January 13, 2004
BIASED BRITISH CLOWNS
Mark Steyn on BBC bans:
Let me see if I understand the BBC Rules of Engagement correctly: if you're Robert Kilroy-Silk and you make some robust statements about the Arab penchant for suicide bombing, amputations, repression of women and a generally celebratory attitude to September 11 – none of which is factually in dispute – the BBC will yank you off the air and the Commission for Racial Equality will file a complaint to the police which could result in your serving seven years in gaol. Message: this behaviour is unacceptable in multicultural Britain.
But, if you're Tom Paulin and you incite murder, in a part of the world where folks need little incitement to murder, as part of a non-factual emotive rant about how "Brooklyn-born" Jewish settlers on the West Bank "should be shot dead" because "they are Nazis" and "I feel nothing but hatred for them", the BBC will keep you on the air, kibitzing (as the Zionists would say) with the crème de la crème of London's cultural arbiters each week. Message: this behaviour is completely acceptable.
Principled public broadcasters. Where would we be without them? Probably still calling Saddam a dictator, like the fools we are.
Posted by Tim Blair at January 13, 2004 12:28 PMCount on Steyn to finally say the hard truth-- while the reaction of the BBC and the whole grievance community is appalling and suicidal, Kilroy-Silk (what a splendidly Nabokovian name) really is an old hack who should have been retired years ago. But you have to defend the hacks as well as the Rushdies; because I said nothing when they came for Kilroy-Silk, next they came for Andy Rooney...
Posted by: Mike G at January 13, 2004 at 01:29 PMHey, I'm no dictator -- I won 100% of the votes. I have no need to steal elections like your pretender to the throne...
Posted by: Saddam at January 13, 2004 at 02:18 PMThe Paulin comments that appeared in Al-Ahram were from an article interviewing Paulin conducted by one of his students at Oxford on behalf of Al-Ahram. The interviewer apparently found a fired chimney in need of a louvre.
Dare I ask what sort of firewood Paulin chops.
Posted by: axiom at January 13, 2004 at 02:25 PMWhy should he use firewood? His mates at Auschwitz had something better.
Posted by: sue at January 13, 2004 at 02:55 PMwhat's the fuss? fundamentalist muslims, exotic and ethnic, lend color to an otherwise washed out euro society. they are multicultural specimens who rightfully take affront at any criticism leveled at their cultural savagery and religious oppression. but jews have no such offsetting qualities b/c they are largely assimilated into western culture and, indeed, control it, as we all know. so calling for the death of boring but controlling jews is as natural as the rain.
this is why paulin scores well where kilroy-silk gets shut out
anyway, what good muslim and leftist idealist does not know the scorecard of ideological rightness? it goes something like this:
soviet politburo apparachtik 10
gulags, defectors and murdered millions 1
hard-line communist china 6
free taiwan 0
cuban dictatorship 10
political prisoners and sea-faring escapees 0
viet cong, kmer rouge 7
killing fields 0
black african corrupt regimes 9
white african corrupt regimes 0
north korean hell-hole 6
starving population 0
9-11 as 'just desserts' 8
guantanamo detention 0
afghan taliban mafia 8
liberation 0
iraqi barbaric ba'athists 8
iraqi exiles and citizens 0
jihad and sha'ria 8
patriot act and liberal democracy 0
medievalist/wahhibi muslims 8
israeli, modern jews 0
palestinian terrorism 9
israeli militarism 0
'suicide bombers' 10
dead westerners and jews 0
al jazeera and bbc opinion 10
facts and free speech 0