BBC’s Mark Mardell’s Piece On Palin’s 2012 Statement Lives Down To Expectations..

Mark Mardell, the BBC’s man in the USA, lets the mask slip in a rather unpleasant piece on Governor Palin’s decision not to enter the 2012 Presidential race.

Shriekily filled with venom against a president she branded a socialist and suggested was un-American, in love with guns, God and the unborn, apparently ignorant of the outside world, indeed not fully clued up on the lower 48 (the USA outside Alaska)

What a perfect example of well informed, deeply researched political analysis – paid for, I might add, by a poll tax on everyone who owns a TV set in Britain.

Holding true to the definitive snake oil salesman’s code of practice that the best way to present an untruth is to baldly state it as a fact, Mardell goes for broke.

Sarah Palin’s decision will have disappointed some.
Not the American people who clearly didn’t like her as John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

Excuse me? If that was the case why was it that the only time that the McCain ticket led Obama in the polls was in the first half of September after Palin joined it? After September 15th, of course, the ticket was dead in the water – not because of Palin but due to McCain’s deer-in-the-headlights reaction to the Lehman Brothers collapse.

Naturally Mardell ignores policy positions and goes for the personal…

As a result we have Michelle Bachmann in the race. Herman Cain in the race. Rick Perry in the race.
They are all more authentic, more intelligent, more acceptable than Palin

Hmmmm….Mr Mardell – are you saying Camille Paglia is is just some dumb broad?

No evidence to back this up, of course. Indeed what is fascinating is how Mardell is trying desperately to portray Palin as some sort of X Factor “celebrity” without any connection to the world of serious politics. No reference to her years of executive experience in Alaska as a successful city mayor or popular governor. No reference to her fight against corruption in her own party or her triumphant battles against the big oil companies.

But then why in the world would any rational person be at all surprised at this bucketful of poisonous bile?

It’s Mark Mardell..

For years he was paid by the BBC to pimp the EU as their man in Brussels. Then, when the they began to believe their own hope&change crapola about a totally unvetted Chicago Daley machine hack with zero executive experience, Mardell’s bosses decided to send him to Washington as a kind of court correspondent to wax lyrical about the new Camelot. He must have been delirious with joy, foreseeing an eight year stint pimping for Obama.

But it has all gone horribly wrong. The Obamacare shambles, the ever swelling deficit, the lobbyist rewarding stimulus that has failed to dent unemployment, the ATF guns scandal, the Democrats losing control of the house in 2010, the emergence of the tea party (which, characteristically, Mardell ignored for well over a year )…..

Mardell could even be characterised as the Comical Ali of the Obama regime

a cult figure thanks to his wild claims and colourful language

Obama is crumbling and there is precious little reward in pimping a failure. Hence the vitriolic attack on Palin. When the Brooks/Douthat/Frum axis of appeasement was advocating accomodation with Obama and Huntsman seemed the future Palin was the only leading light of the GOP who was calling him out. Her predictions have been vindicated. She was right about Obama – Mardell and his ilk were wrong – and how it must hurt to be outsmarted by someone “apparently ignorant of the outside world, indeed not fully clued up on the lower 48”

Here’s a suggestion for the BBC, supposedly in cost cutting mode. Why not save money by getting rid of Mardell and just giving White House spokesman Jay Carney a few dollars extra to blah blah blah about the Potemkin villages of Obamaland.

The song will be the same as Mardell’s but the price will be much lower…

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38 Responses to BBC’s Mark Mardell’s Piece On Palin’s 2012 Statement Lives Down To Expectations..

  1. My Site (click to edit) says:

    Shriekily filled with venom’

    That alone should place Tub of Mardell on the ‘first against the wall’ roster, purely on propfessional grounds.

       1 likes

  2. D B says:

    Excellent stuff, Aged P.

       2 likes

  3. John Anderson says:

    Superb post – and Mardell’s piece is truly disgraceful. We should not be forced to pay for his partisan ignorant inaccurate ranting.

    (“lower 48” ? – I thought Obama said there were 57 states and he had visited them all)

       2 likes

    • ltwf1964 says:

      you can bet if Sarah P had said that,it would be played endlessly on pravd……the BBC

      no I was right first time

      Pravda

         2 likes

  4. noggin says:

    potential el beeb cost cutting, kick mardell into touch, send bacon in as obamaphile in chief & correspondent on palin, both on the same level for vacuous misinformation, and infant school intelligence…

    plus his er… “oneliners” on palin could get him shot.
    he could “go down”  well over there 😀

       2 likes

  5. Louis Robinson says:

    I agree. Mardell is disgraceful. Poorly done, BBC.

    Let me declare first that I’m not a blind Palin supporter, but cautiously optimistic about her future. She scares the pants off both right and left. Here’s an example: “This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare.” 

    By reducing her to a caricature reporters like Mark Mardell feel superior and go to bed happy – and gain brownie points from the execs back home who all suffer from Palin Derangement Syndrome. But I have a funny feeling that Palin will yet have her day. She has the brains, the charisma and the guts to win through. She just has to keep the ambition alive. To people like Mardell she may seem“screechy” but anyone remember Mrs. T in the early days?



    If a makeover is needed to woo the beltway bums Palin will do it. And if she is diligent she will be unbeatable.

    Obama was not ready for primetime…his misfortune was winning the election. Palin was not ready for primetime and her good luck (not the country’s) was that she lost – but that may be the best thing that happened to her personally. As Terry Jeffrey of CNS News says: “The 2012 election may not be Sarah Palin’s Agincourt, but as with the young Prince Hal who became the fearsome Henry V, we are seeing the emergence of a leader who will someday crush the fools who arrogantly underestimated her.”

    Hope he’s right.

       2 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Palin was not ready for primetime and her good luck (not the country’s) was that she lost

      Except she was only going to be VP, not in charge.  Not the same thing at all.

         2 likes

      • Louis Robinson says:

        Point taken, David. By the way, on the subject of VPs, I think Biden’s losing it. (“Van Jones – whoever he may be?”) Why is he making so many gaffs?

           2 likes

        • David Preiser (USA) says:

          Biden has to pretend Van Jones wasn’t closely connected to the President because of the scandals associated with him.  The BBC won’t call him on it because it hurts the President.

             2 likes

      • Mailman says:

        Not only that but here we are not too far away from ushering in a new Republican President and McCain is still alive. 

           2 likes

  6. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Mardell’s output is also filled with venom. Although he doesn’t shriek so much as mewl.

       2 likes

  7. John Anderson says:

    Rather than vomiting over Sarah Palin,  why doesn’t Mardell report what a political mess Obama is in ?

    http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/06/obama-hits-disapproval-high-in-new-quinnipiac-poll/

    And where is his in-depth appreciation of the ACTUAL Republican candidates,  including Herman Cain among the front-runners so far?

       2 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Mardell’s reporting on all of the Republican candidates has been dedicated exclusively to running them down, dismissing them, and casting aspersions.  Defenders of the indefensible will remain silent.

         2 likes

  8. hippiepooter says:

    As far as the BBC is concerned Mardell is money well spent on pumping out left-wing propaganda.

       2 likes

  9. cjhartnett says:

    The likes of Mardell are despicable.
    Palin wouldn`t know who this Limey nomark is.
    She clearly isn`t the finished article, but in the world of gresed up pigmies and bland tanneds : she is a marvel.
    Her Iowa speech the other weekend is the best general call to arms that I have read in a while. That she said these things as clearly as she did makes her my political heroine of the moment.
    No wonder the liberal elite-and those who Mardell represents here at the BBC-hate her so…and they would have gone to all extremes to destroy her. 
    She must know, that and would have taken it into account before she withdrew.
    Still….Womans Hour won`t be running any piece about her being prevented from running by a nasty, misogynist gutteral presspack under the thumbs of Obama, Strauss Kahn, Von Rumpoy, Rusbrider, Thompson and Patten etc.
    She will still exert enormous influence…because we know what she has said was spot on, and she deserves a family life. The Media and politicos would have deliberately had her wiped out in any way possible…Americas loss then! 

       2 likes

  10. John Horne Tooke says:

    She branded him a socialist. What, just her?

    http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/government/official-obama-socialist/

    Anyway Mardells mates at the BBC are socialists. Is he now saying that calling someone a socialist is an insult.

    So the celebrations at Broadcasting House in 1997 was because the “Tories” lost not because the socialists won.

    “Blair stated, “I am a socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral.”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair

    Mardell is taking the part as a political activist. His opinion should be kept to himself. The news is Sarah Palin is not standing for election. Full Stop.The End. Fin.Period.

       2 likes

  11. David vance says:

    Yes, I caught Fatty Mardell’s little diatribe as well but have been too busy to comment until now. Excellent post, Aged P.

       2 likes

  12. Jeremy Clarke says:

    This is a hatchet job. It belongs in the op-ed pages of a newspaper or on an independent blog.

    I would expect a more measured piece by the BBC’s North American editor but the Beeb long ago shed any pretense of impartiality in its reporting of US politics.

    Incidentally, the comments are more interesting than the article.

       1 likes

  13. George R says:

    Will BBC-Democrat report and condemn any anti-semitic activity on these demos?:

    “‘The Jews Control Wall Street!’: 2nd Alleged Wall St. Protester Spews Anti-Semitism”

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-jews-control-wall-street-alleged-wall-st-protester-spews-anti-semitism/

       1 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I’d say that it’s not worth reporting because there were clearly other protesters shouting him down, but then again the same thing happend at a Tea Party protest yet the BBC told you only about the Nazi poster.

         1 likes

  14. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Mardell is wrong about this:


    But her vice-presidential run was the first public manifestation of the Tea Party spirit, and she opened the way for their existence.

    In fact, the actual first public manifestation of the Tea Party spirit was Porkbusters.  Which started in 2005.  We had a white President in charge then, and the ire was directed at Republicans as much as Democrats.  The founder of the Tea Party movement acknowledges this legacy.

    I don’t expect Mardell to know about this, of course, as at the time he was the BBC’s man in Europe.  Justin Webb wouldn’t have known about it either, as it didn’t make the pages of the Washington or Huffington Posts, and was not discussed at trendy Beltway dinner parties or DC bars.

       1 likes

  15. DJ says:

    OK, anyone want to take a shot at the odds of the BBC describing any of the freaks involved in the whole ‘Occupy Wall Street’ thing as being ‘shriekily filled with venom’?

    Anyone?

    Fatty Mardell should be tied to a post with the dessert trolley wheeled back and forth in front of him until he can actually produce a single venomous quote from Sarah Palin.

    Maybe he confused her Moochelle, of the House of White?

    Meanwhile, the BBC’s core support is up to standard. Here’s the current first comment on that thread:

    “What a pity. The more of them who run, the less likely is any one to get the nomination and the presidency”

    How did the BBC miss out on hiring this guy?

       1 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      I’d rather take odds that the BBC will describe them as being wholly representative of the vast majority of the country, and the true spirit of the best of us.

         1 likes

  16. My Site (click to edit) says:

    I see the American establishment have similar priorities as those over here:

       1 likes

  17. John Horne Tooke says:

    I wonder If Hannan would change his mind now
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100005400/mark-mardell-an-unusually-fair-minded-bbc-reporter-is-leaving-brussels/

    The reason he came across as “fair-minded” in Europe is that he never attcked anyone. He was not against the EU, he is just against democracy.

    Maybe we should send his recent “fair minded reporting” to good old Daniel.

       1 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      “He has never, to my knowledge, lazily repeated Brussels spin”

      So much for that credit.

         0 likes

  18. TooTrue says:

    Sarah Palin? I just love that woman. And the fact that BBC hacks loathe her makes me love her even more.

       0 likes

  19. Alfie Pacino says:

    I’m usually okay with This Week but tonight they played out with footage of Sarah Palin dubbed over with Cliff Richard’s ‘Devil Woman’. What is wrong with these people?

       0 likes

    • Demon1001 says:

      I saw that.  Helen Boaden, what is your view on the impartiality shown here?

         0 likes

    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      There are a few who the BBC continually eulogise who could perhaps be ushered in to the theme of Dumb & Dumber.

      One feels a Craig special might highlight those world-famous BBC genes being deployed impartially in a musical sense on top of every sulk, sigh, shrug & sneer.

         0 likes

  20. Reed says:

    I’m not a fan of Palin, but the double standards at work here are disgraceful. During the race to become the Democratic candidate for the 2008 election, some of Hillary Clinton’s opponents were shouted down as ‘sexist’ for describing her as ‘shrill’. That’s a very mild description compared to some of the crap this woman has had to put up with. Where’s the sisterhood now?

       0 likes

  21. John Anderson says:

    Do they run seminars on Sickenly Bad Taste Journalism at the BBC ? 

    Or is it in their genes ?

    Mardell’s piece was as sick as it gets,  I thought.

    Then I saw ex-Beeboid Martin Bashir,  even sicker :

    http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/06/video-martin-bashir-eulogizes-steve-jobs-by-dumping-on-palin-of-course/

    The Fourth Estate is supposed to help hold the powerful to account, to guard against abuse of power.  But who holds these creeps to account ?

       0 likes

  22. TooTrue says:

    The Guardian has an attack piece on Palin so I put an oar in:

    From the moment that Sarah Palin appeared on the stage accepting the VP nomination, left wing media hacks rolled up their sleeves and moved in swinging wildly in the hope of landing a punch or two. This was before they knew anything about her – except that she was a right-wing born-again Christian Republican who opposed abortion and had a pregnant teenage daughter. The daughter featured prominently in the attacks, as if she was somehow relevant.

    A large part of the reason for these vicious gang attacks was, of course, the fact that she posed a real threat to the presidential aspirations of the left’s beloved Barack Obama. And even when their beloved became president and the threat subsided they still could not refrain from attacking Palin, lashing out at her at every opportunity as if they were trying to grind her down and obliterate her. And they are still doing it.

    Now I can understand a lefty publication like the Guardian with its tunnel vision taking such action but it was a bit more difficult trying to grasp the fact of the BBC enthusiastically joining the wild throng on the Palin hunt. After all, the BBC is meant to be an impartial media outfit serving the whole spectrum of the British public, not only the left, and it wallows in vast amounts of cash extorted from the public on pain of imprisonment.

    Anyway, I love Sarah Palin with her gutsy, forthright, unapologetic approach to life and politics and the fact that lefty media hacks and others loathe her so much makes me love her even more.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/06/sarah-palin-party-over?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

       0 likes

  23. Span Ows says:

    just added a comment too.

       0 likes