Victory Lap or Somber Occasion? Whatever the White House Says It Is.

Victory Lap or Somber Occasion? Whatever the White House Says It Is.

Not a single voice allowed on the BBC today to criticize. Every single Beeboid on air is saying how wonderful this is, and how this is "paying respect" to the families and is absolutely not a victory lap or moment of opportunism. Of course, they don't know what He thinks, or what this really is, but they are telling you nevertheless. All US vox pops are positive, enthusiastic, supportive.

The BBC is also helping to spin the White House talking point that Bush forgot about Bin Laden and it was only the current President who cared. There is still no mention on the BBC of the fact that the name of the courier was obtained during the Bush Administration, and that Sunday's event was the culmination of years of work. Mustn't harm the Narrative.

No sneering at the President telling firemen in NYC that He's "got your back" in front of the whole press corps, something that ought really to have been a private occasion. In fact, this, as Huw Edwards told us twice now, is "the defining moment of His Presidency". He spoke to Eleanor Clift, but forgot to mention that she's a die-hard Democrat and supporter of the President.

Where are the critical voices? Surely there must be someone in the country who thinks this is unseemly? Or someone who might think it's odd that He never visited Ground Zero as President before but runs down there now? You won't hear any editorializing or sneering today from the Beeboids. Not even from Matt Frei, who has his best serious journalist face on. today. Only respect for the White House agenda from the BBC.

An impartial broadcaster should not be telling you what His motives are, or whether or not this actually is the right thing to do. They should be telling you what's happening, and what various opinionmongers think it means. The Beeboids themselves should not be telling you what to think about it. Yet they do.

Note to Matt Frei: Today's visit wasn't supposed to be about Him, right? It's supposed to be about the victims, their families, healing, and possibly some closure for the country's psyche. Except you and your colleagues are making it all about Him even while you pretend you're not.

Mark Mardell's Crisis of Faith

The President ordered Osama Bin Laden killed without trial, without due process of law, and the BBC North America editor is crestfallen. Mardell really doesn't know what to do. He has his own opinions, his own moral code to follow, yet cannot bring himself to actually blame the President for it. Instead, he works to shift blame onto the ugly United Statesians he's found distasteful for so long.

On the scene in New York, Mardell explains what the President will be doing, and why. Well, actually, no he doesn't. He mostly quotes the White House spokesman, who is the husband of Katty Kay's personal friend and business partner. Mardell also quotes the President and mentions what Sarah Palin said as well. Why the British public should give a damn about what Sarah Palin says instead of an actual politician or even Presidential candidate is a mystery to me, but we know that the BBC cares very, very deeply.

When the President lays that wreath this evening, I hope he's a bit more considerate than He was when He casually tossed a rose on the pile in 2008. His lack of consideration and sympathy was evident then. Funny how He never visited Ground Zero on the actual anniversary in 2009 or 2010, but is coming to do it now? If this had been George Bush, the BBC would be screaming about how it's a victory lap. Instead, they're full of respect and telling you exactly what the White House wants you to think.

But Mardell revealed his true feelings about the whole sorry affair on his blog yesterday. All impartial journalism goes out the window now. This is Mardell's personal opinion, and shows how crushed he is that his beloved Obamessiah has ordered someone killed without trial. Of course, I don't expect Mardell to actually criticize the President or His management skills for all the screwed up facts they spewed out after the event. Fog of war and all that, I'm sure. Nothing to do with amateurs running the show.

In any case, here's Mardell's own opinion:

The president's press secretary Jay Carney suggested this was the result of trying to provide a great deal of information in a great deal of haste.

I can largely accept that. There is no mileage in misleading people and then correcting yourself. But the president's assistant national security advisor John Brennan had used the facts he was giving out to add a moral message - this was the sort of man Bin Laden was, cowering behind his wife, using her as a shield. Nice narrative. Not true. In fact, according to Carney this unarmed woman tried to attack the heavily armed Navy Seal. In another circumstance that might even be described as brave.

Well, sure, but what's the point of saying such a thing about bravery, if not to direct the audience in a certain direction? Just state the facts and let the audience decide. No need for editorializing like this.

For those involved an operation like this, time must go past in a confused and noisy instant, and they aren't taking notes. Confusion is very understandable. But you start to wonder how much the facts are being massaged now, to gloss over the less appealing parts of the operation.

Oh, dear. Mardell is starting to question his undying trust of the President? We'll see in a moment.

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Targeted Serenading

We’ve had many surprises this week. One was seeing Mark Regev in the studio, speaking without constant interruptions and contradictions. We had the usual anti Israel tripe from various talking heads too, endlessly bringing up the illusory obstacle to peace, Netanyahu’s refusal to extend the settlement freeze.
Eventually, Hamas’s mourning of Bin Laden’s assassination, or heroic martyrdom, was mentioned. Even the fact that the Arab Spring might not necessarily presage enlightenment and democracy as we know it was voiced, openly, on the BBC.

However, back to normal this morning with Thought for the Day (1:48:06) The Rev Angela Tilby’s words of wisdom addressed the intractable problem of Israel Palestine. Now that those two naughty boys Hamas and Fatah have made friends, she brayed, peace can happen at last. Doves and Hawks, she purred, are both vital to the process. Hawks, though annoying, must be brought in from the cold. We must not treat this as a playground dispute, she warned, unaware that that was exactly what she was doing.
Her two unconvincing reminders that Israel’s fears were rational stuck out oddly, as though they’d been squeezed into the script as an afterthought, having remembered the need for impartiality just in time. The final bit, about Daniel Barenboim’s Gaza gig and the wonderful peace giving properties of Mozart avoided mentioning the tricky subject of Hamas’s aversion to music.
But this isn’t about Today. Most people take its irrelevance as a given, something like being made to swallow a tonic that is thought to be good for you, but isn’t really.
It’s about the item that followed. Are targeted assassinations acceptable?Does Obama’s recent escapade set a precedent? Geoffrey Robertson QC had been listening to Thought for the Day, because he mentioned it to help his argument that targeted assassinations are never justified. What, he speculated, if Sarah Palin as POTUS decided to assassinate Fidel Castro, or Julian Assange? Or what if some Ayatollahs decided to assassinate Salman Rushdie? (What indeed.)

Danny Yatom, former Head of Mossad was on the line. “ Danny Yatom”, says Sarah Montague, authoritatively, “You think it’s better to kill them that remove them alive. “ “No” he replies from some echoing Zionist den, “It’s better to capture alive and obtain intelligence, but we are at war, and in that case, if you don’t shoot, you are shot.”
So our human rights lawyer can’t see the difference between random hypothetical murders of people that a head of state might disapprove of and Israel’s intelligence-led targeted assassinations of terrorists in pre-emptive self-defence in. a. state. of. war.
The USA should have got Daniel Barenboim to play Al Qaeda some lovely Mozart instead.