I wanna sex you up

Intervention is a powerful and successful tool for curbing your loved ones compulsorily behavior. Sure it’s a little awkward, looking into the eyes of your closest friend and saying, “No, I didn’t really bring you here to do Jell-O shots off the body of a dead hooker. You’re here because I think you have a problem, and the dead hooker agrees with me.” But sometimes it’s your only option.

It may not be the easiest decision, and could really damage your friendship, but in the long run it helps, and as a true friend, that should be your number one concern. I’m currently involved in one of the burliest interventions of my life. The friend who’s been there for me longer than anyone else, the one who helps me with every decision, the one I turn to when I just can’t listen to my wife talk any more, is in big trouble. Television is not just my friend but also a friend to us all. It speaks a universal language, and creates images that have global implications. I don’t know how many customs agents I’ve distracted with conversations about Kramer’s wacky antics, or Ross’s marital problems. But the problem is television has been too successful, and as Howard Dean would attest, success comes with scrutiny, however unfair it may seem.

It’s the BBC particularly I’m concerned with. Last week Lord Hutton, a high-ranking British Judge and lord of some sort, issued a report lambasting the BBC concerning its allegations that the Blair administration doctored documents justifying its entry into the Iraqi scuffle. The result was heavy criticism for the administration and over-use of the term “sex up” in reference to doctoring information. The BBC source for the report was British weapons expert David Kelly, who later committed suicide when his participation was made public. Lord Hutton demanded the BBC reevaluate its editorial procedures, and exonerated Blair and his cronies from any scrutiny concerning the allegedly doctored documents or Mr. Kelly’s death.

I cannot believe a trusted institution like the BBC would so boldly and erroneously report about something this serious without doing the proper research first. And then to stand by its claims even when they are so obviously and publicly flawed is outrageous. From the Bush administration I expect this kind of behavior, but from the people that brought us Benny Hill and The Weakest Link, I would expect more.

If I’ve told the BBC once I’ve told the BBC a million times you cannot go around accusing people of “sexing” things up that are not actually sexy. You can accuse Fox of “sexing up” the OC because the OC is sexy. You cannot accuse Dick Cheney of “sexing up” U.S. contracts with his former corporation Halliburton because Halliburton (and Cheney for that matter) is not sexy. I told them when they were getting ready to run the story, “Smallville is sexy; you can “sex up” Smallville. You cannot “sex up” information purporting that there are actually no weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq, because said information is not sexy.” But in classic BBC fashion, they didn’t listen to me. Now this Lord Hutton character is pissing all over their porch. And the worst part about it is this whole incident has once again “breathed new life” in the mangled and grizzly corpse of the Tony Blair Administration.

Blair has time and time again been on the verge of political death and time and time again spared at the last second. This time around, Blair celebrated the victory in expectedly grandiose style, by demanding an apology from his critics in parliament and “that guy who keeps calling my house asking for Hugh Grant.”

Why the BBC didn’t just sit on the information until it could be verified frustrates me. No one wants to see President Bush and his poodles hung out to dry over this WMD debacle more than I do but by putting themselves in the spotlight for “error” the BBC is just lending some air of credibility to Blair’s, and subsequently Bush’s Iraqi tactics. And this sets those of us in the business of complaining about the invasion of Iraq back months of sniveling and pouting.

I mean look at this: the BBC sexed-up their information on Blair’s sex-up, thus allowing Lord Hutton to sex up his information on the BBC’s sex-up. That’s like, three sex-ups, and there is not one bare-chested adolescent in the mix. Not one. There’s just a bunch of wrinkly old men and a guy who looks like Hugh Grant. NOT SEXY.

Now can you see why I feel this intervention is so necessary? Can you see you have a problem?