among despotic mentalities, faced with a democratic superpower like the US, there is no need to even mention the saying that my enemy's enemy is my friend. All the same, I'd say the pro-democracy, anti-Syria rallies are a staging post in the power struggle that will one day- one day soon, given the spontaneous vigour of the democratic impulse in the region- produce democratic revolution, and wipe Hezbullah off the map entirely.

(Good info for the above post came from Austin Bay and Real Clear Politics)

I was going to comment on this BBC article by Justin Webb about Dan Rather, well-picked up by USS Neverdock, but I think I'll just leave you the links and the thought that this article illustrates very nicely why the words 'Right Wing'- rather than 'Left Wing'- and 'dirty tricks' have been made into a commonly known collocation. Because, I would venture to answer, the legacy media, of which the BBC is chief bastion, decrees it so.

Andrew Bowman looked at other aspects of the BBC's coverage of Rather at Biased BBC.

Webb is just too secure in his bias, almost like some Eastern European aparachik (anyone help with the spelling?) of the 1970's. (I've observed this before, I know, but it's Webb's almost brusque self-assurance, only feasible in such a cosseted organisation as the Beeb, which seems to bring this observation on).

Meanwhile, speaking of Eastern Europe, Tomas Kohl has a an opinion of Leftists in his own country of the Czech Republic which seems to ring true:

'Reagan's contribution notwithstanding, the pinkos could barely wipe their ass in 1989.'

Sometimes an opinion that has relevance for BBC journalists with anti-conservative or anti-US (same thing really) authorial diarrhea, unfortunately. They leave the blogosphere to wipe it for them. However, to summarise what both Kohl and Marc of Neverdock are saying (loosely), those who won't wipe their politicised journalistic arses will get them whipped well and truly.

Frum draws the right conclusion from the big Hezbollah march through Lebanon. It just shows what you're up against.

Instapundit pondered some viewpoints on the demo, with links (surprisingly!). At one, interesting, link, a commenter to the post came up with a criticism of the BBC which seemed very typical (right down to the misspelling of Orla Guerin's name):

'The crowd was obviously predominantly male and angry. But the BBC report by Orna Gheiron (sp?) went out of its way to show a lot of women, including mostly uncovered ones. The BBC were clearly doing a little propaganda, as usual.'

Casual observers and seasoned ones all think twice before trusting BBC reporting.

Meanwhile, The Belmont Club has a more in-depth survey and analysis of what the march means.

Seems like the below post caught something of a wave amongst the Nionist brigade. Scott Burgess assesses the Indy's effort. Verdict? Halfbaked too, unsurprisingly. (via Instapundit)

Meanwhile, Melanie Phillips, eye to the big picture via Daniel Pipes vision, shows what serious thinkers might be doing at the moment.

The ever shrewd (I've given up calling him deceitful, it doesn't pay any) Paul Reynolds has come up with an exit strategy for the BBC. Just like those who are covering their backsides regarding the unresolved but politically dangerous issue of WMD, Mr Reynolds turns round and says, 'it wasn't just me, others believed it too' when it comes to the anti-war fervour which has mastered the BBC's coverage for so long. For the French and Italian, Russian and so on Intelligence services in this analogy, you have to substitute Fareed Zakaria, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, and 'sceptics of American policy like Rosemary Hollis', who probably demonstrated different degrees of scepticism but were never a million miles from Reynolds himself in viewpoint. Throw in a disclaimer about things not being quite the same as the last time Reynolds was wrong about regime change, in 1989, and a little homily to the new entrants to the EU's grande projet, and you have a fine recipe known as 'Reynold's home baked (half-baked) climbdown'.

Of course we have to garnish with a little sideswipe at neo-con imperial hegemonistic attitudes, add a little detail about the role of the Prince of Darkness, and implicate the whole in an Israeli conspiracy theory, but after all that is completed you are about ready to eat your humble pie.

'Some are cynical about American attitudes and regard the policy of spreading "freedom and democracy" in the Middle East as a way of justifying intervention.

Khader Khader, an analyst with the Palestinian group the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, traces US policy back to a document issued in 1996 by American neo-conservatives, led by Richard Perle, called Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.'

But not quite. First you have to retain your 'balance':

'Whether you regard American policy as benign or malign, something is going on which needs watching.'

Then you have to remind yourself (before eating) that you were wrong about Eastern Europe, so that requires that you have to blame someone else for it. Find a nice anecdote to use over dinner:

'Shortly after the Berlin Wall was breached, there was agitation for the reunification of Germany. The question was when this might happen.

On a visit to East Berlin, I and other correspondents met a rather dishevelled British diplomat who seemed to spend most of his time on the streets.

He predicted that East Germany would collapse within the year.

His boss the ambassador, a rather grand man who seemed to spend most of his time in the embassy, would have none of that.

Guess who was right?'

Yes, just guess. It wasn't Paul. Bon Appetit, cher Paul.

BTW, I think I should mention that I do believe Reynolds is right about something: it isn't like Eastern Europe. It'll be much more successful than that. See Steyn on the timeline for the MidEast winds of change. (thx ATW)

Can someone tell me who on earth the BBC are quoting at the beginning of this article (maybe friendly Mr S. Editor will reveal all later)? It just seems like the Beeb breathlessly wanted to get the message out that this guy Bolton is a nutcase *BEWARE* before anyone started to complain about the 'hardliner' tag. Hardline on what anyhow? Could be one of their nameless 'correspondents', I suppose- there are plenty of candidates for anti-US paranoid outbursts out there.

Update: Ah, the quotemarked 'hardliner' has become a hardliner in fact. So the BBC is saying now they know for sure a hardliner is coming to the UN.

Ongoing BBC violence- to the notion of fairness.

They're still trying to nail this one. They're losing. But it won't stop them.

According to this report, 'Six in 10 Italians now think the war was wrong.'

'Now' compared to what, exactly? Has the death of a Communist's saviour changed the whole equation? Would they have bothered to drop this in without it carrying the implication of another in a serious of ultimately significant blunders (filed among notes for chapt. 1007, entitled 'alienating key allies', of John Simpson's fantasised epic work of history, 'How the US got it wrong in Iraq and lost their world superpower status')on the way to one of history's famous military disasters (yes, they mean the US war on Saddam, really)? Who do they think they're kidding?

They may like to talk about how 'Iraq insurgents seize initiative' but they don't talk about the gradual lessening of US troops deaths (probably due to troop tactical changes, but still specifically noteworthy). They even happily contradict their headlines with such general, deliberately vague- almost coy- phrases as 'Although figures can be misleading, the general level of attacks since the 30 January elections is thought to have dropped a little from the highs recorded in the run-up to the poll.' Initiative? What initiative? the point is that having set the tone they can afford to let their anti-war guard drop a a little. It's known at the BBC as 'balance'.


When they present the violence they decline to mention that terrorists using terrorist tactics are targeting their fellow muslims. Rather than be specific and consistent they frequently change the nature of the descriptions of violent acts and casualties to foster a sense of Iraq as they would like us to see it. They sew together a pastiche of violence- 'Violence also continued in Baghdad'- with which they seek to cloak events. You may say, 'where in Baghdad, that huge city?', or 'exactly when?', but they won't tell you. 'Violent place, Baghdad', you can almost hear the colonial broadbrush being swished from the comfort of the hotel bar.

Of course they don't think that the US invasion of Iraq will prove to have been the miliary disaster that many hoped it would be (I can recall many a journalist of all stripes hoping that the American people would 'learn a lesson' over this). What they think is that its their job to make it harder for the US, to make it painful, to make them feel that pain and us to feel they feel it. It's not. There are already people who dedicate themselves to do that, and they're Islamofascists- for whom the BBC are emotional siphons. It's my definition of being on the 'the other side'.

And of course that's what the BBC are, in the long run. Whistling anti-US tunes while waiting for the transnational cavalry to be called in, the so-called 'insurgents' will do for entertainment in the meantime.

A Statement of Intent:

Helen from EURef lays out the philosophy of her blog- which with a snappier title would already be more successful than even its current high visitor numbers suggest. But, in that case, it would be less the kind of intelligent and respectworthy effort that it is.

Euroscepticism is misnamed too: it is actually a vision for the world. A real one, and the only one of substance (substance doesn't have to be large, just reliable). Never judge the book by its cover. The Commission has no purpose (that it can admit to), the Parliament is not democratic, the Constitution is a list of rules for bureaucrats, and so on. Presented with such a can of worms I would simply head toward the nearest bin and throw it away.

Condescending, Lazy, Ignorant- that'll be the media, the judiciary and the political classes of the UK, amongst other folk. I suppose that would qualify as basically the entire edifice of the opinion forming class of this country. Academics, though often corresponding to the above description, do not exclusively so- there are always clever men and women, the world over, who spend a lot of time in small rooms effectively burrowing into various media, which is very nice for them and occasionally invaluable for us.

So what brought that little barney on? Well, one thing is Melanie Phillips' indictment of the court case presented by that muslim girl (you know, the one flanked by wannabe Islamic heavies, chest heaving with the excitement of crusading for Allah). I saw her on Sky giving her little peroration to her fellow jihadis and rebuking us poor dhimmis, and it was no surprise to find from the ever alert Melanie that there was more to the case than ever came out in court. [Matter of fact I was recently involved in a court case myself (I defended myself actually), and I firmly walloped the pompous prosecuting counsel in my minor case by introducing a few simple facts and a little logic to accompany my self-belief. It was quite funny to see. The judges seemed ok, but waiting to be led. It was a very minor case, but I think it gave me some major insights. One was never to follow the advice of a London Barrister, even a friend, without thinking it through for yourself.]

As Melanie says, 'In the great row over Home Secretary Charles Clarke’s draconian control orders, the argument is that the judiciary should take control of anti-terror procedures in order to protect our fundamental liberties from untrustworthy politicians. But the terrible truth is that the English judiciary can no longer be trusted to safeguard us.'

But what really pains me about the hijab case, what really disturbs me and points out to me the incredible darkness at the heart of our ruling classes, is the fact that the Prime Minister's wife, QC Cherie Blair/Booth, was the legal representative for this girl's case (why Melanie passes this by is an interesting question, given her obvious interest in the case). Andrew Bowman rightly pointed this out on Biased BBC, since the BBC had ignored it (surprise) in their coverage, but it shows that our Prime Minister who supposedly 'gets it' about the War on Terror really doesn't get it at all (and yes, yes, it's only his wife etc, but honestly!). This may only be a cultural victory for those concerned, and a cultural concession of a much lower order weighed in our current scales, but who can weigh it in the scales of significance over the longer term? Melanie rightly points out that the hijab is significant within Islam, not merely in contradistinction to the dhimmis outside that religion. It's a tool of radicalism amongst young people.

You may have, and I might have, considered this a small cultural item, but why, if so, are people so determined to fight the battle and so triumphant when they win? It's because it sets a cultural battle raging, it creates a point around which religious fervour can pivot and exclude others so as to embellish its power over its adherents and recusants. And the French understand this- read and weep. The French establishment may be appalling and ultimately hellbent, but at least people who join it have to have some intellectual rigour (and be able to lie through their teeth). The British lot can provide the part in brackets only.

All of which brings me to Steyn, a beacon on a hill of his own creation it sometimes seems. In his latest effort for the Spectator (and doesn't it need some?), he gets to the keywords as he surveys the unending idiocy of certain people in the fourth estate and beyond it. 'Lazy', 'condescending', 'reductive'- all are applied during the finale of his dissection of the defeat of a whole body of viewpoints.

My only quibble is that Steyn has no need to defend himself by pointing to 'I told you so' phrases. The only thing I can recall him being wrong about (apparently) is the vital signs of Osama Bin Laden. This Steyn may have called wrongly, but it was always an 'either/or' with little to assist the judgement. Compared with being absolutely right about Saddam's hole in the ground abode when everyone else had grander notions this is no evidence of Steyn's insight, which is almost invariably remarkable.

Not so what Steyn calls 'the Nionists'. They've been wrong about everything, and the one thing they claim to be right on without question, the WMD issue, will never make a definite cross in their wilted collumn of correct judgements. They could still be wrong about that one and it will probably always be an undetermined issue, unless it falls the way of the 'neocons'.

But as for their willingness to condemn others to oppression at the hands of dictators, the Nionists will always smell of death because of that, and their nihilistic idiocy lives on to bear that at the centre of the establishment.

See also Steyn on Hotel Rwanda for articulate, artistic compassion.

Whatever your view on the current situation in Israel, we can be sure that this is where it's at. The American Thinker again provides a treatment of an issue with uncommon depth. This time it's a head-to-head between Neuwirth and Baehr, expressed through several propositions and rebuttals. I'm with Baehr, as Baehr is with Sharon; to put it in Neuwirth's terms, with Bush and Rice and, yes, ok, if she must, Powell.

Why do I disagree with Neuwirth? Because Sharon is building his wall, a la Robert Frost, and though to build a wall might make you a friendly neighbour content to live within constraints agreeable to the other party, it ain't necessarily so.

Also meanwhile, a fascinating inside track on military operations countering the threat of Iran- involving the French and Germans!- from the American Thinker.

Meanwhile, Marc at USS Neverdock makes a good point about a particular piece of BBC coverage. Words, numbers? Who cares?

World Wide Wisdom. In the development of the blogosphere, men like Victor Davis Hanson and The Belmont Club's Wretchard have given the Right side some practical and intellectual bite.

I found Hanson's interview with Chrenkoff (another innovator) really interesting. Although European- with the emphasis on Europe as a geographical expression here- I am really heartened to think that there are heads hard enough to counsel thus:

'So... we sit tight, praise them, and keep our powder dry, looking to see the fall out from Islamicism on their shores, and whether they curb anti-Semitism, get their birthrates up, rearm and make a real alliance, avoid antagonizing a surrounded Russia, and buy off an Iran or crazy former Soviet Republic. We cannot do much in all that and so should expect very little from them and get ready for some pretty crazy things coming out of Europe in the next few years. NATO as we know it is dead, and we have no idea what will follow—so we praise it to the skies.'

(textual highlighting mine)

Rearming Europe seems about as likely as uncastrating a EUnuch, but you never know. The only passion strong enough to gird up the loins might be l'anti-Americanism, which is a sickening thought.

Meanwhile Wretchard has thoughts too, but about the success of US policy in neutering terrorists by establishing democratic dissidence:

'To that extent even the most heinous attacks, like the carbomb which recently killed more than 100 in Iraq, have lost their bite. Psychologically speaking, the greatest contribution of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns is that they have shattered terrorism's myth of invincibility. The terrorists embarked on a maximum effort to dislodge the US from Iraq, employing every weapon of violence, political maneuver and propaganda they could muster and came up much the worse for wear. This lesson has not been lost to public perception and has emboldened dissidents all across the region.

The real challenge will be to find ways to respond to the campaign of spoiling terror which may be forthcoming. Unlike Iraq, where US forces can respond directly to challenge, the problem will be the ability of the US to affect events over the wider region in clandestine or indirect ways.'

Notice he mentions the carbomb/suicide bomb as a spent tactic in Iraq, but not elsewhere. I was thinking of Israel. How the Israeli government can respond to the interference (I'll call it that) of terrorists is a quandary to which no-one seems to have an answer. If at the onset of any atrocity they fight back, even haphazardly, I for one won't blame them.

(brought to you with the assistance of Instapundit)

One knows where one stands.

'The BBC's royal charter should be renewed and its licence fee extended for another 10 years' the BBC says, sorry, that should be 'a government Green Paper is expected to say.' (chirpy intro, nice photo of the relevant minister, bang on officialese presentation)

That is tragic news which I have been fully expecting. I think that the belief that anyone in a socialist government- or the TINOs- would truly grasp the nettle over the BBC's flagrant irresponsibility was always a far fetched one. On the other hand I believe that if one doesn't at some level confidently expect one can alter the status quo meaningfully there's little chance of success from protesting of whatever sort (however 'Talking Hoarsely' is actually a bit smitten with protest for protest's sake). I think we can, and we will, one day dismantle the labyrinth of featherbedded propaganda and nationalised neuroses that is the BBC, but it will take time.

Actually if the BBC were dismantled tomorrow that would considerably confuse a notion of bias in the British media which is currently relatively straightforward (though it would be change for the good). Other media organisations are subject to far more transience, as commercial enterprises and small organisations are, and their prejudices are weathervanes, largely. Commercial interests in the media are unilkely ever to promote such ideological fixity as the BBC, even if the entire field of public opinion is open to them, rather than just the entertainment/light news section. The BBC has pursued an ideological agenda since the days of the British Empire, since before the Elizabethan age began, and will continue to do so. One knows where one stands- not that one likes it.

The BBC gets in touch with DumbJon (so to speak): Showdown!

Maybe this is a Steyn-admiring, Beeb-bashing, blog about politics with no poetry (you may have noticed the incongruity). I don't know.

Anyway Steyn has a fantastic volte face in the Telegraph today, all optimism about the fall of the Middle East's 'Berlin Wall'. If I've understood rightly, fundamentally what he has in mind is the notion that we can either do things the hard way, or the easy way. By taking on the Iraq situation Bush has chosen the easy way on our behalf (though of course not in our name), which is despite that the less travelled way (there, see, poetry) that has made all the difference.

Having earlier mentioned the Mark Steyn / Austin Bay disagreement, I thought I should post this- Mark's reply to Austin's post. Via Steynonline. There's a good companion to that post in Steyn's latest Chicago Times effort. I do believe that Europe, the UK included, is going to have terrible times ahead as it wakes up to impossible situations of its own making.

Update... and Bay's reply. Maybe I'll have to come back to this issue, too.