Judging by his picture in today’s Guardian, Alan Rusbridger has invested in a new wig which plumbs new depths of unconvincingness, even by Rusbridger standards. He is moving past Donald Trump territory in the direction of Danny La Rue.
The great mortification of my own life is that Nadira insists upon dyeing my hair – there are evident cultural differences over the acceptability of the practice, to the extent that Nadir’s distress at a white-haired partner even exceeds my own shame and embarassment over the dyeing.
But what, you ask, does my or Rusbridger’s hair dishonesty have to do with our work or opinions? Nothing, really. But the Guardian seems to prize such pointless character assassination, like this from Polydor Airhead on Julian Assange:
But when Assange appears, he seems more like an in-patient than an interviewee, his opening words slow and hesitant, the voice so cracked as to be barely audible. If you have ever visited someone convalescing after a breakdown, his demeanour would be instantly recognisable. Admirers cast him as the new Jason Bourne, but in these first few minutes I worry he may be heading more towards Miss Havisham.
Which is an untrue description to the point of being an absolute lie. I have spent a lot more time, including insude the Ecuadorean Embassy, with Julian than Ms Airhead, and I can assure you that the most striking thing about Julian is he is very normal. Intelligent and interesting, but normal. These attempts to dehumanise him by portraying him as a weirdo are deeply sinister. It is also completely untrue that he does not meet many people in the Embassy. I am willing to bet he sees more visitors than Ms Airhead. And her speculation on who he is sleeping with is disgusting.
Rusbridger – a man more disgusting than his wig.
I see there’s to be a Christmas address by Julian Assange from the Ecudorian embassy balcony on Thursday, 20 December at 7pm, to mark six months of no-safe-passage-allowed political asylum.
Anyone from Craig’s blog thinking of going down to the embassy for this? Would love to meet up with anyone who is.
Someone posted a comment in Flashback about the possibility of organising a visit to London from Sweden. I wonder if Flashback are treating this as a serious idea? – Again, if any of the Good People of Flashback are thinking of coming over to London, maybe a “Flashback” placard in the crowd would be a good rallying point for those of us who’d like to come up and introduce ourselves, swap email addresses, etc?
Hope the balcony gets decorated with straw, manger, star on high, lowly cattle, etc, for the occasion… Ok, maybe just some sprigs of holly through the railings…
Feel better for that bit of spleen venting? You should be writing for the Mail.
But then Rusbridger is part of the anti-Wikileaks Jewish Conspiracy isn’t he?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362107/Julian-Assange-anti-Semitic-row-accusing-journalists-Jewish-conspiracy-WikiLeaks.html
Apparently he’s off to the Royal Opera House after destroying the Guardian so he can get experts to sort his pathetic pate out. I seem to remember the Guardian being good but my memory isn’t as good as it used to be.
“Feel better for that bit of spleen venting?”
Cant imagine what set Craig off…
[Mod/Jon: posted as “Bing Bong, Ding Dong!” but in fact this is “Heretic”]
Cheap, Kempe, cheap even by your standards.
Hi Kempe,
There’s some very interesting stuff related to the article you link to which, oddly enough, bring us bang right back to the topic of Craig’s post: the disgusting dissembling of the Guardian newspaper with regard to their relationship to their most lucrative source ever.
All the following info comes from another blog dissecting the full timeline of the Guardian’s “Israel Shamir” smear against Assange. For speed, I’ll just re-post the whole lot. Hope all the links work properly.
As to providing proof about Leigh and Harding’s libel against Assange and the timing of this ‘Belarus’ smear against Assange, note the dates on these two links:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/31/wikileaks-holocaust-denier-handled-moscow-cables
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gnm-press-office/guardian-books-publishes-wikileaks-book
The actual release date of the book was 1 February 2011. So, this “Shamir/Belarus” smear is started in the Guardian on the day before they publish a book containing a serious libel against Assange made by the book’s author, David Leigh (note the bylines on that first article!!!) that he said “they’re informants, they deserve to die”. You’ll see this article too repeats the “they’re informants, they deserve to die” libel.
Here’s the signed witness statement from an independent witness at the dinner, Der Spiegel journalist John Goetz, which has been submitted to the Leveson Inquiry concerning another Guardian journalist committing perjury at the Inquiry over the same issue:
wlstorage.net/file/cms/Folder%204/1.%20Signed%20statement%20by%20John%20Goetz.pdf
Now I don’t like some of the views expressed by Israel Shamir as much as the next person – both the ones about Jews and the ones about Belarus – but I think he is entitled to express them as long as he only does so on his own website and not in wider forums such as newspapers. As far as I’m aware, that’s the case. I’ve also heard he claims some of his family are Belarussan peasant stock, so possibly his favourable views of the Belarus regime are 30 years out of date (ie. from a time before Lukashenko totally lost the plot/got dictatorial. This would seem to align with the view of the British Ambassador at the screening of “Europe’s Last Dictator” too (the making of which Assange helped facilitate and was invited to the screening by the filmmaker) – that Lukashenko’s early reforms did improve the lives of the rural poor).
None of which, of course, has any bearing on the fact that there is NO proof that Shamir is – or ever was – closely aligned to Wikileaks. Any more than any other journalist passed cables has been. Please PROVE that – beyond one photo taken of Assange standing next to the bloke. And please do NOT take James Ball’s – another Guardian journalist word for it. Ball is particularly close to Leigh, or was – he seems to be distancing himself now – and is the “staffer” referred to in the first link I’ve provided above. Ball himself started writing articles claiming Assange was anti-Semetic and had passed cables to Lukashenko via Shamir as early as March 2011 but that’s been scotched now by Shamir, who says it was James Ball himself who passed him the cables on Belarus and “the jews”. See for yourself:
http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Ball.htm
When challenged about this Ball finally admitted – in May 2012 – that yes, it was him:
https://twitter.com/jamesrbuk/status/175644469855662084
though he tries to say (now) that he was only following orders…
Bear in mind that for a full year he hid the vital details about his own involvement from readers and simply told them Assange had given cables to Shamir. Why not give the FULL facts if he was indeed ‘under orders’?
Even if you don’t like Shamir, if Ball himself has now confirmed the facts, surely there’s no doubt any more? What concerns me most though is that journalists – like Leigh, like Ball – can get away with misinforming their readers for a full year before they finally cough up the truth.
The Guardian used to appear good the same way the BBC used to appear good. The information-go-round is better than it used to be so we can see through their versions of things more easily – I think.
Why does a common sense of decency not apply as soon as someone’s in a media situation? Why would it be so unbelievably rude of me to make such derogatory comments about someone, or lead them to look stupid or whatever if they’re in the room but I can do so where they will see it on the internet or in newspapers? We just assume that anyone who’s daft enough to get in the news will cope. That nurse in the Kate-in-hospital story didn’t cope, it seems.
Ha. But we have got Bradley Manning way ahead in the Grauniad poll for the TPoTY 2012.
Bradley Manning 65%
~~~~
He needs one of the green elfin hats to match his elfin features here.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2012/12/alans-swan-song/
So the BBC get Tony Hall and the ROH get Rusbridger. A poor swap. I suppose Rusbridger is jumping ship like Captain Schettino before The Grauniad does a Costa Concordia.
This one would do nicely.
http://www.costumeshopper.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/rtp2100.jpg
‘[Mod/Jon: Posted as @Kempe, in fact this is English Knight]’
Posted by Jon on the Leveson thread
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/12/leveson-wrong-answer-to-the-wrong-question/
‘Jon, thank you for revealing the identity behind “Clarkstein” and “@Kempe”.’
posted by Clark on the same thread.
Now I’m 99.9% sure Craig said that he had emailed English Knight to say he didn’t want him posting here any more.
So why is ‘Kempe’ getting away with it?
Bradley Manning 65%
Woohoo!
I hope they don’t do what TIME did on at least one occasion. Ignore the popular vote and pick their own.
Craig, if you plucked out the white hairs, no one would bother dying them?
maybe you can colour them in with a felt tip pen?
Anyway, other then his hair, what is your problem with him?
speaking of Assange, I got a brilliant idea, that only someone of my brains can think of. you know what we should all do. The more people the better? We should all go to the Ecuadorean Embassy at different times with a large cardboard box all folded up under our coats. And then assemble it in inside the embassy. Drag it out and in to a car and drive off, and see if anyone tries to stop us to look in the box.
Do it enough times they will stop checking.
lol
The Angry Arab says
Meet the new command of Syrian armed groups
“Rebel commanders said that three representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency — one from headquarters, one from Turkey and another from Jordan — attended their discussions here but did not comment.”
http://networkedblogs.com/FIBtD
and he links to this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/world/middleeast/rebel-groups-in-syria-make-framework-for-military.html
How have the four spambots on http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/12/strong-swing-to-mahama-in-western-region/#comments
got past the Captcha?
“Craig, if you plucked out the white hairs, no one would bother dying them?”
Erm … Arsalan, the effect of plucking them out might be a bit extreme …
@Moniker. The nurse at Kate’s hospital committing suicide is such a tragedy. She was guilty of simply trying to do her job in the early hours of the morning on a night shift. She made one human error and her world collapsed. Those DJs in Oz must feel shattered now–even though I am no fan of the monarchy and I must confess I laughed when I read about the barking corgis in the background. A prank in poor taste has backfired on them big style. It actually amounted to harassing hospital staff looking after a woman (regardless of her social status) with terrible morning sickness. Hasn’t the media got anything better to do than this?
@Craig. On a brighter note for the Oz media, have you seen the Australian ABC film Underground: the Julian Assange Story yet? It is excellent even though its does portray Christine–Assange’s mother–as anti-American. She reviewed the film saying she cringed when she saw this saying is first and foremost an artist.Here is here review:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/christine-assange-on-underground-the-film-about-son-julian/story-e6frf96f-1226489467079
Bradley Manning 67% !
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/poll/2012/dec/07/person-of-the-year-2012-vote
This is being sent to Bradley Manning for his birthday on 17 Dec from #assange #Manning #Wikileaks supporters:
https://twitter.com/akaWACA/status/277343287076081664/photo/1
I have crossed paths with Rusbridger before and can confirm he is extremely rude and arrogant. Anyone who lies in an influential paper on subjects such as the UK’s involvement in various military adventures is worthy of all the opprobrium that can be shovelled in his direction.
What the ultra HARRY POTTER lookalike wears a WIG! Never! Gives me the eebee geebees.
Yah but still I’d prefer if people quoted him than. And descirbed him as an arsehole for stuff he says rather than talk about haircuts.
Must say that I found the new wig an improvement of sorts if this is any representation of how he used to look:
http://www.thejournalismfoundation.com/2012/06/guardian-editor-alan-rusbridger-paywalls/
The old wig certainly needed the gray hairs pulled, and a good bit of new growth.
Made him look more like a nearly drowned rat – what he really is.
Bradley vote – great stuff!
Hair – while we’re being personal, tell wifey to get a toyboy if that’s how she feels. Dyed locks(or silly journo wigs)thwart all hopes of mature good looks.
Public character-assassination, ridicule etc – we have laws now against inciting religious or racial hatred. What the Rugsbridger post says to me is, why do almost all elements of the media believe that it’s okay to take someone apart in public for political, personal or careerist reasons?
I too stumbled across this garbage, but I’m no longer surprised at what the Guardian prints.
If it were a male journalist misrepresenting a falsely imprisoned female like this, he would have been skewered for misogyny, and probably been kicked off the job by now. So I’m not surprised by the Guardian, but rather by the sexist hypocrisy that is so visible once one opens their eyes to it.
You know we always moun about the falsehood in the mainstream press. But we got people in every country. Why don’t we all get togeather and make our own press?
easy now that we have the internet. all we need is a website. a bulletin board. with headings for different countries and topics?
Er – there are quite a lot of them. I solved the Guardian problem and the BBC problem by not buying one nor watching t’other, but finding my news on the internet.
Darn it captcha, haven’t you ever heard of discalculia? I keep getting the sums wrong!
I think we should debate just with them.
They’re honourable rational people, and I’m sure once the facts are pointed out, they’ll see sense, bemoan the error of their ways and reform.
Anyone remember The Flower Pot Men and Little Weed.
The problem with turning one’s back on BBC & Co. is that once you do that you are no longer in the loop, and you won’t be on the same page as anyone else, and people will quickly give up talking to you.
In that respect, their monopoly is something we are stuck with, and they know it.
And, call me a snob and misanthropist, but I don’t think it is true that most question what they read, or have the wherewithal to examine it critically.
Uneducated people normally resort to insults and name calling when they have no sensible arguments to contribute. Making catty remarks about Rusbridger’s wig and Decca Aitkinhead’s unfortunate name seems to come into that category and frankly I would’ve expected better. Poor girl must’ve been getting this kind of puerile jibe since she was at primary school which is where it belongs. It certainly adds nothing to the debate.
Just because she found Assange in a worse state than when Craig last saw him is no reason to automatically brand her a liar, everybody has their off days especially when living under such trying conditions.