Katty Kay Answers Your Questions With Pure Partisan Bias

The BBC’s highest-profile talent in the US, Katty Kay, held an audience Q&A session on Twitter this morning. Once the BBC publishes the transcript on their website, I’ll update this post with a link. She didn’t say anything that would get her in trouble like last time, but she did answer at least one question with pure, unadulterated, partisan bias:

This is one of Katty’s pet issues. She’s on record already advocating for it. Her reply:

And there you have it. The President’s  policies are correct, and the only thing preventing Him from saving us is Republican intransigence. Notice also Katty’s  belief that taxes and government spending will be at least part of the solution. This is pure Left-wing ideology, and the anchor of a BBC News broadcast produced in the US and aimed directly at the US audience is espousing it without  reservation or qualification. Whether or not you or I agree with her politics is irrelevant. The fact is that she is biased and displays it here. Here’s another one on essentially the same issue:

Katty’s reply:

Is she correct? The Wall Street Journal said no in 2009.

Yesterday’s September labor market report was lousy by any measure, with 263,000 lost jobs and the jobless rate climbing to 9.8%. But for one group of Americans it was especially awful: the least skilled, especially young workers. Washington will deny the reality, and the media won’t make the connection, but one reason for these job losses is the rising minimum wage.

Earlier this year, economist David Neumark of the University of California, Irvine, wrote on these pages that the 70-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would cost some 300,000 jobs. Sure enough, the mandated increase to $7.25 took effect in July, and right on cue the August and September jobless numbers confirm the rapid disappearance of jobs for teenagers.

But wait, there’s more:

As the minimum wage has risen, the gap between the overall unemployment rate and the teen rate has widened, as it did again last month. (See nearby chart.) The current Congress has spent billions of dollars—including $1.5 billion in the stimulus bill—on summer youth employment programs and job training. Yet the jobless numbers suggest that the minimum wage destroyed far more jobs than the government programs helped to create.

Congress and the Obama Administration simply ignore the economic consensus that has long linked higher minimum wages with higher unemployment.

Katty Kay is an opponent of the consensus.

We can debate this issue of the effects of minimum wage laws until the cows come home, but the point here is that she stated this uncategorically as fact. The WSJ, on the other hand has a different opinion. If the WSJ is nominally right of center, then the opposite position must be on the Left. Katty Kay’s ideology is Left-wing. Her tweets (see her listing on the “In Their Own Tweets” page) and pundit appearances on MSNBC reveal her personal Left-wing ideology, and the same bias in on display when she acts in her official capacity as a BBC journalist. There is no question here about personal ideology directly affecting and being evident in her BBC journalism. This is just the latest example. Many more can be seen here, here, here, here, here, and here. And that just for starters.

Fixing the management structure and adding layers of accountability on internal spending will not fix this problem.

Double Standards And Leaders

Spot the missing President in this BBC report about the latest violent attacks by Guantanamo Bay inmates on their guards. We hear about the military not being able to decide what to do, as well as Congressional “restrictions” (translation: Congressmen simply don’t want to deal with the ensuing political mess if any of the POWTs are given a civil trial in their constituency), and we hear about how the hunger strike and violence is in protest of the fact that all these people are being held without charge or trial indefinitely. We even learn that one of the reasons the prisoners aren’t being released all over the place is concerns that they might be harmed if they go back home. Isn’t that nice? The other worry, of course, is that many of them go right back to the battlefield, which is the reason POW camps exist in the first place.

But no mention at all of the President of the United States. It’s a glaring omission, not only because He authorized military tribunals to start up again two years ago. After, of course, the fairly messy result of the civilian attempt the year before. Does He bear no responsibility? Another reason this is an unacceptable omission on the BBC’s part is that the President can simply release them all without sending them back to a dangerous homeland (if that is in fact even a real concern for many of them). There is precedent (e.g. the Uighurs, and everyone’s favorite “Briton”, Binyam Mohammed, who was later, after the BBC received complaints from both sides, demoted to “UK/British resident”) and it’s not impossible for someone capable of diplomacy and deal-making.

George Bush actually released, or transferred to custody in other countries, about 500 detainees during the six years he was in office after the establishment of the prison. Human Rights Watch, a trusted source for the BBC, puts the figure at 532. According to this New York Times interactive feature, there were 242 being held when Bush left office. There are currently 166 detainees, which means that the Nobel Peace Laureate-in-Chief, on the other hand, has released or transferred a mere 76 people in five years. His track record is not good, yet the BBC doesn’t even mention Him in the report about them protesting at what is essentially His failure.

Are there serious obstacles to releasing or transferring all of them? Sure. So why can’t the BBC mention that in His defense? It wouldn’t be biased, so long as they didn’t attempt to shift blame away entirely. The article as it stands does that.

Of course, the BBC is well aware of the President’s failure on this issue, which is why they casually put a link in the sidebar to Andrew Marr’s gently critical special report from before the last election. But is that good enough? It is for the BBC.

Barack Obama’s presidency: Why hope shrivelled

Marr covered a lot of ground in his report, but I’ll keep to a couple relevant and timely points. First, the failure on Guantanamo.

Marr did mention that the President’s early promises to shut down the prison failed.

But Obama’s early promises to close Guantanamo Bay and bring about a new era of trust between the US and the Muslim world have turned to dust. He over-promised.

That’s a fair assessment in its own way. Of course, all politicians over-promise on a regular basis, so that’s hardly a scathing critique.  Matt Frei (ex-BBC, former Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News America) was still hopeful and positive even a few months after He was elected and it was clear that not everything was going according to plan:

With a flick of a pen he declared the intention to close down Guantanamo Bay. He reached out to staunch enemies like Iran without sounding craven. He began to talk to the Muslim world rather than at it.

Frei and the rest of the BBC just ran with His promise, never questioning whether or not it was possible or wise. Justin Webb even enthused after that video kiss He blew to Iran early on:

The point is that Mr Obama understands that case himself – the case that says: “Come off it, America IS better, and has a decent case to put before the court of world opinion.”

But he also understands that there may be advantages to not making it, indeed to making the opposite case (to the extent that he did in that al Arabiya interview).

In fact, I wonder whether he really disagrees with the Krauthammer position.

George W Bush said what he thought. The new man is capable of sophistry in the matter of confusing his enemies…

(A cynic might ask who really are His enemies….)

At the time, Frei and Webb were the two top Beeboids in the US, the two highly experienced, world-class journalists the BBC expected you to trust. And they got it wrong. But the BBC is aware now. It’s just not really His fault, you see. Which brings me to the timely points which aren’t strictly relevant to the Guantanamo story.

Marr wheels out a couple of major falsehoods in his attempts to shift blame for the President’s failure to achieve absolutely all our dreams. One of them is a canard we hear a lot from the BBC:

It is quite true that in Congress, the Republicans waged a brutal and remorseless campaign to frustrate him.

In actual fact, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years of His reign. They rammed through ObamaCare and spending bills without governing by consensus, without reaching across the aisle. The Republicans could do nothing to stop it. Mark Mardell even once referred to that as a “Golden Age”. So it’s absolutely false to claim that Republicans have blocked Him the entire time.Yet it’s so entrenched in the BBC mindset that even the US-born ex-Guardianista Daniel Nasaw peddles the Narrative. No need for a conspiracy or memos or editorial directives for this kind of Corporation-wide groupthink if they all think the same way anyway. The bias occurs naturally. They don’t even realize they’re doing it.

The very next sentence takes it further.

The level of vituperation and abuse Obama took at the hands of insurgent Tea Party activists went far beyond civilised disagreement.

And civilians protesting stopped Him how, exactly? But never mind the how: consider what Marr’s said there. “Far beyond” civilized disagreement? Really? We all know the BBC and the Left-wing media loved to tar the entire movement, millions of people, with the actions of a few. It was all part of the Narrative that there is no legitimate opposition to the President’s policies. In stark contrast, the BBC praised the Occupy Wall St. movement. At no time did they ever focus on the violence and criminal activity, or declare that the movement itself was tainted because of all the vandalism, rapes, deaths (here’s just a small sample, all of which the BBC refused to cover), or even when Occupiers were arrested for trying to blow up a bridge. In fact, the BBC censored the news of the plotters’ Occupy bona fides. None of this even remotely happened with any Tea Party groups or protests. But that clearly hasn’t stopped the BBC from their smear job. Actually, they were doing it from day one. I challenge anyone to demonstrate how the BBC treated the Occupy movement with similar negativity.

In the very first BBC report, Kevin Connolly insulted all of them with a sexual innuendo. Is this civilized, BBC? It hasn’t gotten any better since.

But let’s focus on “civilized disagreement”. Several BBC programmes in fact relish in over-the top stuff. The first incident which comes to mind is Eddie Mair calling Boris Johnson “a nasty piece of work”. Far beyond civilized disagreement, or merely a robust interview? Question Time is usually a good source of ugly statements which go far beyond civilized disagreement. We recently saw a Labour activist call a UKIP candidate a “disgusting” woman. Far worse is the week-long celebration over Margaret Thatcher’s death. Andrew Marr and Mark Mardell and all the rest of the Beeboids can frown and scold and defame the Tea Party movement and its participants, but they have refused to similarly cast the harsh light on opposition to Thatcher. Will the BBC similarly condemn the unions and Labour and apparently the vast majority of Northern England for going far beyond civilized disagreement in their opposition to the Iron Lady? Or is only The Obamessiah deserving of such special protection?

Is making “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead” a chart-topper out of hatred for someone far beyond civilized disagreement? How about if a BBC Digital Media Executive tweets that he’s put it on his playlist? What about burning poppies? What about the violence and vandalism during those “student” protests? What about all the BBC employees who tweeted vicious and vulgar things about Mitt Romney or Republicans or Sarah Palin (see the “In Their Own Tweets” page on this site)? All just the isolated acts of a few, no reason to tar the entire BBC, or all opponents of Thatcher’s policies, or all opponents of UKIP, or all opponents of tuition fees or all opponents of budget cuts? Okay, but then we must also condemn Marr and the rest of the BBC for smearing millions over the acts of a few.

The reason I bring that up is because it’s clear that Marr was trying to shift blame away from the President. While he realized that it was never possible to fulfill all those promises, he doesn’t really blame Him for any of the failures. It’s always someone else’s fault. So even when the BBC links to his report as a subtle way to admit the President has failed on Guantanamo, there’s plenty of blame-shifting to be found both in the Guantanamo article and Marr’s feature.

They just can’t help themselves. But the double standards are clear.

The sickness of Mark Mardell

Words fail me. Mardell has done a blog post about the Walker result, opining that, regardless of whether or not it actually means anything for the rest of the country, it’s still a psychological boost the the Republicans. Which it is, although Mardell wants you to think they’re wrong for feeling that way. He then plays the writer’s game of asking a question so he can give his opinion without appearing to do so, wondering if this means that the unions are simply “too big for their boots”, or really are the champions of the downtrodden worker. Then he says this:

The protests that led to the recall election were portrayed by some as the renaissance of union power, and taken alongside Occupy Wall Street as sign of a new dynamism on the left. That did not work so well.

?????? “New dynamism”?

Behold what Mardell views as “new dynamism”:

New Dynamism in Madison: Rage and violence against Tea Party and Walker supporters. The guy at the start of the video urging people to get bloody is a Democratic Party Rep.

New Dynamism in Fon Du Lac, WI: Death threats against Republican pols force them to miss St. Patrick’s Day celebration

New Dynamism around Wisconsin: A comprehensive list of death threats and vandalism by unions, Democrats, and their supporters

New Dynamism from Wisconsin Teachers’ Union: Comparing Scott Walker to Hitler

New Dynamism in Cleveland: Occupiers plot to blow up bridge

New Dynamism in Berkeley: Occupiers seize university farm site and trash it.

New Dynamism in Seattle: Occupiers vandalize several downtown businesses to celebrate May Day

New Dynamism in Washington, DC: Occupy protest turns violent

New Dynamism in Portland: Occupiers bring mortars in glass jars

New Dynamism in Portland again: Occupiers tell women not to report rapes to the police

Even more New Dynamism in Portland: Band sings “F@#& The USA”

New Dynamism in Oakland: Occupiers shut down a Burger King

New Dynamism in Oakland again: A business puts up a sign showing solidarity with the Occupiers. Occupiers smash the window.

New Dynamism in San Diego: Occupiers turn violent when street vendors stop giving them free food

New Dynamism in Boston: Occupiers try to occupy Israeli consulate

New Dynamism in Los Angeles: Occupiers say “Violence will be necessary to achieve our goals”

Total arrests for New Dynamism so far: 7,263

Others are welcome to post more examples. There are many, many more.

Mark Mardell is a very sick man. He must be removed from his position.

 

MONDAY MORNING BLUES

Classic morning for the UK loathing Conservative-hating Today programme, When they weren’t pushing the anti-Nuclear line, they were doing their best to help undermine Andrew Lansley here,  Then they were suggesting British complicity in torture in Pakistan here. And, if that was not enough, they were pursuing the “lost generation” narrative here.