Truth — always the whipping boy of politicians and other frauds
— had a very tough week. Both here and in England, the truth is
being subjected to something akin to domestic violence. It can’t be
domestic violence because these abusers usually don’t live with
truth. I’m not sure who gave truth the hardest time, but the
nominations for the week are the BBC and former treasury secretary
Paul O’Neill.
Times are tough at the Beeb, which has fallen to such depths it
would have to look up to see the New York Times. The
Beeb’s Jayson Blair — Andrew Gilligan — charged in a broadcast
last year that the intelligence reports of Saddam’s WMD had been
“sexed up” by Tony Blair to justify Brit participation in the Iraq
campaign. The BBC’s relentlessly negative treatment of the war got
it banned — by popular consent among the crew — from Her
Majesty’s flagship, HMS Ark Royal in favor of the Fox
affiliate, Sky News. Gilligan’s bosses stood by him while a huge
scandal — which is still ongoing — threatened Tony Blair’s
future.
Trying desperately to fight off the BBC’s charges Blair &
Co. investigated to find Gilligan’s source. Eventually, someone in
the MoD leaked the name of Dr. David Kelly as the source. Kelly —
who was a WMD expert, but not involved in preparing the allegedly
“sexed up” report — was raked over the coals by a Parliamentary
committee, which he told that he couldn’t possibly be the source of
the “sexed up” allegation, because that wasn’t what he told
Gilligan. Unused to the pressure or the spotlight, Kelly committed
suicide and then Blair was blamed for his death. Blair has said
unequivocally that he didn’t leak Kelly’s name, and that he didn’t
lie about the WMD. Now senior judge Lord Hutton is about to toss
out his final report on the mess, and Blair’s fate hangs in the
balance. But Gilligan?
The late Dr. Kelly’s little buddy is still at the Beeb, despite
conclusive evidence that he made up the “sexed up” story. At least
the New York Times got rid of Jayson Blair. But the Beeb
is more concerned with political correctness than in the truth.
Just look at the case of Robert Kilroy-Silk, one of their talking
heads.
Kilroy has — or had until last week — a daily TV talk show on
BBC1. But he also writes a weekly column in the Sunday
Express, a relatively conservative newspaper. He had written a
piece back in April, at the tail end of the Iraq campaign, deriding
the Arab condemnation of American and British action. But on 4
January, another version of the same piece appeared.
In the 4 January version of Kilroy’s article, he wrote, “We are
told by some of the more hysterical critics of the war on terror
that ‘it is destroying the Arab world.’ So? Should we be worried
about that? Shouldn’t the replacement of the despotic, barbarous
and corrupt Arab states and their replacement by democratic
governments be a war aim? After all, the Arab countries are not
exactly shining examples of civilization, are they?…We’re told
that the Arabs loathe us. Really? For liberating the Iraqis? For
subsidizing the lifestyles of people in Egypt and Jordan, to name
but two…But why, in any case, should we be concerned that
they feel angry and loathe us? The Arab world has not exactly
earned our respect, has it? Iran is a vile, terrorist-supporting
regime, part of the axis of evil. So is the Saddam
Hussein-supporting Syria. So is Libya. Indeed, most of them chant
support for Saddam.”
That’s waaaaay too much truth for the Beeb to handle. Kilroy has
been suspended from broadcasting while the Beeb investigates him,
and the Islamic organizations of Britain are shouting “off with his
head” (some more literally than others). Iqbal Sacranie, head of
the Muslim council of Britain, said action should be taken against
Kilroy because of the “bigoted and ill-informed ideas” in the
piece, which was “ignorant, extremely derogatory and indisputably
racist.” That none of Sacranie’s charges are correct isn’t stopping
others from demanding sanctions against Kilroy. Criminal charges?
Civil sanctions? For what? Stating an opinion that just happens to
be perfectly reasonable? And Kilroy, man that he is, is blaming his
secretary for the whole thing. It’s her fault, says he, because she
resubmitted an old article as new He’s also blaming his editors at
the Express for — I guess the right term would be “sexing
up” — his old article to make it new. He shouldn’t worry. If the
Beeb fires him, there’s always a place for him as a Dem campaign
consultant over here.
It doesn’t really matter what happens to Gilligan or to Kilroy.
What matters is truth, free speech and a responsible press. Free
speech is always threatened wherever it occurs. That is an
essential part of human despotism which seems, I hasten to add, to
occur more often than not in the Arab countries. My bet is that
Gilligan will stay and Kilroy will go, and truth will have suffered
another body blow.
IT’S MORE THAN A LITTLE POSSIBLE that Blair’s prime ministership
will end over the Kelly leak scandal. Blair is weak now, because of
the British public’s diminishing support for the war against
terror, the Kelly leak and many domestic issues. He’s also weak
because the Tories finally seem to have found a leader in Michael
Howard who can unite a majority government and turn Britain around.
Howard is both a strong intellect and a superb pol, qualities that
have been noticeably lacking in the Tory leadership since Lady
Thatcher retired. Back here in the States, many conservatives are
wondering if we need someone more faithful to conservative purpose
than the president we have. It’s hard not to wonder.
Mr. Bush’s weaknesses are growing, and cannot be denied. His
insistence on fishing for votes in the Rio Grande is horribly
wrong, and will damage national security. Illegal immigration
should not be solved by making it legal. We should be doing a lot
more to stop it, and deport quickly those who come in without
permission under the current system. The president seems content to
spend like Lyndon Johnson and deny the deficit is a problem. He
should be spending a lot less domestically, not following the Dems
dogma by buying votes. Mr. Bush is making enough problems for
himself, and he’s getting a lot of help. Paul O’Neill apparently
hasn’t gotten over the fact that his antics made him dispensable.
And he still is, although — unfortunately — he is newsworthy in
an election year.
Mr. O’Neill — whose background in foreign and defense policy
was apparently acquired on his 2002 tour of Africa with rock star
Bono — now asks us to be shocked, just shocked, by the fact that
Mr. Bush was thinking about Saddam before 9-11. Paul O’Neill’s
declarations to the contrary, there is nothing to indicate that Mr.
Bush planned to go to war in Iraq before 9-11. What O’Neill’s case
of the vapors is about is precisely what a new president should do.
Mr. Bush looked at the threats to national security upon taking
office, cataloguing them and the possible options to deal with
them. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been doing his job.
Though O’Neill’s accusations are both serious and false, they
provide ammunition for the Dems who will turn it into one of those
impossible to disprove charges that will ride the media wave until
election day. Truth will suffer many such blows this year, and the
only real question is how vulnerable Mr. Bush will be to it, and to
the irresponsible way the Dems will handle it.
The irresponsibility of the Dem candidates is breathtaking. This
week Wesley Clark promised that there would be no 9-11’s on his
watch, implying that Mr. Bush could have prevented the attacks. I
would like to ask him just how he can guarantee our safety. It’s
another of those questions that we have to demand specific answers
to, but no one is bothering to even ask.
January is already a very rough month for Messrs. Bush and
Blair. It’s only going to get worse for them, and for us. Mr.
Blair’s days are numbered, and the number may be getting small.
More importantly, the more Mr. Bush has to deal with the nonsense
coming from the O’Neills of his own party, and the irresponsibility
of the Dems, the less time he will be able to spend on the war. I’m
betting he won’t need a reminder that there are no commercial
time-outs in war to wait for elections to be held. If he does,
let’s hope the reminder doesn’t come in the form of another
9-11.
