On January 13, 1898, an open letter by renowned writer Émile Zola was published in the French newspaper L'Aurore. Zola reacting to the unlawful conviction and imprisonment of a Jewish officer in the French Army, Alfred Dreyfus. He accused the government (and, one was meant to extrapolate, the press and society) of anti-Semitism, and declared that this prejudice is what led to Dreyfus's imprisonment in spite of the facts of the case. It's still known today as "The Dreyfus Affair". In his letter, Zola pointed out judicial errors and highlighted the lack of real evidence in the case. He went on to condemn the general anti-Semitic attitude of the government and many in society which led to the false accusation of espionage. He also stated that the General in charge of the investigation withheld key evidence which would prove the charges were false. In fact, Zola found that another man was to blame for the crime, but since charging him would also have implicated the Army brass, they sat on the story. Someone had to be a scapegoat, and they pointed the finger at someone, simply out of the convenience of prejudice. The Army even tried and acquitted the actual guilty man. Stop me if any of this is starting to sound familiar. Another dimension to Zola's point was that the entrenched anti-Semitism in the government, army, and society in general is what caused the crime against Dreyfus. Unfortunately, he was soon convicted of libel for it, and was sentenced to prison. He fled to England, where he stayed until the sitting French Government fell apart. Dreyfus served time at Devil's Island, but eventually was able to get his case retried. He got a happy result in the end, but it took years and a lot of struggle. Like the French Army more than a century ago, the BBC is blaming an innocent person for inciting a crime perpetrated by someone else. Even in the face of evidence that the murderer in Tucson had completely different influences, the BBC still accuses Sarah Palin of inciting him to attempt the assassination of a government official. In fact, the BBC tried to censor thenews that Jared Loughner was left-wing and had been angry with his intended victim since 2007, long before anyone ever heard of Sarah Palin. In other words, in spite of all the evidence telling them that there's no possible way the perpetrator of the crime could have been inspired by the words and deeds of Sarah Palin, they accuse her anyway. By extension, they are accusing the Tea Party movement and pundits and leading figures on the political Right for these murders. But they need a scapegoat for the story they want to tell, and found one out of convenience. All in the face of the evidence, and all due to their political and personal prejudices. Let's get the first line of defense out of the way. The BBC believes itself to be a special organization, one which stands apart from the rest of the worlds' media. It's at least part of their justification for the license fee. Thus, I would say that it would be unacceptable for them to claim that, as the rest of the media is making the story about political rhetoric, so too should the BBC, and that it's perfectly acceptable for them to ignore the facts of the case and change the story to suit the Narrative. If we're to accept the BBC is what they claim it to be, then we expect that the BBC ought to rise above petty politics in the case of a tragedy which was so clearly due to mental illness. Mark Mardell should have followed his own advice from back when that Muslim Major committed mass murder at Ft. Hood, and demurred from pointing fingers at easy targets. The BBC News producers should have held their staff back from declaring a Right-wing cause for this crime in the exact same manner in which they restrained their staff from immediately blaming Islamic Jihad on such crimes when reporting on that Palestinian with a bulldozer, the attempted bombing of Times Square, the attempted bombing of that London night club, when MP Stephen Timms was stabbed, and Maj. Nidal. In those cases, the BBC was among the last to associate the crimes with the influence of Islamic Jihad, and often even warned against such a connection. All in stark contrast to the way they've reported on this case in Tucson. Or did they not have to be reminded of their duty to journalistic integrity in those cases? Is there an instinctive move to defend in some cases, but attack in others, regardless of the facts involved? I was going to post this morning on the topic D.B. refers to below, the stark contrast between the BBC’s treatment of two stories. Events overtook. So belatedly here’s another post with the same starting point.(No Pasarani) The left wing media’s laughably un-self-aware fantasy that violent metaphors are the prerogative of 'the right' is looking very ridiculous now. In their determination to blame the Tea Party for the Tucson shooting they ignored the facts and still went on contorting, finding ways to justify themselves rather than offering a simple retraction. It’s contortionism gawn mad. Then the BBC’s bizarre reporting of religiously-motivated, Islamic-inspired violence in Egypt . As many of you have commented, they somehow manage to report a religiously-motivated Islamic-inspired shooting without blaming religion or Islam. In fact, like something straight out of the Basil Fawlty school of not mentioning the war, they go to the trouble of particularly mentioning that they haven’t allocated blame. Robin Shepherd has written another superb article on what’s been happening in Egypt. It starts: “I had to rub my eyes a couple of times this morning as I opened the BBC website to find two more stories about the ongoing violence against Christians in Egypt.” We’ve been rubbing our eyes over the BBC website for quite a while. The contrast between the BBC’s anomalous positions over these stories clearly spotlights their hypocrisy, and begs the question, why? What good does it do to suppress discussions about the rise of Islam? Will it make it go away? The tendency of the left, even the moderate left, to side with Islam because of their hatred of Israel and America, and perhaps Britain, is beginning to look more and more irrational and less and less easy to explain or justify. No matter how many accusations of ‘incitement by gun-totin’ metaphor’ each side fires off against the other, the BBC’s Islamist heroes fire real bullets, and commit real violence. This ought to knock the left off any moral high ground they think they occupy. Perhaps these verbal contortions are the last vestiges of the BBC’s institutional repression which will one day have to find an outlet. Perhaps all these suppressed inconvenient truths will suddenly burst forth like Jack Straw’s fizzing and popping testosterone, but the longer they put it off, the worse it will be. She said "blood libel". BBC hacks begin the pile on: Seeing as Robin Horbury, our own expert analyst in these matters, is on holiday we'll let Autonomous Mind pick up the slack. This is another post about the Tuscon shootings, but I'm not apologising because the BBC seems to be getting even more partisan about the affair, difficult as that may be to believe. Tuesday's Up All Night on Radio Five Live gave Keith Olbermann the best part of twenty minutes to slag off the American right while presenter Rhod Sharp tossed up softball questions and agreed with every pompous sanctimonious comment from the MSNBC blowhard. Sharp's evident political bias was matched only by Olbermann's stunning self-righteous hypocrisy. Once you've listened (if you can bear it, that is) compare the butter-wouldn't-melt moral posturing from Olbermann with this little collection of anti-Bush rage: Incidentally, I know many of you have commented on the contrast in the BBC's coverage of the Tuscon massacre with Jon Leyne's report about the murder of a Christian man by an off-duty Muslim policeman in Egypt. No Pasaran has a blogpost about that very subject (and it's attracted the attention of Instapundit). UPDATE 17.20: More evidence emerges to undermine the BBC/MSNBC narrative: Wonder if you caught "Thought for the Day" with Shaikh Abdal Hakim Murad, Muslim Chaplain at the University of Cambridge (Where else?) this morning. I so enjoyed his comments on how the use of martial images in politics has a long history. I guess he could also have pointed out it also has a long history in religion, not least Islam. However his treatise focused on the American "right-wing" (Natch) and "others". Wonder who the "others" might be? Surely not the likes of THIS guy --- a glorious story in left wing hypocrisy entirely ignored by the Palin-loathing BBC. This was brought to my attention by a B-BBC reader. It's the BBC quote for the day. The tragedy in Tuscon has given BBC North America editor Mark Mardell the opportunity to bang on and on and on about the "harsh rhetoric" of the American Right. Mr Mardell should take a look at this BBC report from October last year. He may find it familiar.
A TANGLED WEBB
>> WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2011
I was sent this link by one of our regulars. It concerns Justin Webb - he who is a key presenter on the BBC's political flagship "Today" programme.Here is Justin writing in The Mirror (natch!) today... America is a nation of white picket fences, neat flags and have-a-nice-day smiles.
So why do they appear to hate each other so much?
Shortly before Barack Obama was elected, I spoke to a woman outside a Republican rally.
“Why do you dislike Obama?” I asked. “Because he’s a baby killer!” she replied.
The woman’s hatred was bizarre, chilling – and a sign of what was to come.
The right-wing Tea Party Movement is a symptom of this crisis but I do not believe it is necessarily the cause.
Some Tea Party folk hate Obama, but the movement is a symptom of something much deeper and more worrying for all Americans: they kinda hate themselves.
Well, not as much as we hate your rancid bias, Justin. I suggest that with this overt antipathy towards the Tea Party movement, Webb is entirely unfit to be presenting news. His lack of professionalism, combined with his quest for cash (How much did the Mirror pay him for this gibberish?) once more evidences just how removed from reality Helen "Impartiality is In our Genes" Boaden is. Or perhaps it proves how arrogant she, Justin and the rest of the crew really are.The BBC and the Dreyfus Affair
Fizzing, But Not Popping
LATEST PALIN OUTRAGEOUS OUTRAGE
Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds used the same phrase earlier this week and has explained why to Politico's Ben Smith. However, I'm not expecting nuance from the BBC on this one. UPDATE 17.30. BBC Twitter Tutor Sue Llewellyn retweets Guardian.co.uk editor Janine Gibson. There's a PDS epidemic in the leftie echo chamber. UPDATE 18.50. The National Review lists previous uses of the term "blood libel" in American political discourse.What is Roger Harrabin doing?
OLBERMANN ON THE BBC
"He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right."
OPEN THREAD..
Seeing as how the previous thread is surging up towards the 200 mark, for your ease, here is a new open thread for this era of "civil discourse"....THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
QUOTE FOR THE DAY
"Unfortunately this earth is not a fairy-land, but a struggle for life, perfectly natural and therefore extremely harsh."
Who said that? Yes, Martin Bormann. So, quoting from Nazis. What could be more normal for the State Broadcaster?Question Time LiveBlog 13th January 2011
A reminder, as if we needed one, that the grim horror of Question Time returns tomorrow Thursday the 13th for the first show of 2011. It's BBC bias in the raw; at its most blatant and visceral. As usual we'll be hosting a live chat here starting at 10:30pm and followed by the unspeakably awful yet strangely unmissable This Week with Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo. If the wine hasn't run out and the enthusiasm remains we might stay online for the Oldham by-election result straight afterwards too. The main event though, is first up and promises to be an unwelcome return to bias-as-usual. Join us here to discuss it, live and uncut, from 10:30pm tomorrow!A Reminder For Mark Mardell
>> TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2011
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
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