Upset at Rebuke of BBC, Reporters Suggest Bush & Blair Resign

Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff suggested to Dennis Miller on Monday night that it’s “a little odd” that the finding that a BBC reporter “got something wrong,” in claiming British Prime Minister Tony Blair knew statements about WMD in Iraq were inaccurate, led to a situation in which “the head of the BBC has to resign as a consequence,” yet neither Blair or George Bush has resigned despite the consensus that they “were wrong” on WMD in Iraq.

Karen Tumulty, Isikoff’s news magazine colleague at the competing Time magazine was equally eager to divert attention from the BBC’s biased reporting. Lord Hutton last week concluded that the BBC reported “unfounded” claims about how Blair had “sexed-up” an intelligence dossier. The story became huge when the BBC’s source, David Kelly, committed suicide.

On CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, Tumulty ominously warned: “The developments we've seen at the BBC in the last week should just bring a chill to the heart of every journalist on the planet. Because while you can certainly take issue with some of the techniques, some of the carelessness along the way, the fact is that the general thrust of what they were reporting is now looking like it was true.”

So specifics and accuracy doesn’t matter, just the big picture. Quite a low standard for Time -- and one that might explain a lot of Time’s advocacy reporting over the years.

Matching Tumulty’s attitude, the headline over an article in this week’s Time displayed the magazine’s disappointment in how Blair was found innocent of the scurrilous charge leveled by the BBC: “Did Blair Get Off Too Lightly?” Time’s J.F.O. McAllister noted how “the BBC bosses had to quit because they had led their organization into trouble by trusting information from subordinates that turned out to be wrong,” and suggested that Blair “may yet have to contemplate their example.”

On the February 2 Dennis Miller show on CNBC, the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth noticed, Isikoff contrasted the BBC chief’s resignation with how neither Blair or Bush has resigned: “And I do have to say, you know, on the Tony Blair situation, I find it a little odd that it appears that the BBC reporter, [Andrew] Gilligan, got something wrong, and the head of the BBC has to resign as a consequence. But, at the same time, we know, or we appear to know based on what David Kay has found, based on what all the other pundits have come in, that Tony Blair and George Bush were wrong, you know, with some bigger stakes. They were the ones who were taking the world to war. So I’m not, I’m not saying that, that all the blame goes on the policymakers. Clearly, there’s a large amount of blame that goes on the intelligence community here, but look, you know, there is a thing called accountability.”

The day before, on the February 1 Reliable Sources, host Howard Kurtz raised the scolding of the BBC with Tumulty and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Editor of the far-left The Nation magazine. Tumulty was soon echoing Vanden Heuvel.

Kurtz summarized the case: “I want to turn now to the BBC. A judicial report this week blaming the British Broadcasting Corporation for its reporting on the so-called 'sexed-up’ intelligence dossier. And that resulted in the two top executives of BBC resigning, the reporter who did the story, Andrew Gilligan, resigning, and a massive walkout by many of the reporters there to protest those resignations. Katrina Vanden Heuvel, how much has the BBC been tarnished by this report that seemed to side with Tony Blair's government?” Vanden Heuvel: “You know, Howard, I think in the history of politics, official commissions are usually set up to whitewash governments. And I think that this was an attempt to deflect attention from the fundamental core questions of whether the British government misled its nation into war, along with the Bush administration. So I think it -- you know, the BBC has taken the fall, but the Blair government should have.” Kurtz pointed out: “Well, on the other hand, the report very squarely blames the BBC. And this was not just some mistake. They accused the country's leader of lying.” Tumulty agreed with the far-left opinion magazine editor: “Well, the problem here, though, is that the developments we've seen at the BBC in the last week should just bring a chill to the heart of every journalist on the planet. Because while you can certainly take issue with some of the techniques, some of the carelessness along the way, the fact is that the general thrust of what they were reporting is now looking like it was true.” Vanden Heuvel chimed in: “Absolutely.” Kurtz: “The general thrust, but not necessarily the specific charge about sexing up a dossier about Iraq could strike within 45 minutes.” Tumulty worried: “But it now looks like they were relying on -- that the information that was given to the British people was incorrect. And I think that this is the BBC's responsibility to raise this. And if -- you know, if they're going to be intimidated by a government commissioned report, it's a real problem for journalists everywhere.”

Time’s story in its February 9 edition matched Tumulty’s agenda. The headline over the story by J.F.O. McAllister, which suggested that Blair may need to “contemplate” resigning: “Did Blair Get Off Too Lightly?” An excerpt:

While President Bush struggled with his problems related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) last week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced his own, related test. An official inquiry into the suicide last year of government weapons expert David Kelly had produced widespread expectations that some blame would attach to the Prime Minister, perhaps enough to unseat him....

[Lord] Hutton saved most of his fire for BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan for making "very grave" and "unfounded" charges in a live radio broadcast last May after he met [David] Kelly. Gilligan reported that the government "probably knew" that a central claim in its dossier on Iraqi WMD -- that some were deployable in 45 minutes -- was false when the claim was inserted. Testimony to Hutton showed clearly that senior spies were responsible for originating and approving the 45-minute claim and believed it to be true. Hutton condemned the BBC's circle-the-wagons response after the government blasted Gilligan's story. The BBC's chairman, its director-general and Gilligan resigned, though they took shots at Hutton's report and comfort from a wide variety of commentators who called it a whitewash....

More controversial than Hutton's verdict on the BBC was his conclusion that the government had no "dishonorable, underhand or duplicitous" plot to reveal Kelly's name to reporters once Kelly had told his bosses at the Ministry of Defense that he had met Gilligan but had not said all the things the reporter had broadcast. Yet the diary of Blair's communications director, Alastair Campbell, shows that he was obsessed with outing Kelly, sure that this would "f___ Gilligan."...

Blair ended the week eager to "move on," a senior aide said. But those missing WMD will not leave him alone. Now that Hutton has pronounced the WMD dossier an honest mistake, pressure is growing, as it is in Washington, to investigate why it occurred. Blair rejects that idea. All the same, the BBC bosses had to quit because they had led their organization into trouble by trusting information from subordinates that turned out to be wrong. Blair, who accepted their resignations, may yet have to contemplate their example.

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Isikoff's little attempt at equivalence fails. Saying Bush or Blair should resign over bad WMD intelligence is like saying Tony Blair or the Queen should resign because of the BBC's fraudulent reporting. The blame goes to the person or persons running the individual shop, not the top of the entire government. A more rational comparison would be to call for the resignation of George Tenet.

A reporter does not reasonably have any more standing with regard to a news item of the day than any other citizen. For a reporter to become argumentative and assert, for example, that Blair “may yet have to contemplate [BBC executives'] example (by resigning)" is wholly out of place, and reasonably should carry no more weight than an anecdotal opinion of "Joe Sixpack," stopped on the street.

It's not as if journalism classes impart omniscience, or hand out tickets to students so they reasonably will become society's elite.

HF

Bush and Blair had much the same info the UN and many others had regarding WMD. Fact is, Saddam had various WMD at times, and it was a certainty he would again. The fact that we might have got him during a dry spell is our good fortune, otherwise we'd have had many civilian and military deaths from WMD during the war. And you can bet, the Left would be crying "See, this never would have happened if we hadn't gone to war.".

"On CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, Tumulty ominously warned: “The developments we've seen at the BBC in the last week should just bring a chill to the heart of every journalist on the planet."

I think that Tim Robbins felt a chill in his heart as well when evil baseball fans wanted him and his skanky wife to stick their politics in their collectivist ears and the Commish told them to take a hike before the anniversary observance of the movie 'Bull Durham' at the Basebal Hall of Fame.

Speaking of cold hearted commies, didn't the hefty chick from the Dixey Chicks claim to feel a chill in her heart, too, when evil conservatives stopped kissing her ass and underwriting her gargantuan grocery bills by choosing to listen to someone else?

Well, just goes to prove what I've always suspected about most lefties - they are cold-hearted SOB's.

Isikoff contrasted the BBC chief’s resignation with how neither Blair or Bush has resigned: “And I do have to say, you know, on the Tony Blair situation, I find it a little odd that it appears that the BBC reporter, [Andrew] Gilligan, got something wrong, and the head of the BBC has to resign as a consequence. But, at the same time, we know, or we appear to know based on what David Kay has found, based on what all the other pundits have come in, that Tony Blair and George Bush were wrong, you know, with some bigger stakes. They were the ones who were taking the world to war. So I’m not, I’m not saying that, that all the blame goes on the policymakers. Clearly, there’s a large amount of blame that goes on the intelligence community here, but look, you know, there is a thing called accountability.”

Gilligan didn't "[get] something wrong," he lied, in an attempt to topple the government.

The day before, on the February 1 Reliable Sources, host Howard Kurtz raised the scolding of the BBC with Tumulty and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Editor of the far-left The Nation magazine.

This is the same Katrina Vanden Heuvel who makes up lies on the fly about Republican politicians on talk shows. Last fall, on the Chris Matthews Show, I heard her say, "Arnold Schwarzenegger has hired illegals." When Matthews, to his credit, challenged her to prove her charge, she weaseled out with, "He knows people who have hired illegals," a charge so loose that it surely applied both to Schwarzenegger and to ... Vanden Heuvel.

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