Sunday 23 July 2006

Even.

Natalie the Wise is rather eloquently angry with Jeremy Bowen and the BBC.

In the comments to her post, inevitably, up pops an Israel-hater to claim, as they always do, that the BBC has a pronounced pro-Israel bias, presumably because the BBC's newsreaders don't actually foam at the mouth or routinely precede the word "Jew" with "stinking".

But what really interests me about this particular comment is its bizarre use of the word "even". Call me picky.

Finally the BBC, which -even according to its own internal report- is baised in favour of Israel, is starting to call a spade a spade.


I honestly can't figure out whether that's bald-faced sneakiness or just tongue-dragging idiocy. Does this commenter (name of "Gerbil" — as usual, I can't take the piss while calling myself "Squander Two") really think that that works? The usual way to word something like that would be "The BBC deny being biased against Israel" or something. This use of the word "even" implies that the BBC's denial reinforces the BBC's denial. Not following me? Here are a couple of parallels:

David Irving, who, even according to his own press release, is biased in favour of Jews....

David Duke, who, even according to his autobiography, loves black people....

Matt Lucas, who, even according to his own CV, is funny....


See? Weaving half-truths through sentence structure. Amazing. And wrong.

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