Mandy Rice Davies Applies

[djm4_lj]

"There will often be as much interpretation of what a politician is saying, as there is coverage of them actually saying it."

Tony Blair, talking disapprovingly about the news.

Obviously, if you're a control-freak like Tony Blair, you would think that's a bad thing. Personally, I want our news media to interpret what our politicians say, rather than just slavishly reporting that they've said it. And many different points of view, and different information sources? Yes please!

In other news:

Paddy Ashdown continues to talk sense on Iraq, and foreign intervention in general.

Bisexual Underground tonight.

Comments

[zotz]

Possibly he means interpretation in a rather more pejorative sense - the sort of comment that's slightly divorced from what it purports to be a comment on. The best recent example I can think of would be all the comments in the press about how Brown was believed to be, or said to be, or thought to be, behind the votes in favour of the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, followed a couple of days later by someone actually asking him and him saying that he didn't actually support it.

There's certainly a hell of a lot of that around, and it's frequently unclear whether it's based on anything more than preconception and conjecture.

[djm4]

Possibly. But I don't for one moment believe that's what he's talking about.

[lovelybug.livejournal.com]

Yes, we were just talking about this. Of course, he's perfectly happy to slag off the press not that he doens't need to get elected anymore...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I often find there's loads of interpretation of what was said, but actually finding what was said can be very difficult. Most hysterical articles turn out to be based on a wilful misunderstanding of a reasonably-inoffensive press release or statement.

[djm4]

Yes. And this possibly could be an example of that.

Except that this is Tony Blair, who ran out of 'benefit of the doubt' room with me ages ago.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Step 1 - establish what was said
Step 2 - decide whether what was said was what was meant. Cue interpretation in the media. Doing it in this order provides extra opportunities for the press to accuse Blair of lying, if appropriate...

[lovingboth]

Hmm, this is the person who said something like 'we must modernise the party' to his conference in 1995 or so, and then had his staff brief the media to say that of course that meant 'delete clause four'.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I'd be fascinated to know what advice on Iraq Ashdown would give to the next US president.

[aegidian]

Most of it is in the article. There's only one decision to be made ahead of any reconstruction process either pull the US and UK forces out, rapidly and entirely - or commit to a full occupation of the country and suppression of the insurgents and begin to prepare the hundreds of thousands of troops that would require.

I doubt the next US president, whoever they are, will have the cojones to do either though.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The advice in the article is mostly about what they've already done wrong. They can't un-disband the Iraqi military now, for example. AFAICT the advice applies to their *next* intervention - I can't see what guidance it offers on how best to deal with the current cock-up.

[aegidian]

leave your prejudices at home

Still possible with a change of personnel.

keep your ambitions low

Still possible to reduce death through violence, by a massive campaign of disarming the urban areas.

have enough resources to do the job

200,000 troops, minimum. It'd be a full national commitment on the US's part.

make security your first priority

In line with point 2, make it the only priority.

involve the neighbours

To an extent they've already done this with some success in the Kurdish North, but not enough. Inviting the UAE, Syria and Iran to participate in reconstruction for a share of the spoils might help.

[lovingboth]

Who can blame them?

One is saying, in advance, 'stuff happens' in response to the inevitable bloodshed, the cost of the other is too high to be elected on.

(Did you see the article that reckoned that for the cost of the war + occupation so far, the US could have colonised Mars. Not visit, colonise.)

I'd accept the country was always an artifical boundary and accept it needed to be split up. This would annoy the Turks in particular (the creation of a Kurdish) state, but tough.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I'll be at BU tonight, though may not get there til after 7pm as I have a colleague's leaving do tonight and I should at least show my face for a swift pint.

Do you have any BiCon flyers left in the BU bag? I've brought a handful more but we've just done the mass mailout to regional bi groups, and are due another batch arriving.

I'm also bringing a bunch of stuff encouraging people to propose or run workshops at BiCOn - hope you don't mind!

[djm4]

I have about 50 flyers - easily enough for BU. Please do bring BiCon workshop stuff.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Fab. See you there.
*goes back to swearing at BiCon site not letting me edit things*