Maggie, guns and bombs.........

The BBC World Service broadcast the entire Thatcher funeral service at St. Paul's. They did a good job as did BBC America in their daily international news telecast.

 

The weak American representation at the funeral  was hardly mentioned in the media with the exception of at least one right wing talk show host who noted that we sent a delegation to President Hugo Chavez' funeral last month but no such delegation to London. These type of talk show hosts lack credibility and are thereby suspect when they say anything. The unforgivable fact is that our mainline media neglected the issue of representation altogether.

 

Our Public Broadcasting System news briefly covered the funeral and did focus on Americans attending such as Henry Kissinger and Newt Gingrich, but did not mention whether they represented the US or were there privately. O did send two former Secretaries of State, the 90 year old George Schultz and the octogenarian James Baker. I also read that George Bush the elder was asked to attend, but refused owing to a previous commitment. The same source noted that Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did the same.

 

The story goes that O is antipathetic toward the UK because his father related stories to O of abuses toward Kenyans during the colonial era. This is the reason given for O's having returned the bust of Winston Churchill that was presented to the USprior to his becoming president.

 

 

If these stories are true, O is carrying an historical grudge a bit too far and much to the discredit of the USA. He has certainly gone far to poison our relationship in spite of his protestations to the contrary.

 

Much to O's credit, he did give the US Senate hell for failing to come up with enough votes to pass the latest and heavily watered down version of the gun control bill. He specifically referred to the gun lobby having won the day. Spelled out, this means that the National Rifle Association as the chief representative and lobbyist of our gun and ammunition industry was able to influence (i.e. pay off) our Senators to vote against the bill.

 

Reportedly, a healthy majority of Americans favor the proposed legislation but were not listened to by their delegates in Washington. This situation epitomizes our modern legislative branch dilemma; our senators and representatives serve for themselves and not their constituencies.

 

 

The major sickness in American government today is not the Office of the President, but the Legislature.

 

Meanwhile, everyone is focused on the Boston bomber(s) and the havoc their action caused during the Boston Marathon. We are getting tired of being shot at and blown apart here at home. Passions are rising and most people believe the bombing stemmed from Muslim terrorists.

 

 

This translates into a growing and pervasive anti-Muslim attitude across the country.

 

 

Ironically, this attitude hurts Obama given his relatively accommodating policy toward Muslim countries. If, however, the terrorists turn out to be non-Muslim Americans, then the blame will go to the political right and all their extremist baggage.

 

We keep hearing news about the FBI having film of the culprits, having seen them, having identified them and having arrested them, but at the time of writing no names or descriptions have been forthcoming. The media is fit to be tied with all the false and perhaps not so false leads they obtained for their own reliable sources.

 

 

The reporting of the bombings will be the subject of much future conversation and will certainly engender retrospection on the role of the media in reporting ongoing criminal events, their relationship with their sources and above all their relationship with law enforcement authorities.

 

 

Often, information given the media in confidence and not for publication is treated without regard to these caveats.

 

We both need another Maggie.