Crappy BBC Commentary: Part, like, 38

Another one for these guys: the pompous Anglo arrogance of the BBC’s latest “From Our Own Correspondent” article (by Justin Webb) says volumes about how much the British Broadcasting Corporation doesn’t understand anything about anything.

A few years ago, one of President Bush’s neighbours gave me a tour of the outskirts of the presidential ranch. The very fact that this can happen tells you a lot about the kind of place it is. I have never banged on a door at Chequers, Mr Blair’s country residence, but I assume the result would be unproductive and probably involve immediate escort from the premises. In Crawford, Texas, I was shown into the back of a tractor trailer and taken off for a half-hour lurch through the dust.

Of course, the presidential compound and land are secure, and bristling with secret service men and electronic listening devices.But, outside the perimeter of the ranch, this is rural Texas. There are shacks, there are rusting cars, there are other ranches. There is dismal, hardscrabble landscape – flat and huge and visually unstimulating. And there are Texans, real Texans.

So far so good, save his jab at the “visually unstimulating” landscape of Texas. But I can forgive him—he is from the BBC, and I guess he just couldn’t help himself. Perhaps he’s preparing to give some veiled praise to the hardy, rustic spirit of the average Texan? If only.

My guide that day stopped the tractor at one stage and pointed to a gloomy-looking house with a rotting porch and weed-encrusted driveway. “Two brothers live there,” he said. “[They] got drunk one night and had a fight. And one shot the other then hanged himself from the porch.” The engine was switched on and we lurched off.

The president’s neighbours are not, in other words, a bunch of city slickers. They are not sophisticated thinkers on world affairs, they are at home with guns. I cannot imagine a more hostile environment in which to set up a peace camp.

Don’t you love that logic? Texans are hospitable yokels, but there was one a crazy case where two brothers killed each other. This means they love guns and hate peace. Oh yeah, and they are, sniff sniff, “unsophisticated.”

Webb then goes on to talk about a withdrawal strategy from Iraq with such glee that he can barely contain himself.

For the first time since the invasion, a member of the Senate has called for a date for withdrawal from Iraq, and suggested it should be the end of next year. Russ Feingold is not a maverick, he is a mainstream Democrat with presidential ambitions.

Wait, you’re the Ameican correspondent? Do you know anything about US politics? Feingold was the only member of the Senate to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001 and the Democrat co-sponsor of the McCain campaign finance bill. He is one of the most progressive members of the Senate. Allow me to direct you to this link for a taste of how wrong you are..

Every serious candidate (including those from Mr Bush’s Republican Party) is going to have to have a plan to declare victory and get out of Iraq. President Bush cannot look Cindy Sheehan in the eye and tell her that her son died because the White House messed up. But a future president will.

You sound pretty sure of yourself, but what politicians, let alone presidents, have said that the US “messed up” in Vietnam? Certainly no apologies have been issued.

The article has many warm words for Texas war protestor Cindy Sheehan. For an alternative British view, see here and here.

It’s sad to say that this kind of lazy intellect is the type of stuff that passes muster in Britain as serious political thinking. In the US, I’m glad to say that the only people who buy this kind of crap are to be found in greater Manhattan and some college campuses. The BBC is great for covering the far-flung corners of the world, but their perspective is as bad as legitimate new gets.