BBC backs down (Bush/God story)

Crossposted at My Left Wing and Daily Kos

In Being "on a mission from God", I posted about a BBC series set to air that was going to report Bush's claim to Palestinian ministers "that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State". Today, in BBC shies away from Bush story, we read that the BBC is backing off from that plan, "after a strong denial by the White House". Aw, come on--of course they deny it. In the Bush White House, they falsely deny at least a dozen things before breakfast. Does anyone really believe Bush doesn't say such things when he thinks he can get away with it?

BBC programme editors turned lukewarm on a claim by a BBC2 programme that George Bush believed God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan after a strong denial by the White House.

Just 24 hours after accusations that the corporation's news coverage was backing away from risk-taking, some of the BBC's key outlets decided not to run an exclusive story unearthed by BBC2 about the US president.

It was all the more unusual as yesterday morning the corporation sent out a press release trumpeting the exclusive in BBC2's forthcoming "major three-part" series called Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace.

In the programme, Palestinian minister Nabil Shaath said Mr Bush had told them during a meeting in June 2003 that God had given him a mission to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and also to create a Palestinian state.

Abu Mazen, another minister attending same meeting, said Mr Bush had told him: I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

More here. Bush denied this one too. When visiting the Amish...

As he was about to leave, Bush told the group -- according to Stoltzfus' source "I trust God speaks through me. Without that I couldn't do my job."

I suspect he had his guard down because he thought there weren't any reporters present.