Wednesday, November 02, 2005

The blind BBC

The BBC reports on the Senator Harry Reid’s call yesterday for a secret session of the Senate. Naturally, its narrtive is informed by Democratic talking points:
The secret debate is being seen as a big coup for the Democrats - who are in a minority in both Houses of Congress - and a sign of their new-found confidence after the indictment last week of Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby.
Ah, “being seen”, those weasel words cherished by opinionated but, er, “objective”, reporters far and wide.

Seen by who? Well, no doubt liberals and their pliant cheerleaders in the press corp saw it as a "big coup" and a sign of "new-found confidence". Conservatives, the opinions of whom the BBC seems totally unfamiliar, saw it a bit differently.

James Taranto sees it as "base rallying stunt" aimed at playing to the "demoralized" "angry left" which had the effect of completing Bush's recovery from the Miers debacle.

John Podhoretz, while calling it "politically canny", thinks it is a desperate attempt to stop the momentum which is "shifting the president's way with shocking speed" and to prevent the Plame issue from "being consigned to the ash-heap of history."

Jonah Goldberg sees it as "desperate attempt to make every day Fitzmas" by demanding a "do-over" on the already completed pre-war intelligence investigation.

This is not to say the Cons aren't placing their own spin on it all. But it seems to me that the BBC ought to seek out more than just the daily DNC press release before announcing to its viewers how things are “being seen” in Washington.

(BTW, although not specifically attributed to anyone, it will come as no surprise to TAE readers that the BBC's buffoon in America, Justin Webb, seems to have been the source of for this report.)

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