Yep, even their ombudsman cannot manage to defend the BBC’s “sexed-up” reporting about the Blair Iraq dossier. No sense that he gets that it was ideological liberal bias that was behind the black eye, of course. Bias? Nous? But at least we get this concession:
While many journalists around the world are quickly rallying around the BBC as an example of a grand old institution that remains the gold standard for all, this incident has unnerved many in the public broadcasting community — certainly in North America. Some colleagues have said that it shows that investigative journalism will always fail against a government or an industry with superior resources. Others say that the BBC was right to go after the Blair government. But by not being cautious enough, the BBC bungled it and brought the institution into disrepute. But the BBC, like The New York Times in the Jayson Blair scandal, may have succumbed to hubris and to the self-inflicted delusion that since it is the BBC (or The New York Times), it may allow itself to cut corners. This is an arrogant delusion and one that may have ill-served the BBC’s listeners while emboldening the BBC’s political enemies on Fleet Street and in Parliament.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: privatize the BBC.
WHAT BUSH SAID: “You falsely claim that Bush “gave the impression the war was over” by his landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln. I guess, like the carrier’s namesake said, the world has little noted what he said there. Here’s a segment:
We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated.
We are helping to rebuild Iraq where the dictator built palaces for himself instead of hospitals and schools.
And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by and for the Iraqi people.
The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done and then we will leave and we will leave behind a free Iraq.
By any historical standards, the 70 or so combat deaths in the four months since that speech is small (insert mandatory disclaimer that each death is a tragedy, etc.). It is tantamount to hysteria to claim at this point that this effort is failing, or that these deaths are excessive and out of line with expectations. I expected more than have died thus far in the ENTIRE WAR to have died in the first week. Didn’t everybody?” – more insight on the Letters Page, newly updated by Reihan Salam.
The Dish 