Caveat lector

BOOBS ON BEEB! Sully railed at the BBC—and a certain scribe knew he must follow:

THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2003

DOG BITES MAN, KURTZ SAYS: We marveled this morning at the way Howard Kurtz began his report on the BBC’s war coverage:

KURTZ (pgh 1): “Be patient, Saddam Hussein said today, victory is near,” the anchor intoned.

(2) Moments later, the camera lingered on a huge pile of rubble. “The Iraqis say this is—or was—a girls’ school at Basra,” the anchor said.

(3) The woman narrating the news is Lyse Doucet, who works for “BBC World,” a global broadcast whose tone is so different from that of the American networks that it sometimes seems to be examining a different war.

Of course, everyone knows why Howard Kurtz is posting pap about the Beeb. Andrew Sullivan has hammered the BBC too. And when Andrew Sullivan says to jump, Howard Kurtz knows to jump high:

KURTZ (pgh 6): “The Beeb is a mandatory government-run service staffed with the usual people who go into government-run media, i.e. left-wing hacks,” British expatriate Andrew Sullivan writes on his Web site. “The BBC is increasingly perceived, even by sympathetic parties, as the voice in part of the anti-war forces…How the Beeb ceased to become an objective news source and became a broadcast version of the Nation is one of the great tragedies of modern journalism.”

POLLITT: On BBC, there is serious discussion of how the invasion of Iraq is being received around the world—not so well, it turns out. There is much discussion of the bombing of civilians, of the apparent good cheer of the Iraqi leadership and the seeming lack of universal jubilation among the population; last night there were substantial interviews with an Iraqi official and with Paul Wolfowitz. I’m a fan of NPR, but I have to say I think they’re missing an opportunity here.

POLLITT: [On NPR], we hear a lot about how Americans are feeling about their loved ones in the military, and some about Iraqis worried about family back home, but there’s very little hard analysis of what this war means in terms of global politics or America’s position in the world.

And now he’s dragged Howard Kurtz in the stew. How absurd is Kurtz’s critique? Weirdly, he makes this complaint:

KURTZ (pgh 7): The stark contrast of the understated British tone makes the American broadcasts seem flag-waving and patriotic. The underlying assumption in these broadcasts seems to be that the U.S. of A. is fighting for a just cause, and the embedded correspondents, while providing unvarnished reports, are openly sympathetic to our fighting men and women.

(8) But on Tuesday’s edition of “BBC World,” Washington anchor Mishal Husain seemed to regard British military reports of a local revolt in the southern Iraqi city of Basra with skepticism.

Of course, every sane person knows that scribes are supposed to be “skeptical” of official reports. For the past, oh, three or four hundred years, this has been one of the well-known bases on which western culture has functioned. But Saddamism lives in the soul of us all, and Junior Saddams always seek to take power. A Junior Saddam has come here from Britain—and it isn’t the skeptic Husain.

WILLING TO DO AND SAY ANYTHING: Is something wrong with the BBC? We haven’t studied their coverage. But Andrew Sullivan will do and say anything to sell you his view of the war. Here’s a Sully report from Wednesday about that infernal BBC:

ANDREWSULLIVAN.COM:
BBC WATCH: A classic simple summarizing sentence. No political or military context. Just post-bombing pro-Saddam propaganda:

Britain and the US are now seen by ordinary Iraqis as having made victims of those they say they want to liberate.

Just incredible.

BBC: The targeting in the air strikes has not been indiscriminate but, as in all wars, there are mistakes and there are civilian casualties.

That seems to have been what has happened here, but the political price of such mistakes in this war will be much more costly.

Britain and the US are now seen by ordinary Iraqis as having made victims of those they say they want to liberate.

KURTZ (pgh 1): “Be patient, Saddam Hussein said today, victory is near,” the anchor intoned.

More examples? In a similar but a lighter vein, consider one of Mickey Kaus’ compulsive complaints against ol’ debbil Kerry. (Click here, scroll back.) Last Friday, the Compulsive One channeled his latest complaint, seeking succor from the Prospect’s William Bradley. Here is the passage from Bradley which Kaus oddly quoted:

BRADLEY: [Kerry’s] vote last fall giving George W. Bush the authority needed to launch a war against Iraq prompted some Kerry gymnastics…as the senator explained how he was changing his position without, um, changing his position. Even more worrisome for Kerry partisans than his parsing of his position on the war—he would be for an Iraq war if necessary but not this war so undiplomatically put together by this president—should be his performance at [the state party chairman’s] reception Friday night…Kerry treated this event, which usually takes the form of a meet-and-greet affair, as something far more formal, delivering a 40-minute address that most of the crowd quickly tuned out. [Kaus’ deletions]

But remember: In the land of the Kooks and the Crackpots who now rule your culture, the simplest situations are treated as strange. Indeed, when a targeted journalist quotes Saddam, it’s presented as news in the Post. Your strange ruling clique feels no need to make sense. Their grunting is quite prehistoric.