I've been reading lately on the American presidential race, and following that on the web is difficult to do in a balanced fashion. The web - as a forum for public discourse is characterized by the absence of dialogue and a proliferation of soapboxes (this being one of them) where people say exactly what they think is true. Some are worse than others of course - and I can't think of anything worse than the many right wing publications. The kind who do 'value politics'. The kind to whom all opposition therefore is immoral, and therefore not something to consider the merit of, but something to strike down. That position of course is as unsound and dangerous as any other fundamentalist position, be it left or right wing. Furthermore, the kind of argument put forward in favour of the cause always buts the cause first and the argument second. They couldn't care less about beating democrats on the issues. They just want to beat the democrats, since the democrats are quite simply evil. A case in point is a complete slamming of The BBC. The reason the right cares is of course the recent backlash against the strongly right wing Fox News channel after the war in Iraq. This has given BBC a foothold in North America, so now some countermeasures are needed.
The article even plays on the Fox News debate be reusing the words at the center of that debate - namely "Fair and Balanced"
Of course the author reaches the conclusion that the BBC is a wholly untrustworthy, pro-Hussein, tax payed, evil, out of control mammooth. Any and all means are used to reach the conclusion. At the center a coverage of the David Kelly hearings. This is laced with charcater attacks on the BBC personnel involved in that inquiry, attacks on BBC reporters pronunciation of "Paul Wolfowitz", quotes from other BBC bashers (who are quoted simply as the received opinion on the BBC, which they are not of course) even down to a mention of George Orwell and how he also hated the BBC. That BBC was critical of the decisions leading the the war in Iraq is of course interpreted as evidence of "the BBC's desire to prevent the death of Saddam's regime".

To give you an idea of the climate of this coverage, the story ends with a "funny" quote from another BBC basher: "About the only thing in Saddam's favor was that you could get the death penalty for listening to the BBC".

In short, there is quite simply nothing american right wingers won't say as long as it helps the goal of power.