For your edification and delectation
This is cruel, but I can't help it. Those of you who follow David Aaronovitch on Twitter will know he's very partial to the opinions of his mate John Rentoul. Yesterday was no exception:
Rentoul has described the "banned list" as an attempt to hold back the tide of witless cliché during the long election campaign.
I'm sure that just because Aaro made a BBC programme, he didn't write the website copy.
Cliche? Check. Witless? Check. Should the above appeal to you, further details are here. 1:30 pm Radio 4.
New Improved Banned List | John Rentoul | Independent Eagle Eye Blogs http://ind.pn/cmihFe
Rentoul has described the "banned list" as an attempt to hold back the tide of witless cliché during the long election campaign.
I'm sure that just because Aaro made a BBC programme, he didn't write the website copy.
David Aaronovitch thinks the unthinkable about the McCarthy period.
Cliche? Check. Witless? Check. Should the above appeal to you, further details are here. 1:30 pm Radio 4.
posted by Chardonnay Chap at 7/25/2010 07:46:00 AM
7 Comments:
Rentoul says that Mdegrahi freed for compassionate reasons.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-compassion-not-trade-freed-megrahi-2034882.html
Is anyone really going to be convinced by this rehash of the official narrative? Isn't the objective of an article like this simply to get the talking points out to the party-liners?
Guano
That's a good list, by the way. May be the best thing Rentoul's ever done. (Why isn't "how hard is that?" on the list?)
This comment has been removed by the author.
How about banning the witless, 'Questions to Which the Answer is No'?
The man from Del Monte...
Word verification 'tosseste'
Just listened to the McCarthy programme presented by Aaro. It seems competent enough but doesn't have anything much new to say AFAICT (perhaps new to Aaro).
It does mention and quickly describe, but underplays, the role of HUAC. The main error in analysis, I dare say, is that it doesn't really manage to get the distinction between the spycatching operation and the programme of political persecution.
Specifically, it doesn't get their differing objectoves and associated publicity requirements.
In discussing the coverup as though an aberration, one factor overlooked is that a known agent can be made a substantially less effective one, and one that doesn't know he's known can be very useful indeed.
Instead of considering this kind of issue, it's assumed that the coverup was due only to the quiescence of politicians, and/or to a cognitive crony-bias of the kind arguably exhibited by MI6 in the case of Burgess. The prog doesn't analyse either phenomenon, which would at least have been interesting.
McCarthy's political demise is attributed largely to his being rude to the army which has a kernel of truth but is hardly the whole picture.
Ironic in a way that the only thing the programme made me look at anew, if idly, was McC's apparent rapid decline into alcoholism, severe liver damage and death from lymphatic failure...
Accuracy: ****°
Organisation: **°°°
Analysis: *°°°°
oops, Philby
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Post a Comment
<< Home