Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Looks like I missed the wankfest!
But David Carr at Samizdata was on the case - 90-minute Moanathon:
The BBC has a great, big monkey on it's back and that monkey is America. The nabobs who run that state broadcast organisation just don't understand how a country that (in their eyes) does everything wrong can end up so supremely dominant in terms of power, wealth and influence, while a country that does everything right (such as France) seethes and whines impotently about the unfairness of it all.

You can see the tension in their news reportage, torn as it is between a horrified revlusion of America and, at the same time, an unquenchable fascination. That was very much on display tonight in a 90-minute TV special run on BBC2 and called 'What the World Thinks of America'.
...
In fact, it was rather dull, equivocal and not quite sure of itself. The underlying theme was largely one of self-pity and petty jealousy culminating it a morose admission that America was the unchallengable world superpower and there isn't much the likes of France can do about it except whine and bitch. They may as well have called it 'Inferiority Complex - The Movie'.
They also apparently have a forum where Americans can chime in. Thanks, but I'll pass. I'm afraid of monkeypox.