This is wading into treacherous waters, but here it goes.
Last night, we brought you some of the Fox News reaction to Michelle Obama’s comment Monday that for the first time in her adult life she is “really proud” of her country. It’s a line that the McCain campaign has already picked up and used against the Obamas, and Fox News kept a running commentary going on the issue all day yesterday.
Since then, and especially in the last few hours, we’ve gotten a slew of emails from readers saying that the “really” has been edited out in various clips of Michelle’s remarks. So instead of this being the first time in her adult life that she’s really proud, it’s the first time she’s proud at all. Now, I’m not sure that the inclusion of the “really” makes that big of a difference if you’re inclined to see anti-American sentiment in her remarks.
But if the remarks were edited, it raises the question of why.
So we looked into it, and here’s the apparent deal.
Michelle Obama made two appearances on Monday in which she made the “first time in my adult life” remark. In one appearance, she said “proud.” In the later appearance, she said “really proud.”
Take a look:
A number of readers have said that Fox, among others, ran the edited clip. In fairness to Fox, it appears that Bill O’Reilly, at least, referenced both remarks and ran clips of both remarks on his show.
I can’t rule out that the edited version aired somewhere. In fact, I have seen some clips (here, for example) where the “really” does appear to be edited out, but it’s not clear whether those clips were actually aired. The more likely explanation for the discrepancy seems to be that two different versions actually came out of Michelle Obama’s own mouth.
Late Update: My ostensible defense of O’Reilly here should not be construed as a defense of this.
Later Update: TPM Reader BC points me to one Fox version where the “really” is garbled at best. But, again, why go to the trouble of editing it out if there’s already legitimate video where she didn’t use “really”?
