BBC's Webb leaves America

Thank God!

After spending much of his time painting a false picture of America, Webb strangely has this to say:

"Now back in the UK I find myself utterly at sea - I say hello to people I pass in the street. They lunge on, muttering insults. We'll get used to it. But we will never forget the kindness of America. In Swindon buying a car the other day (yes, life has changed) the conversation turned to a familiar theme but one that endlessly fascinates me - the relative peaceableness of the American life, guns and all. Too many Brits seriously think that America is violent. It isn't. Most America lives are free of violence and the threat of it in a way no life in Swindon can be. Why that's true is a subject all of its own (religion, gun ownership, moral fibre, space, social cohesiveness?) and one worthy of a future study. "

This is the same Webb who had this to say.

"America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge.

I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture, and that picture is in many respects a true one. "

I always chuckle at the "evidence based knowledge" jibe. This about the worlds only superpower and who put men on the moon many times.

That was four years ago. So what changed Webb's mind? He lived in America for years and now realizes that the BBC's anti American propaganda just isn't true. But now that Webb's back home at the BBC, it shouldn't be long before the BBC's poison works again.