By now I should have got over my bemusement at how “[a] feature of British reporting on American affairs is that even newspapers that sell themselves as right wing or too grand to take a side in US politics take their tone straight from the Democratic party”. I haven’t. It’s still weird. It has almost stopped working but they haven’t stopped doing it. A case in point: this article in this morning’s Times by or posted from a person or place with the delightful name of “Boer Deng” will not displease the Ted Cruz campaign team.
‘Hypocrite’ Cruz hounded out of the Bronx by pupil protests
He was forced to cancel an appearance at a high school in New York on Wednesday when pupils threatened to walk out if the event went ahead. The same day, a rally was disrupted by protesters who called him a “hypocrite only looking for money and votes”.
Politician looking for votes – shock horror! Peaceful political rally disrupted – yay wonderful! Times readers are not likely to think either of these things. The recent redesign of the Times website seems to have wiped out all previous reader comments ever, but, trust me, previous stories like this one about protesters disrupting Donald Trump’s rallies called forth a stream of comments along the lines of “I am no fan of Trump, but this is thuggery”. Getting back to Cruz:
His win in the Midwest on Tuesday has paved the way for a challenge to Donald Trump at the national convention this summer. However, the limits of his staunch, right-wing brand were laid bare as he was practically chased out of the Bronx, a diverse borough that is home to many Hispanic and Asian immigrants.
Some of whom might have wanted to hear the views of one of the candidates for the office of President of their country. Tough.
In the past, he has made remarks about women that many have found misogynistic.
Any chance of a link to the exact words of these remarks so that readers could judge for themselves whether that oft-quoted expert “many” is correct in this assessment?
Mr Cruz had hoped to gather at least some support from socially conservative ministers in some Bronx neighbourhoods, but was overwhelmed by animus from the locals.
Or rather, some of the locals. The ones who got to decide that the likes of “socially conservative ministers in some Bronx neighbourhoods” who might well have not shared their animus and wished to hear Mr Cruz speak were the wrong sort of locals so their wishes didn’t count.
This may come as a surprise to paramount leader Deng, but it is possible for a politician to still gather support despite being “chased away” or even by the fact of being chased away.
His campaign team quickly retreated to the whiter, more conservative northern part of the state, where he received a warmer reception yesterday morning.
If the category “white hispanic” had not already been invented for George Zimmerman it would be necessary to invent it for Ted Cruz.
Bottom of the ninth … bases are loaded … here’s the pitch — she swings — she knocks it out of the park!
What amuses me the most is when British media outlets, particularly the BBC, report that non-Americans would prefer Candidate X over Candidate Y as if this is an endorsement of Candidate X. If I were American, I’d imagine I’d look to vote for the candidate which foreigners liked the least.
If I were American, I’d imagine I’d look to vote for the candidate which foreigners liked the least.
A couple of weeks ago, The Hillary made what I thought was a monster gaffe (though not reported as such) when she said that foreign leaders were calling her up to say that they were rooting for her. I thought “there’s a ready made GOP ad for late October !”
Anyway, two thoughts on Natalie’s puzzle.
1. The “right wing’ British press don’t actually have any reporters or budget for reporting. It’s too expensive. So they have to take their “news” from the BBC, Reuters, the AP and, as regards the US, from the main networks, the NYT and the WP. Hence, you don’t see any news in the Times and Telegraph that hasn’t been through that filter. it’s just a matter of economics. The only exception is the Mail, which is willing to take news from “disreputable” US sources, such as they are…..
2….it’s a class thing. The Donald is unspeakably vulgar, as are almost all American right wingers (not, of course that The Donald himself is right wing. But boy, he is vulgar.). A bit like Farage and his grubby oiks – too embarrassing, even if they’re correct. Daniel Hannan is OK because he’s educated and can quote stuff. And non RINO Republicans are just incomprehensible god-squadders. How can you attend a social function in London and admit to paying attention to people who actually believe in God ? I mean that’s only one rung up from burning witches.
So in London, it’s just the same process as Republicans going to Washington and being sucked into the “liberal” social scene. You can’t have a social life if you’re not acceptable to the metropolitan chatterati. Which is why the editors of the Times and Telegraph remain within the Pale, but the Editor of the Daily Mail remains – happily – outside it. In the end, if it comes down to a choice between
(a) not being invited to parties, or
(b) submitting to anything, by which I mean ANYTHING
You gotta submit. Because parties.
Not sure about the rest of Europe, but here in Spain the major media seems to get its cues and talking points on American politics (and all things American) from the New York Times and the Washington Post, aka as Democratic Party operatives and enablers. I assumes the “right wing Times” does pretty much the same thing.
And you would be correct. The Times stopped being worth reading years ago, effectively becoming the Guardian but without the good technology section.
I’ve seen the same kind of thing in the Daily Telegraph. I recall absurd hardline-PC analyses of controversies about Sarah Palin and the like. I partly agree with Lee Moore above, that the cause is economics. Mainstream media are struggling so must choose their shots as regards getting foreign news. Unlike Lee, I think the Telegraph knows not to get its news – or at least its news’ spin – _directly_ from the BBC, but it seems to have little budget or time even to review and edit some article from “our [massively syndicated] U.S. correspondent” whose primary target was the New York Times or similar. Thus they regurgitate unedited text that was tailored for a leftwing source.
Since little effort would be required to edit the articles I recall or the article Natalie posts about for mere sanity/neutrality of presentation, I wonder if there could be more to it than that, but maybe not; it’s easy to underestimate the extent to which “I’m tired – I want to get home at a sane hour tonight’ causes many an absurdity to pass unchallenged.
Has nothing to do with economics, it has to do what a profession is and what kind of people go to that profession ans what that profession attracts. Leftists and Marxists.
Journalism profession is the most dishonest profession because people that go there don’t want to inform want to convince others of what they believe.
Journalism is just the biggest problem the Western civilization have. It is actively trying to kill it.
Lee re Washington parties.
What you say was certainly true forty or fifty years ago. Back in 1977 Bob Tyrrell wrote a hysterically funny bit on Henry Kissinger and his weakness for food. “Henry relished nothing so much as vichyssoise with the greats, and if the greats tended to drone on about palpable nonsense, so what ? Henry could always concentrate on the Oysters Rockefeller or the Corton Charlemagne.”
Today the Georgetown hostess has gone the way of the 8 Track tape player. Parties in DC are almost all sponsored by lobbyists and/or political organizations like Brookings or Heritage. Republicans have their own parties and are not dependent on liberal goodwill for their social lives.
Concerning the British Press I tend to agree with you.
Same goes for Denmark, Henry Cybulski. I think it’s a pan-European thing – maybe except for eastern Europe/Poland.
Yup. “Just because he has a Hispanic last name does not mean he’s Hispanic,” said hairstylist Edna Ferrer, 57, who was chastising Cruz supporters outside a campaign event in the Bronx. “His mind is white.”
Here’s an example of “not enough time to get it ‘right’ ” from the other side. 🙂
On BBC red button news this morning, I was told a bit about what “Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the House” had done when younger, that earned him a prison sentence. Something I did not learn from red button news was what party he belonged to.
These days, BBC red button news simply scrapes the very start of a story from the BBC website. I’ve several times seen it end in strange or misleading phrasing redolent of ‘the automatic transcriber has reached its cut-off length’.
The BBC website has the sentence: “The plea represents a dramatic fall for the former senior Republican politician.” very early in the story, but just _after_ the end-of-scraping for red button.
So it’s not just the Times and the Telegraph who may spin against their nominal attitudes through accident or carelessness; though it happens much less often, even the BBC, despite its exemption from market constraints, sometimes can’t be bothered to get it ‘right’ (left) either. The effect of the omission was to make me (and surely some others reading the red button story) think he must be a Democrat – surely not the BBC’s intention.
I’m very glad I checked his party instead of just posting my assumption. I can so easily imagine saying “the BBC don’t give his party – so of course we all therefore know it” – or even posting it somewhere in some “no time to check (and of course I don’t need to)” moment. Phew 🙂 It’s a lesson in caution to us all. Even the most consistently biased news outlet cannot always ensure its agenda is followed.
You should’ve asked me, Niall. Hastert’s district abuts mine (before I moved up here with the Young Miss und Herr). :>)
However. What happened was that some guy (call him Mr. A) had either been a student in one of the high school classes Hastert was then teaching, or on the wrestling team, which Hastert coached, or both, something like 30 years ago.
Lo and behold, X turns up on Hastert’s doorstep sometime in 2010, I think it was, and threatens to go public with the story that Hastert had molested him when he was in high school. So said Speaker Hastert.
Whether this actually happened or was fiction for blackmail purposes, we-the-public didn’t know as of last fall sometime, and maybe we still don’t.
Either way, Hastert didn’t want his name dragged through the mud, so he took money out of his bank accounts to pay the guy off. Now here in the Land of the Free, we have a rule that says the bank has to report any deposit or withdrawal from your account if it is over $ 10,000. Money laundering, drugs, don’tcha know.
Hastert apparently took his money out in withdrawals just a bit under the $ 10,000 threshhold. The Feds said, “$ 9500 [or whatever]? Close enough for government work!”
So actually he was charged with a financial crime (the statute of limitations would have run out long since on the molestation case, even if it did actually happen) called “structuring” — making “structured withdrawals” of a size small enough that there was no requirement to report them.
He was NOT charged with any crime involving sex.
Various people at the time thought that this was actually The Creature in the WH sending a message. I forget how Hastert or the Heffalumps were said to have got crossways of It, but it would not all surprise me to find out the investigation and indictment were political.
In any case, what are you supposed to do if the very fact that you’ve been careful to stay within the law is used to indict you for trying to stay out of trouble? !!!
(I’m not particularly a Hastert fan, by the way; it’s just that I think this stinks.)
WaPo:
Lead (my boldface):
Indictment document at the source.
.
From CNN, 10/28/15:
Clarification–
“Whether this actually happened or was fiction for blackmail purposes….”
The alleged molestation, I mean.
Thanks for the info, Julie. In Britain, too, we’ve had both scandals where the PC (the BBC, specifically) covered up things for decades, and today spin them to be handled quietly (not _always_ successfully), and also scandals where old Tory politicians were victimised and not well treated but later cleared. I did vaguely recall instapundit mentioning the Hastert story a while back, with a PoV cautiously similar to yours, but left that out of my post as I knew I’d need to research it.
Of course, the BBC story with its reporting of sex allegations and his ‘plea’ is sure to leave a “he did it, no question” memory in all but attentive readers.
“(I’m not particularly a Hastert fan, by the way; it’s just that I think this stinks.)”
As he was a former speaker of the house, I was assuming he was what you guys call a RINO over there. Similarly, one of the smeared former Tory ministers claimed to be ‘dry’ was sometimes ‘wet’ (as we say it here) back in the day AFAIAC: in the death penalty debate, he tried to stay in with both sides by saying ‘death penalty for treason only, not mere crimes like murder’ which always seemed to me very statist in theory, and in practice a way of getting selected/accepted by the Tory shires (as we call them here) by saying he was not against the death penalty, while having an escape plan. That did not alter the fact that what happened regarding him much more recently had a certain stink too – he died before it was made public that he was cleared and IIRC he did not know that when he died.
I have a very strong attitude against those who pay off although innocent, though I understand how there can be cause to think of doing so in today’s world: in my view, Hastert (if innocent of the alleged offence) made a wrong as well as a bad choice. That said, I do sense the politicisation even from this side of the pond.
It’s true that Hastert was charged with financial crimes, not sex crimes. However, there appears to be sufficient evidence that Hastert was a predatory homosexual who took advantage of his position as a wrestling coach. Multiple alleged victims have come forward with explicit accounts. Since at this point he’s out of office and going to prison, there would seem little point in a conspiracy to invent this stuff.
Also, his home life is possibly indicative. He was married, but left his wife and family back in Illinois, while sharing a Washington apartment with his male chief of staff.
As to his being a RINO: in the 2000s, Rep. Mike Oxley (R-OH) started hearings looking into the activities of Fannie Mae. Hastert intervened, removing the jurisdiction of Oxley’s subcommittee. IMO, he was mainly interested in protecting big donors to Republican funds (Fannie Mae and its Wall Street associates) than in covering up malfeasance he probably didn’t even understand. But the pattern is damning.
Fannie may was invention of and source of great personal wealth to democrats . republicans had been trying to limit the activities of Freddie and Fannie for many years right up until the two caused the real estate crash and ensuing financial collapse in 2007-2008 . Franklin Raines paid himself 90 million and Jamie Gorelick was rewarded with many millions for her brief stay on the board . If you want a Freddie/Fannie culprit you are looking not only at the wrong guy in Hastert but the wrong party . Barnie Frank is far more more culpable both for financial troubles, but also for homosexual illegalities , such as running a whorehouse, and keeping a live in call-boy. But hey he is a democrat so it is all OK .
Yes the British media take their line from the leftist American media – who twist everything.
Here is the truth – but you will not read it in the London Times.
“Hispanic son of Cuban refugee who was tortured by the Batista regime and came to see that Castro was just replacing one dictatorship with another dicatorship, is prevented from speaking in the Bronx by Marxist thugs.”
And, of course, the idea that Big Government policies have failed in New York – both in the Bronx and in the “northern parts of the State” (which are very poor with cities that have less people than they did a century ago) is not even mentioned in the media.
The Mayor of New York City is trying to take the city back to the bad days of the 1970s – telling the police (effectively) to hand over the city to the criminals.
Why is the Mayor doing this?
He is doing this because he is a Social Justice Castro supporter – who believes that criminals are Socially Friendly elements because of their opposition to private property. When the Federal Reserve bubble bursts New York City will implode – but “capitalism” and “big business” and “the rich” will get the blame.
But, of course, you will not read or see this in the media.
Nor will you be told that this Marxist Mayor was supported in his election by Hillary Clinton – not just Bernie Sanders. And his election was long before the Presidential election campaign – Hillary Clinton (and the New York Times) had no reason to support the Marxist Castro supporter, but they did support him.
Communists in America (whether they are the Mayor of New York City or the Marxist thug “protesters” on the streets – such as the people who burned and looted the town of Ferguson Missouri and attacked in various other towns and cities) are never presented as such in the American (or British media).
Instead they are described as “black” (even though the Mayor New York City is actually white) – or as “liberals” (which would have been shock to Gladstone or Grover Cleveland).
One is not allowed to describe Marxists as Marxists.
The words “Marxist” or “Communist” are denounced (with references to Joe McCarthy and ……) in the media.
Thus America continues to be attacked (and destroyed) and one is not allowed to even honestly describe who is attacking Freedom of Speech and so on.