Woman's Hour - Radio4 in general

[graemearcher]

So this morning I've listened to Today and Woman's Hour.

Today finished with an "amusing" item about how such luminaries as Bremner are going to imitate David Cameron ... cue lots of snide remarks about Conservatives in general.

Woman's Hour gave it's key interview over to that unfortunate woman who lost her son in Iraq and has turned her grief into a media-grabbing anti-Bush performance. No pro-war families who've lost their children in similar appalling circumstances, but who continue to support the efforts to democratise Iraq, were given any airtime.

[Teddy Bear]

Welcome Graeme, I have to commend your stamina for being able to listen through both of those programmes. That's really "beyond the call of duty". I usually listen to LBC when I'm in the car, but between 12-2 there's only so much of Sandi Toksvig and her sycophants I can take, and I flip through the other stations. When I hit Radio 4 I'm really between a rock and a hard place.

As for the BBC's obsession with Cindy Sheehan, the woman I believe you're referring to, it's not for the first time they've given her serious coverage, rather than depicting her as a mentally ill woman, which would be closer to the mark.

[steevo]

I think Cindy Sheehan has become insignificant, if not a pathetic joke, to many in the US. This, in spite of as positive a spin as possible our Leftist media have given. In truth tho she is far worse. Nothing short of a hard-line ideologue who's words have proven despicable to so many. Here's just a few quotes at the beginning of the "weeping mom's" quest for celebritydom:

After her meeting with Bush: "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."

"That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together," she said.

Later on, when leading the charge with our media ...

"Every time we tried to talk about Casey (her son) and how much we missed him, he (Bush) would change the subject. And he acted like it was a party."

“9/11 was Pearl Harbor for the neo-conservatives’ agenda” and the U.S. government is a “morally repugnant system.”

"We have no Constitution. We’re the only country with no checks and balances. We want our country back if we have to impeach George Bush down to the person who picks up the dog sh-t in Washington! Let George Bush send his two little party animals to die in Iraq. It’s OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons but we are waging nuclear war in Iraq, we have contaminated the entire country. It’s not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. Hypocrites! But Israel can occupy Palestine? Stop the slaughter!"

About her son Casy... he voluntarily re-enlisted in the Army after his first hitch was up, and earned a Bronze Star. He was a mechanic not expected to see combat but volunteered to join a rapid rescue team being formed to get a convoy of soldiers from his unit out of trouble in Sadr City, that action being the one in which he died. He wanted to serve.

[Teddy Bear]

steevo said:

I think Cindy Sheehan has become insignificant, if not a pathetic joke, to many in the US. This, in spite of as positive a spin as possible our Leftist media have given. In truth tho she is far worse. Nothing short of a hard-line ideologue who's words have proven despicable to so many.

That was my impression from weekly roundups of US liberal news through right wing eyes I get from No Left Turns However, here in the UK she hasn't received the same negative exposure as in the US, so she still serves as some sort of serious figure for the left wing media, which of course includes the BBC.

She besmirches the memory of her son, and one can imagine why he went against what must have been her views at home.