OxBlog

# Posted 5:40 AM by Ariel David Adesnik

DEFENDING THE BBC: Kevin Drum takes his best shot at Josh's cover story in the Standard but isn't all that convincing.

Kevin's tries to argue that Josh hasn't come up with anything more than a few trivial examples of the BBC's anti-war/anti-American bias. For a in-depth dismantling of Kevin's post, check out Bill Herbert's comments on COINTELPRO.

But first, you might want to give Josh's article another read. Frankly, Kevin seems to be ignoring all of the most compelling points Josh makes. For starters, Kevin acknowledges that the BBC

obviously lied to make it appear that their source [regarding the Blair dossier] was more highly placed than he was.

That alone is an extremely serious violation of journalistic ethics, especially considering that the BBC lied repeatedly and intentionally.

Next, Kevin dodges the fact that the BBC was patently wrong when it accused Blair advisor Alastair Campbell of being the individual responsible responsible for sexing-up the WMD dossier. Instead, he insists that the accusation was legitimate because BBC source David Kelly made it twice, in separate conversations with separate reporters. Yet Kevin also admits that one of those reporters ignored the accusation becuase she judged it to be nothing more than a "gossipy aside". And the Beeb went ahead with the story. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the BBC's standards, huh?

But what really seems to be behind Kevin's criticisms of Josh is Kevin's admission that

"I would be very cautious about accepting views of the BBC from American hawks, who seem to view any deviation from the war party line as an anti-American, pro-Saddam tirade."

In other words, since some American hawks are unfair to the BBC, Kevin assumes that Josh is being unfair as well. That kind of ad hominem logic is worthy of, well, the BBC.

The one good point Kevin makes is that Josh isn't suspicious enough about the veracity of statements made by now-dead weapons expert David Kelly. Kevin is right that Kelly had a strong incentive to lie about what he told the BBC in order to hide his own violation of his employers' trust. However, Kevin goes too far in describing Josh as "credulous". Rather thank simply taking Kelly at his word, Josh compares three versions of what Kelly allegedly said and then relies on his own judgment to decide which version was best.

While Kevin Drum almost always offers up thoughtful and balanced criticism from a liberal perspective, this time he has fallen far short of his usual high standards.

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