Can the BBC work a Bush-bashing line into the Spitzer affair? Of course it can!

There's only one thing the BBC enjoys more than attacking George Bush, and that's reporting on Americans attacking George Bush. You might think that dragging both the President and the Iraq war into the Spitzer scandal would be a tough sell, but the BBC manages it in the person of the very first New Yorker quoted in a 'vox-pop' on the affair, one Ian Cunningham:

"I like him. He's a local, he's smart and he's willing to turn on his own class – Wall Street.

"I don't think he should step down. If we won't impeach the president for an illegal war I don’t think he should go for something more minor, the world's oldest profession."

So Cunningham 'likes' a man that cheated on his wife with hookers for several years, and has brought shame on her and their children.

He admires Spitzer for being willing to 'turn on' Wall Street (an unfortunate choice of phrase given the circumstances of the governor's demise), as if Spitzer was the first attorney general to make a name for himself by prosecuting, and persecuting, prominent business figures.

And note the way he quaintly dismisses prostitution as "the world's oldest profession" – although if you read his words carefully he may in fact be referring to philandering public officials, rather than prostitutes.

But what's really disturbing is the fact that the BBC has decided that Cunningham's remarks about President Bush and the war are somehow pertinent, and presents them as if they were established facts rather than leftist rhetoric. The invasion of Iraq wasn't illegal, and no-one outside the MoveOn/Code Pink crowd and the lunatic fringe of the Democratic party is talking seriously about impeachment.

But of course, Cunningham is exactly the kind of American whose viewpoint the BBC reflects in its daily reporting on the country. He appears to be utterly amoral, ignorant of basic facts, hostile towards big business and happy to repeat lies. If you look at the picture you can actually feel the arrogance and the self-righteousness.

In short he's every inch the modern Democrat.