Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Imagine ...

... it's December 2000, and that Texas Republicans stand accused of auctioning off newly elected President George Bush's recently-vacated governorship to the highest bidder. I can't help thinking that would be the number one BBC news story for days if not weeks. There's no way it would be squeezed out of the headlines by more euthanasia plugs or the government's latest series of welfare reforms.

Of course, during the campaign, BBC correspondents would have shone a spotlight on the institutionalised corruption of the Republican heartland, with its long and dishonourable history. How exactly, they would ask, did George W Bush rise to the top of the most corrupt political machine in the United States ?

Wouldn't they ?



(cross-posted at B-BBC)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I can't help thinking that would be the number one BBC news story for days if not weeks."

Correct.

But instead, it's a non-story here. Funny how that works out, isn't it..?

Anonymous said...

I imagine it just lack of resources, that's all. They only have £3.2bn, it doesn't go very far.

When your journalists are covering vital stories like "Sculptures made from fat by army chefs" sometimes the lesser stories get missed.

Anonymous said...

Quite honestly, Laban, I don't think this post is up to your usual standards. To say that 'if story X existed, the BBC would cover it in a biased way' doesn't get us anywhere. It reminds me of that great Jane Austen line 'if I had learned to play the piano, I would have been excellent'. Well, maybe. Maybe not.

I also notice that Biased BBC for the entire Bush presidency classed stories that they felt were biased against him under 'anti-Americanism'. Using this logic, surely you should have classed your post under 'pro-Americanism'. I'd be intersted to hear your reasoning for not doing this. Is Obama less American?

Laban said...

I'm just certain, Grant, that the BBC would have milked the story for all it was worth if it involved Republicand and/or GWB.

Anonymous said...

Is Obama less American?

I'll see you and raise the stakes...so yes, he is less American.

He's half-African.

Only a right-leaning racial egalitarian would pretend that it didnt matter.

Pick the bones out of that!

Homophobic Horse said...

Obama Hussein is the perfect presidential candidate for a country that is desperate to prove it's all things to all people, the very nadir of Hegelian Geist and all things to all people, or as Jorge Busheron put it: "Freedom is God's gift to all" and America is "God's country".

Of course the reality of Islam will scuttle America's dream of one global united humanity. Reality causes feelings of cosmic dread, to avoid this modern people respond by taking flight into a complete fantasy world.

Homophobic Horse said...

Remember, Gordon Brown called the election of Obama "the dawn of hope".

What a fucking dream world modern liberal's live in.

We normal people know that hope springs eternal in the resurrected Christ.

Laban said...

Obama seems pretty American to me, albeit with some pretty strange twists - like a leftie mother who couldn't stand her own people. But the jury is still out on his policies.

His autobiography is a cracking read.