As pointed out by BBBC reader Michael Gill in a comment, a silly conspiracy theory (of apparently dubious origin) doing the rounds of lefty blog sites about a bulge (i.e. a wrinkle) in President Bush’s jacket during the first presidential debate during the week before last have made it straight onto BBC News Online – Bush’s bulge stirs media rumours.
Moreover, just to make sure this dubious rumour is given maximum exposure, it is currently on the front page of News Online, with a headline reading ‘President Bush’s mystery bulge stirs rumours he was wired’, for those who skim the headlines rather than read the full story.
There was a similar conspiracy theory about Kerry pulling out and unfolding a ‘cheat sheet’ at the same debate (which turned out to be unfounded – Kerry actually pulled out a pen – in contravention of the debate rules nonetheless). Yet not a whisper of this has been mentioned on News Online, not even as relevant background information to accompany the wishy-washy Bush’s bulge rumour story that they’re currently peddling. Why the disparity in coverage? I guess it depends on what line the ever impartial BBC are pushing.
And let’s not even mention that embarassing gap of what? — 7 or 8 days? — before they finally acknowledged Rathergate. A major gorgery scandal backedup by extensive evidence is ignored until they can’t possibly help but mention it, but let’s rush into print the minute we hear a “rumor” about Bush’s “wiring.” The BBC doesn’t have any clue about the meaning of the word “objective.”
Sorry, that should be “forgery” scandal. Preview is your friend.
Actually, Susan, the word “gorgery” is pertinent; Auntie will gorge herself
on anything that she believes will cast GWB in an unfavourable light.
I was sure I had seen a reference to Lindoff the leftie who started this rubbish but it has now disappeared….Oh no they’ve slealth edited it! Anyone see the original?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3710946.stm
They were keen on this story the week before the election, were they not?
The story is worth reporting because it marks how many people here in the U.S. — left and right — believe Bush would actually resort, of necessity, to such a device.
Whether or not he actually was wired is a lot less important than the number of people who believe he needs to be wired to get through a debate.
The Kerry cheatsheet story — based on an incident which seems to have taken place in the first debate — was a nonstory here.
Well all one can say for Bush is that he has bulges in places that Clinton would have envied.
Interesting that the suit was French made.
nudge nudge say no more.
billg,
The story is a story just because people think it’s a story? Okay, whatever. The excuses the Left uses to hide its bias and lack of objectivity! Next you’ll be telling me the story is “fake, but accurate.”
Sheesh!
Bush’s bulge vs Kerry’s package? Oh please!
The BBC’s choice to smear Bush but not Kerry (again) is just propaganda as usual, and the technique is old, old, old: “Damn with faint praise/Assent with civil leer/And without sneering/Teach the rest to sneer.”
From their point of view this tabloid non-story also distracts viewers from the terrible news from Australia and Afghanistan.
Clapped-out Auntie = Old Media in Old Europe.
How dumb do they think we are?
I saw some guest commentator on Sky News talking about this – he was surprised that the only media outlet covering it (at that stage) was the Mail (Peter Hitchens, appaently).
This guy said he was suspicious because Bush seemed so fluent and competent. So his argument was obviously this:
(1) Bush is chimp.
(2) But chimp talk!
Therefore
(3) Chimp helped by smarter chimps.
(Damn, I like this. I might have to post it on my own site, if that’s okay with Biased BBC).
Although the Bush bulge ‘story’ (from Saturday, 9 October, 2004, 20:41 GMT 21:41 UK, stealth edits aside) is no longer on BBC Online’s main page, it does remain on the World news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/default.stm
Meanwhile a ‘real’ story, John Howard’s re-election, has been relegated to the Asia-Pacific page.
The (Don’t) Have Your Say on the Aussie election result is a classic. A preview of what to expect should Bush be re-elected.
The lefties laugh at Bush’s inability to ride a Segway or walk and chew gum at the same time. But they think it is plausible that he used high tech means to cheat his way through the first debate, a debate they say he lost comprehensively.
Today’s Jeremy Vine show had a piece on global warming. The sole guest was John Gummer, former “Conservative” minister.
With impressive speed he went (and was allowed to go) from:
1. Hysterical scaremongering (you could actually hear the excitement in his voice) about how we’re all going to drown/freeze/get blown away/whatever
2. Attacking Bush and America generally for their sceptisicm about the greenhouse theory of climate change and driving around in gas guzzlers and how they haved signed Kyoto yet, and then…
3. The ubiquitous mention of the Iraq war as an example of how Bush doesn’t listen to the rest of the world.
A real classic, basically.
My email to the show asking where the other side of the global warming argument was (e.g. that it’s all down to solar activity, etc., recently popularised by David Bellamy) has not yet been mentioned or answered. Funny that.
Sorry, should have “OT” prefixed my last comment.
Susan, please don’t put words in my mouth. I said that the Bush bulge story was more newsworthy than the Kerry cheatsheet story because many Americans believe Bush is quite capable of pulling a stunt like that. As the election will show, at aminimum, that’s at least one-half of the population.
Besides, Kerry pulling out a pen is a non-story.
That’s not leftist or rightist (even if one is eniguh of a tinfoil hat wearer to believe the media is controlled by political agendas, rather than financial agendas. You don’t believe AM talk radio and Fox swing right out of conviction, do you?)
I can’t speak for the British or European media, billg, but I do know that the ‘mainstream media’ here in the states has been steadily losing viewers for some time now without altering their leftward tilt one smidge.
Bernard Goldberg, formerly of CBS now persona non grata at all networks, says in his latest book ‘Arrogance’ that the networks’ business managers have no say on content and don’t want one.
Oh, and I do believe that most if not all talk radio hosts and the people at Fox do ‘swing right’ out of conviction – some people do have them you know.
O/T
It is with great relief that I see that the majority of Aussies took no notice whatsoever of the outpourings of its largely demented (and now teeth crunching)media. Good on yer, Sports. Very, very fair dinkum. And now its over to the US of A.
bill g,
What about the Americans who believe that Kerry is fully capable of pulling out a cheatsheet? Don’t they count?
Lord, the pathetic excuses the LLL media and its apologists pull out for their relentless bias!
Bernard Goldberg, formerly of CBS now persona non grata at all networks, says in his latest book ‘Arrogance’ that the networks’ business managers have no say on content and don’t want one.
Your starter for ten: is this because
a) the networks aren’t editorially biased
b) the business managers don’t care that the content’s editorial bias is losing them money
?
OT The Beeb are saying that Bush is not providing funds for stem cell research (as part of their story on poor Chris Reeve) yet the opposite is true Bush is the FIRST president to provide federal fundings albeit he thinks there are lots of moral and ethical problems to resolve. Kerry on the other hand is saying that stem cells will provide cures for everything within months etc.
http://techcentralstation.com/092204A.html
has a very good and balanced (I believe) article on the whole thing which I wish the Beeb had read first before jumping at the chance to slag off Bush…
OT: Another hit for Moonbat Bingo at (Don’t) Have Your Say. Check out the cyber-nom-de-keyboard:
http://eu-serf.blogspot.com/2004/10/i-had-my-say.html
Roxana: If you can’t speak for UK or European media, what qualifies you to speak for U.S. media? Whether or not the talking heads you see on TV or hear on radio actually have the convictions that their words imply, no network is going to keep them on if they are unprofitable. The only conviction involved is the conviction that playing to the right makes money. They’d run cats-and-dogs instead if even more people watched and listened.
Susan: What excuses? The President being fed answers over a secret radio is more interesting that a candidate pulling out an obciouos cheatsheet in full view of millions of viewers. One can argue that both are equally lacking in ethics, but it is not the media’s job to make ethical judgments. It is their job to run stories they believe will interest the most people. And, in fact, you would no know about the Kerry cheatsheet “story” if it had not been reported.
OT
About those stem cells, wasn’t it great how in last night’s six o’clock news on BBC1 the cute little explanation of stem cell research covered only foetal stem cells. Never mind that it’s adult stem cells that have been the stars so far – the Beeb’s not going to pass up a chance to flick a V at those naughty christians who helped kill Chris.
Bulge bulletin:
Yo, paranoids!
Time to tell the tinfoil hat to talk to the silver fillings. An answer just beamed aboard here.
bill g,
Okay, whatever it takes to assure yourself that covering allegations of cheating for one candidate but not the other, during the middle of a tight presidential electoral campaign, is somehow defensible. You’ll twist the situation round and round to make yourself believe it.
I learned about the Kerry “cheatsheet” story on a blog, not on the MSM. The blog showed original screen captures and wondered what was up. I don’t recall seeing anything about it in the MSM.
It certainly didn’t appear on one particularly important worldwide MSM outlet.
Susan, I don’t turn to blogs for my news. Blogs provide comment and opinion, but I don’t know a single blog that maintains a staff of reporters to do independent news creation.
I learned about the Kerry pen episode from the mainstream media.
So, that’s my point. Both stories, as bogus and lame as they were, were reported by the mainstream media. In fact, no one would have seen the “bulge” or the “pen” if the debate was not broadcast on that most mainstream medium, television. Where do you think that blogger’s screencaps came from?
I’m not defending biased coverage. I just arguing that the coverage wasn’t biased in the first place (excepting bloggers, of course, who are biased by definition.) I stand by the fct that the “bulge” story was more newsworthy that the “pen” story, simply because the Kerry object is so obviously a pen and because dozens of bloggers kept the “bulge” story alive.
Susan, I’m in a dilemma here. The BBC probably pay this site far less attention than we would like to believe but I’m pretty sure someone over there does look at it sometimes. (Evidence? Sometimes a post goes up and a directly relevant stealth edit happens very soon afterwards even though that story might have been hanging about unedited for days before.)
Anyway I’d like to post about Eric the Unread’s extremely entertaining competition – but if I do the Beeb might get wise to it and the joke stops.
So for now I’m leaving it in the comments.
bill g,
That puts us right back to where we started from. The BBC covered one issue but not the other, therefore blatantly showing the BBC’s bias. Really, what is so hard for you to understand about that?
Natalie,
The beauty of it is that the(Don’t) Have Your Say team won’t be able to tell the real submissions from the fake ones. Trust me on this one.
If they start weeding out genuine moonbat submissions en masse in order to flush out the few fake ones, they run the risk of alienating their core readership. If they don’t do that, we can continue our fun little game.
Either way we win.
This sort of game is hardly original. Hilarious satire has been placed prominently in the national press for the amusement of non nutcases for years under the names of ‘Melanie Phillips’ and ‘Polly Toynbee’.
“Your starter for ten: is this because
a) the networks aren’t editorially biased
b) the business managers don’t care that the content’s editorial bias is losing them money?
The answer must be (b) John B since the networks surely are biased – as we saw with Rathergate. I believe Mr. Goldberg’s point is that the business managers are not the power in the ‘mainstream media’ the newspeople are. And it’s not that they don’t care about the bottom line but that they are incapable of recognizing their own bias since their beliefs seem self evident truth to them.
“Roxana: If you can’t speak for UK or European media, what qualifies you to speak for U.S. media?”
I am not speaking for the US mainstream media but against it. And am qualified to do so as a viewer/listener.
“Whether or not the talking heads you see on TV or hear on radio actually have the convictions that their words imply, no network is going to keep them on if they are unprofitable.”
I’m afraid this thesis is disproved by the continued employement of Dan Rather, Peter Jennings et-al despite the viwer migration to alternate venues. Apparently the financial folks are not the powers at the networks, the talking heads are.
Apparently the financial folks are not the powers at the networks, the talking heads are.
Rather and Jennings are still employed either because the commercial managers don’t believe they’re driving viewers away, or because the combined judgement of the commercial and editorial teams is that firing them would make the decline in viewers even worse.
The Guardian and the BBC are special cases; the first is owned by a trust whose objective is to promote liberal values, and the second is mysterious. The same is not true for the US networks, and asserting it does not magically make it so. They are quoted companies, if the management don’t do the things that make them the most (or at least lose them the least) money they get fired.
Given that, you need some killer evidence to claim that they’re not primarily focused on the bottom line – and “squawk squawk bias rather kerry swift boat pens” doesn’t cut it.
BBC are idiots. It was a bullet-proof vest. Standard Secret Service issue, being held by a buckle on the back. Kerry was wearing one too. But he was so stiff (as in made of wood) it didn’t show so much.
bill g, your contortions are impressive, but still haven’t convinced me that up is down.
Here is one of the two original blog posts that found the Kerry foreign object which turned out to be a pen. They got their screen caps from broadcast of the debate. Matt Drudge picked the story up from them, and the MSM from him. It was a blog-original story.
If Big Media are going to run stories based simply on the fact that “many people are talking about it”, then I have a list of rumors here that they can chase down. I assure them that many people are talking about these rumors (hint: black helicopters).
By the way, I was surprised to find that BBC has the first debate being held in Miami. Miami, Cleveland, what’s the diff?
Susan: I’m not arguing the the BBC’s reporting is free of bias. I’m arguing that one of those stories was more newsworthy than the other. Frankly, giving the Kerry story equal prominence would be an act of bias, since it carried less news value.
Roxana: You said the mainstream U.S. media was losing viewers because of what you describe as, without supporting evidence. their “leftward” tilt. I gather you consider Dan Rather a leftist. (From that perspective, I’d probably consider you neolithic.) But, that’s beside the point. No one in commercial media will keep someone on the air if they don’t make money. Fox News (with hours of non-news comprised of yammering heads) founf a market niche and is milking it for all it is worth. They may actually believe what they’re saying, but that’s not why they are on the air. To argue otherwise is to argue that Fox, et al, are simple propagandists.
Angie: What contortions? Are you arguing that those bloggers didn’t get thier screencaps from a TV program broadcast by the Big Scary Media? Wooo…how could they stand to watch?
It’s pretty obvious that most of the folks here are on a vendetta against “Big Media”, and that they think little bloggers are somehow immune from the temptations of Mammon that they believe afflict everyone else in the media. (If anything, bloggers are cheaper to buy than entire networks.)
It’s also obvious that most everyone here is mad at the BBC noy because they’re biased, but because they’re biased in the wrong way. Where’s the prim and proper contempt of Fox News, eh?
billg: I’m not arguing the the BBC’s reporting is free of bias. I’m arguing that one of those stories was more newsworthy than the other. Frankly, giving the Kerry story equal prominence would be an act of bias, since it carried less news value.
On current evidence neither of these stories is worthy of any sensible news organisation – but, if the Bush ‘rumour’ is worth repeating on the BBC then it would seem reasonable to expect them to dwell a little on the rumour aspect of the story, perhaps mentioning the similar (resolved) rumours about Kerry.
The point is, even if these stories were reversed, the BBC would still pick up on a Bush rumour in an instant and ignore a Kerry rumour as if it didn’t exist – just like they did with Rathergate for so long.
“It’s also obvious that most everyone here is mad at the BBC noy because they’re biased, but because they’re biased in the wrong way. Where’s the prim and proper contempt of Fox News, eh?”
No Anonymous • we’re ticked off with the BBC’s bias because of the way it is funded. Unlike Fox News, Sky News, CNN etc. who I am not compelled to fund.
I’ll second that Michael…I think the BBC does some wonderful stuff with the license money (e.g. I love 6 Music and their children’s programmes are second to none, which almost justifies the license fee for this daddy in his mid-30s), but the obvious bias in the news is a sore point for me, and it is not because I have a political axe to grind. I used to consider myself left of centre, but some of the spin put to certain subjects and the Doublespeak involved (e.g. insurgents instead of terrorists, Jordanian-born instead of foreign terrorist, etc.) have contributed to turning me into a single-issue voter in the next election. And, unfortunately, I am voting Labour but only if Blair is still in charge. (Never thought I would say that, ever, as I used to be a _member_ of the Lib Dems.) I couldn’t see _any_ other politician stand up to the grilling he has received from all directions without reversing his position. And on this single issue he has truly been a man of principle.
“You said the mainstream U.S. media was losing viewers because of what you describe as, without supporting evidence. their “leftward” tilt. I gather you consider Dan Rather a leftist. (From that perspective, I’d probably consider you neolithic.) But, that’s beside the point. No one in commercial media will keep someone on the air if they don’t make money.”
But they do. They even keep them on after they embarrass themselves and their network by broadcasting fraudulent stories. Are you seriously arguing Dan Rather and his cohorts aren’t lefties? Sixty Minutes wouldn’t cover the Swift Veterans because of their ‘bias’ happily accepted forged documents from a dedicated Bush opponent. Does that sound evenhanded to you??
Anonymous • we’re ticked off with the BBC’s bias because of the way it is funded…
Ahem…let me pick this one up for the balanced, modulated and he-of-the-Job-like-patience-with-definite-Socratic-tendencies-as-well Mr Gill, and BELLOW at the execrable pantywaist Ms Anonymouse:
HEY YOU, ANONYMOUS! YES, YOU!!
What part of:
WE DON’T WANT TO PAY FOR THIS CHERRY-PICKED ENDLESSLY SPUN AND DEEPLY DERANGED LEFTOID EURO-WANKER ANTI-AMERICAN BOILER-PLATED CRAP
…don’t you understand?
In what way is this an unreasonable and silly attitude?
Do tell.
Roxana: You don’t present any evidence to support your assertion that mainstream media keeps moneylosers on the air. Rather’s screwup is not at all connected with the amount of money his sponsors pay CBS.
And, yes, I stating that Dan Rather is not a leftist. In my book, there are very few leftists in the U.S., because a leftist is a cardcarrying member of a socialist or Marxist-oriented party. Seen any of those in the U.S. lately? In other words, “liberal” does not mean “leftist”, no more than “conservative” means “fascist. (And that’s assuming any of have any insight into Rather’s politics, which I doubt.) Of course, conservative media abusers love to link liberal with leftist as a way to promote their ratings and their profit.
This is how liberals ‘prove’ there is no media bias – by moving the goalposts. If you define ‘leftist’ as Marxism then everybody to the right of Stalin becomes ‘moderate’, including Rather and his cohorts. And everybody to the Right of them becomes ‘neolithic’ or ‘fascists’. Convenient isn’t it?
Oh, and Dan Rather has never been at all reticent about his political leanings. Mind you he is entitled to hold whatever views he pleases – I just object when they start effecting his news judgment as was evidently the case here.
I didn’t move the goalposts, Roxana, bogus conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and his herd of penny ante imitators did when started using the word “liberal” and “leftist” to denounce anyone to their left. Since these bastardized conservatives who have hijacked the Republican Party can trace their lineage directly to the white racist reaction to the civil rights progress of the 1960’s — via moral failures like George Wallace and Richard Nixon and the creations of thousands of segregation academies masquerading as “Christian” scholls — I’m quite happy to be counted among their opponents. Anyon who opposes these peope is on the side of freedom and liberty.
When did the terms “liberal” and “leftist” become insults?
Why do you feel that these terms are so much worse than the terms you choose to describe your opponants? Terms like “racist” & “enemy of freedom & liberty”?
The right wing have had to put up with being called “facists” and “murders”, and dismissed as “extreme” for a very long time. Frankly if you’re insulted by being called “liberal” or “leftist” you have a remarkably thin skin!!!
When one feels, as does, billg, that his beliefs represent Truth, decency and civilization naturally one must inevitably regard anybody who opposes or even questions their rightness as ‘neolithic’ ‘fascist’ ‘racist’ etc. To actually engage in substantiative debate rather than simply call names would risk validating their evil.
BTW: George Wallace saw the light and *backed* integration and civil rights which I would say made him a ‘moral success’. Admittedly the best that can be said for Nixon is he wasn’t as bad as Bill Clinton, at least he recognized he’d been wrong.
Hi Alan,
I think the word “liberal” became an insult round about the 1994 congressional elections. Unfortunately, liberals, instead of taking the high ground they should have done, at the time, cowered and said “No we aren’t.” And go running every time the word liberal is mentioned ever since.
Mainstream liberals do not, on the balance of it, denounce conservatives as fascists. Hippy commy scum, on the other hand do. 😉
Since Newt’s revolution in 94, the commentators on talk radio have invested the term liberal with the same propagandistic value as card-carrying-communist-radical-intent-on-the-destruction-of-mom-and-apple-pie. Where I come from, if you call a candidate a liberal, that’s about it for them. Also be the first candidate to call your opponent unpatriotic and you win. (But that’s a different discussion…)
Roxana, et al, you should have noticed I haven’t described my politcal stance one way or the other. You made the assumption that I label myself a “leftist” or “liberal”.
Leftist has always described someone affiliated with a socialist or Marist-oriented party. It is not synonymous with liberal. Legitimate leftists are essentially invisible in the U.S.
The conflation of liberal with leftist prevalent in much media and many blogs is the result of a deliberate attempt by so-called conservative media personalities and politicians to turn liberal into a pejorative. Playing on universal American distaste for socialism, they distorted the meaning of both words in order to portray their far-right culturally and racially exclusive politics as mainstream views.
I’ve no problem with honest conservatives or honest liberals, but I have a real problem with anyone, from either side of the spectrum, who pushes an illegitimate, ideological, fear-driven agenda to secure profit and vote
To cut to the chase, white commentators and politicans (many who fled the Democratic Party after the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960’s)
use the word “liberal” as a pejorative because they can’t get away with saying “politicians who want black people to move next door to you”.
The Republican Party, as hijacked by these people, is in love with the good ol’ 1950’s, when women, children, and brown people knew their place. Whatever you want to call it, it sure isn’t honest conservatism.