Saturday, May 16, 2009

Have we really forgotten what free speech means?

This is a very small episode and does not, in any way, imply that Britain with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister is similar to Nazi Germany/Communist East Germany/Soviet Union/China. Still it is curious.

The other day I was at the Legatum Institute (and more of that in a separate posting) and, while talking to one of their directors, said that even the sterling work the Daily Telegraph has done in the expenses scandal will not make me buy that newspaper again. Their coverage of the American election was so disgraceful, I explained, that I resolved never to give them another penny.

Pressed to explain further I did: it was not a coverage of an election campaign but a long series of love letters to Obama. No issues, no arguments, no facts were given. We were treated to journalists swooning over Obama, his wife, his family and his (completely untested) fantastic abilities. To this day readers of the Telegraph are surprised at the occasional bit of news that show President Obama being somewhat less than the greatest orator ever (here is a blog that is essential reading to all) or not perhaps the Messiah he was painted by that newspaper.

The person I was speaking to looked stunned then sighed with relief. It's so unusual, she said, to hear anyone say this. Clearly, nobody she had spoken to (and this is a think-tank on the right of the spectrum) has dared to admit to a distrust of The One and to a dissatisfaction with the way the British media covered that election.

6 comments:

  1. Try Bernard Goldberg's "A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathertic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media," NYC: Regnery, 2009. It never stops: the "New York Times" rarely reports on Hamas atrocities or demands but spends time on Michelle Obama's sleeve length.

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  2. Thank you again for pointing out TOTUS' blog - great daily reading!

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  3. Just remember there is no POTUS without TOTUS. Btw, thanks for that link, Mikgen. Excellent as everything by VDH. Proof is any were needed that a classical education is an asset to understanding politics. ;)

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  4. VDH noted something else today (or yesterday). Those famous first "100 days", where do they come from?

    Of course it is Napoleon's 100 days after returning from Elba in 1815. And how did they end?

    ;)

    Mikgen

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  5. Then again, Obama and, indeed, our own Prime Minister keep appointing tsars for this, that and the other. And how did that end? :D

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