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”?
Meet Kirk Watson.
He’s a popular former mayor of Austin, Texas, and currently a Texas state senator.
He’s considered by some to be an up-and-comer in Texas Democratic politics.
He’s a Barack Obama supporter and surrogate.
He’s also the guy that Chris Matthews may have mortally wounded politically last night during MSNBC’s primary night coverage. You can watch the brutal exchange here.
Watson has posted a statement on his website which, I have to say, gets points for graciousness in the face of utter humiliation:
So . . . That really happened.
On Tuesday night, after an important and historic victory in the Wisconsin Presidential Primary by Senator Barack Obama, I appeared on the MSNBC post-election program. âHardballâ host Chris Matthews (who is, it turns out, as ferocious as they say), began grilling me on Senator Obamaâs legislative record.
And my mind went blank. I expected to be asked about the primary that night, or the big one coming up in Texas on March 4, or just about anything else in the news. When the subject changed so emphatically, I reached for information that millions of my fellow Obama supporters could recite by heart, and I couldnât summon it.
My most unfortunate gaffe is not, in any way, a comment on Senator Obama, his substantial record, or the great opportunity we all share to elect him President of the United States. â¦
In the meantime, letâs not lose focus on whatâs important in this election. Itâs not my stunning televised defeat in âStump the Chump.â
I guess Bill Clinton did recover from his disastrous speech at the 1988 Democratic convention.
As long as we’re on the subject of Michelle Obama’s much-scrutinized remarks, here she is at an appearance today, expanding on what she meant:
Late Update: At The Horse’s Mouth, Greg Sargent ponders whether the Obama camp is responding forcefully enough to the right wing attacks, including the latest from Bill O’Reilly, in which he offers to delay “a lynching party against Michelle Obama” until he gets more facts.
Just out from the NYT:
Early in Senator John McCainâs first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a clientâs corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself â instructing staff members to block the womanâs access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyistâs clients, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.
Responding to the NYT story out tonight:
U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today issued the following statement by Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker:
“It is a shame that the New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit and run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.
“Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career.”
The Washington Post follows on the heels of the NYT piece on John McCain with its own story about McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman:
Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a female telecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain’s longest-serving political strategists.
John Weaver, who served as McCain’s closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe in Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.
Members of the senator’s small circle of advisers also confronted McCain directly, according to sources, warning him that his continued relationship with a lobbyist who had business before the powerful Commerce Committee he chaired threatened to derail his presidential ambitions.
This afternoon, before the Times story came out, I was working on a post about national political reporters’ tendency not to give much of any scrutiny to various McCain flipflops, contradictions and bamboozlements. Obviously, the terrain has changed a bit since I started writing that one (I’d hoped to finish it up this evening; either tonight or tomorrow early).
This is an odd story for a couple reasons. We know that the McCain Camp went to the mattresses to get this story spiked back in December. And some heavy legal muscle was apparently brought to bear. When a story has to go through that much lawyering it often comes out pretty stilted and with some obvious lacunae. And this one definitely qualifies. Reading the Times piece it struck me as a bit of a jumble. The reference to a possible affair is there in the lede. But then most of the piece is a rehash of a lot of older material about McCain’s record before getting back to the relationship with Iseman.
In terms of a relationship between the two, the Times piece seems quite hedged. According to two staffers, staffers became concerned there was a romantic relationship. They took steps to protect McCain from himself. According to the Times sources, after being confronted by staffers, McCain “acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman.”
The Post did a quick follow up in the wake of the Times piece. But the emphasis is significantly different — suggesting the ‘concern’ on the part of the McCain staff was not so much about a potential affair but rather having McCain too close to a lobbyist while running a reformist insurgent presidential campaign, a suggestion that strikes me as rather dubious. (Note the role of John Weaver in the Post story and possibly in the Times story too. Weaver is a key figure in McCain’s turn toward reformism and then turn back away from it.)
At the moment it seems to me that we have a story from the Times that reads like it’s had most of the meat lawyered out of it. And a lot of miscellany and fluff has been packed in where the meat was. Still, if the Times sources are to be believed, the staff thought he was having an affair with Iseman and when confronted about it he in so many words conceded that he was (much of course hangs on ‘behaving inappropriately’ but then, doesn’t it always?) and promised to shape up. And whatever the personal relationship it was a stem wound about a lobbying branch.
I find it very difficult to believe that the Times would have put their chin so far out on this story if they didn’t know a lot more than they felt they could put in the article, at least on the first go. But in a decade of doing this, I’ve learned not to give any benefits of the doubt, even to the most esteemed institutions.
Equally telling, though, is the McCain camp’s response and their clear unwillingness to address or deny any the key charges of the piece. (Read the statement closely. It’s all bluster.) When it comes to sex stories even falsely accused politicians have some reluctance to get into nitty gritty denials. But McCain — or rather McCain’s communications office since it’s in their name not his — doesn’t even address it.
That tells you something. So too does the Post’s decision to jump in very quickly. Charles Kaiser, at Radar, gives some of the backstory on the other publications that were in the hunt and why the Times may have pulled the trigger when they did. Apparently some others were about to jump in too.
Reading all of this stuff I have the distinct feeling that only a few pieces of the puzzle are now on the table. Given unspoken understandings of many years’ duration, a lot of reporters and DC types can probably imagine what the full picture looks like. But we’re going to need a few more pieces before the rest of us can get a sense of what this is all about.
McCain holding press conference now on NYT story.
Video Coming Shortly.