Tonight's BBC One News at Ten contained glowing tributes to Sen. John McCain but also featured barbed comments about President Donald Trump...
...and that was just the BBC reporter!
...and that was just the BBC reporter!
This was the headline:
NEWSREADER: Past Presidents from both sides of the political divide pay tribute to the American Senator John McCain. It was an emotional memorial service, and one that also saw implicit criticism of President Trump, who was not invited.
MEGHAN MCCAIN: America does not boast because it has no need to. The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.
And this was the coverage proper:
NEWSREADER: Good evening. A memorial service has been held for Senator John McCain in Washington, with two former Presidents - Barack Obama and George W Bush - leading the tributes. His daughter appeared to criticise President Trump, who wasn't invited to the service, saying her father was "the real thing, not cheap rhetoric". The Vietnam War hero, who was one of America's most high-profile politicians, died a week ago from brain cancer, at the age of 81. Our Washington correspondent, Chris Buckler, reports.
CHRIS BUCKLER: For almost four decades, John McCain served inside the Capitol building. Today, his body was carried from it to begin a final journey through Washington. The cortege paused at the Vietnam Memorial. A moment for his family to pay tribute to Senator McCain's military, as well as his political, service. During the Vietnam War, John McCain was shot down as he flew over Hanoi. For years, he was held prisoner, and periods of torture and interrogation were to leave him with lasting injuries, as well as a sense of duty. When he returned to America, he rose through the ranks of the Republican Party, eventually becoming its Presidential candidate. He may have failed in that attempt, but his daughter said that his core values marked him out as a true American.
MEGHAN MCCAIN: The America of John McCain is generous and welcoming and bold. America does not boast because she has no need to. The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great. (APPLAUSE)Donald Trump might not have been mentioned by name, but there was no attempt to hide the pointed references to a President who once mocked and derided Senator McCain. Mr Trump's daughter and son-in-law attended the service, but he was specifically not invited. Donald Trump seems to have made a point of publicly ignoring what's happening inside the cathedral behind me. Even as the service has been taking place, he's been tweeting about trade deals and travelling to one of his golf courses. However, past Presidents were here to pay tribute to a man who was both a political rival and a friend.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Back in the day, he could frustrate me. And I know he'd say the same thing about me. In the end, I got to enjoy one of life's great gifts, the friendship of John McCain, and I'll miss it.John McCain always believed that it was important to reach out to both sides of America's political divide. During this Presidency, finding a middle way has become much more difficult and the personal politics of this man who never became President feel of a long-gone, less polarised era. There is always a danger of romanticising somebody's life after their death and certainly John McCain had his faults and flaws that he recognised. He could be stubborn, he did frustrate politicians from the left and the right, but if you listened to the tributes today, there was a core theme than ran throughout them: concern about how America's politics have evolved in the decade since he ran for President. And if you look back at the Presidential debates from then certainly the rhetoric seems a little less angry, the differences a little less stack. John McCain was always a patriot who never changed, but perhaps the country that he loved has.
BARACK OBAMA: But for all our differences, for all the times we sparked, I never tried to hide, and I think John came to understand, the long-standing admiration that I have for him.
NEWSREADER: Chris, thank you.
Pass the sick bucket.
ReplyDeleteIf you were ever a Deep State sceptic, please pay close attention to what has been happening here.
Left-liberals have always hated politicians who bombed Vietnam, or stood up for conservative social values (opposing gay marriage) or argued the neocon position on support for invading Iraq or stood on the Republican Presidential ticket or (even more) had Sarah Palin as their running mate on said ticket...
So how do you then explain Democrats, Labour Party hacks, NYT, BBC, CNN, Guardian and all the rest lining up to laud this highly flawed human being (a man who dumped the wife who had stood by him during his POW incarceration, being less than perfect after a car accident)?
There is only one explanation that really fits I think and that is that to do so serves the interests of the globalist elite, the anti-Trump coalition and the Deep State (which has control of institutions like the FBI, CIA, and DoJ...in much the same way as we see such interests here controlling the Electoral Commission, Ofcom, Police Services and so on).
I was never really a Trumpist...but the experience of the last couple of years, seeing how the globalist elite are quite happy in the UK to frustrate and overturn democracy here, in relation to Brexit, has led me more and more to see him as the last hope for real democracy. Yes, Trump is absurdly vain, absurdly rich, and absurdly naive in many ways. But on the other hand I think at some level he does realise that the job of a politician in a democracy is to serve the interests of the people he represents and not other interests. So in the context of the USA, that means the interests of the American people, not the Chinese, Mexican, Canadian, European or Palestinian peoples.
Very well said Monkey Brains.
DeleteAnd whilst the BBC have always over-reported US matters vs home affairs, they are completely obsessed with the US politics at the moment.