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Barack Obama's recent poll ratings have been going the way of the temperature in the North Eastern United States in Washington - sharply downwards. Yesterday's Today programme set out to find out why with an interview between James Naughtie and BBC favourite Arianna Huffington. (The Biased BBC website covers this in some detail, with a fine comment from the fabulous David Preiser, so I won't dwell on it http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2009/12/so-how-is-obama-doing.html#comments) except to note that the Today website describes this leftie lady as "Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post". Had the Huff Post not been a left-liberal affair it would surely have been described as 'conservative' or 'right-wing', or some such label. There was no mention of 'liberal' or 'left-wing' here. Naughtie's introductory words, however, did add an adjective to this description - "influential"!
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Unsuspecting listeners might assume that Arianna is a moderate, non-partisan, influential-with-a-whole-range-of-people type of commentator. She's none of the above. This was a perspective on President Obama from the American far-Left - and that's the only place where Today's attempts to find out why the polls are worsening for the One took them.
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This is a small example of bias by labeling.
You are both right and wrong.
ReplyDeleteArianna is left wing but also a realist.
If you had been reading the "Huffington Post" as James Naughty and the Toady Programme had certainly not being doing, then you would have noticed that while she support the Democratic Party she has been scathing about Obama's performance for months, as well as that of Timothy Geithner.
In her post and in the Toady Programme she questioned whether Obama has ANY leadership abilities, and relies solely on rhetoric.
Her comment on Obama and Geithner bailng out Wall Street while Main Street goes into freefall, has also been her mantra for some time, as well as asking for Geithner to resign.
What you missed in your article was the lovely end to the interview when Naughty was so obviously totally embarrased and chastened by this very strong woman telling him something most of the rest of us USA observers already know.
It made my day.
Forgot to mention - go to the Huffington Post today and see Gordon (Save the World) Brown advertising his availability to further save the world with global warming oop sorry climate change. His article as Prime Minister of the UK in her on line paper is the most arrogant, cynical and hypocritical item I have seen this year. He is so obviously angling for his next job with the UN or EC.
ReplyDeleteI've listened again and Naughtie did sound a bit like a child who's just been told that Santa doesn't exist by his big sister.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Brown article, the opening paragraph alone is a peach: "When the Asian Crisis sent shockwaves around the world's economies in the late 1990s, I made proposals for a reshaping of our international institutions for new times." And if the world follows everything he, Gordon Brown, proposes, this will be "the first step towards a truly global society". Thanks for pointing that out to me. The man is beyond a joke. I really hope he NEEDS to start applying for other jobs soon!