Voice of Gov. Romney's handler audible at one point during last night's debate

Tex McRae

[ToryNotion]

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January 24, 2008

Strange moment in the debate

Posted by Tex MacRae at January 24, 2008 11:08 PM

This is going around the internet. Listen to the audible voice cluing Romney in when he didn't know the answer to the Reagan question.

MSNBC's First Read blog put up a post about it and then took it down.

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[gusopol3]

when was it dubbed in?

[rface]

Romney has always been my 1st choice......for good reason

[basil]

Gee--I wonder if there is any possibility that this is fake?/sarc

I'm not a Romney fan--but this is really lame.

[meandog]

Romney has always been my 1st choice......for good reason

Wonder if he'll have a handler telling him what to do if he becomes president and the second wave of 9-11 comes?

[ToryNotion]

It could be fake it could be real. The question is whether Freepers minds are open enough to ponder whether a politician they favor might cheat a bit. Please (not direct at you) don’t tell me you don’t think politicians are too pure of heart to do that.

[Question Liberal Authority]

OH MY GOD!!!! The man actually used a DEBATE COACH during the most important debate of his entire life?

Ron Paul should consider something like that. Maybe he could break into double digits if he had some professional help. And if anyone ever needed professional help, it's Ron Paul.

[ToryNotion]

From another site on the web but really interesting I think... A Note to Visitors

I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issue with any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:

What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?

I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutability is one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover, I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determine whether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games. Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all you have to do is commit to a criterion for testing. It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-minded enough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?

[rface]

Wonder if he'll have a handler telling him what to do if he becomes president and the second wave of 9-11 comes?

no - he'll have Presidential advisors.

[Question Liberal Authority]

The question is whether Freepers minds are open enough to ponder whether a politician they favor might cheat a bit.

This isn't some quiz show where Regis Philbin asks a bunch of questions and if you get them right, you drive away in a brand new car. This is a presidential debate, where you answer questions to inform people about your position on the issues. Romney's position is the same, whether some guy is giving verbal cues or not.

[Deut28]

I wonder if you would have that same opinion if McCain had a handler standing next to him whispering in his ear the whole debate.

[ToryNotion]

This thread is about Gov. Romney and whether he had assistance during the debate. Please reserve your Ron Paul vitriol for those threads.

[Question Liberal Authority]

What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?

What beliefs are you talking about? Are you under the impression that I had some immutable faith that Mitt Romney doesn't prepare for debates and just wings it?

Let's say someone believes that Mitt Romney is the best presidential candidate among those running. How does your youtube video "prove" otherwise?

[Question Liberal Authority]

This thread is about Gov. Romney and whether he had assistance during the debate. Please reserve your Ron Paul vitriol for those threads.

There's four freaking links to Ron Paul sites in the first post. If you're going to attack someone for adding irrelevant material to a discussion thread, you might consider deleting the irrelevant material before creating the thread.

[Spiff]

An advisor's nearly silent whisper magically projected itself into a live microphone? Right...

It is more probable that one of the commentators/moderators or a producer made that "raise taxes" whisper because Russert must have skipped that part of the written question.

[ToryNotion]

Merely a general statement about how to determine if you’re wasting your time discussing an issue with someone who has closed their mind to any position other than the one they currently hold. Not directed at you or any one in particular. I try to apply the same standard to my beliefs.

[Question Liberal Authority]

Merely a general statement about how to determine if you’re wasting your time discussing an issue with someone who has closed their mind to any position other than the one they currently hold.

And that would be relevant to this youtube video, how?

If we're having a discussion about the questioning of beliefs, I would note that, in my experience, whenever someone tells me to be "open minded", what they're really saying is "agree with me or you're a bigot".

However, I would never interject such a statement onto this thread, because my understanding is that this thread is 100% devoted to the discussion of a specific clip on youtube.

[ToryNotion]

Let's say someone believes that Mitt Romney is the best presidential candidate among those running. How does your youtube video "prove" otherwise? You are correct. It does not prove the assertion that Gov. Romney would not be the best candidate. It does raise a lot of questions about the fairness of the debates themselves. Surely the disproprionate allocation of time to candidate, while not the issue on this thread, is not fair play.

[Question Liberal Authority]

I wonder if you would have that same opinion if McCain had a handler standing next to him whispering in his ear the whole debate.

Of course I would. What difference does it make? Now if the handler is saying something like "OK, now we're going to fool them by talking about that crusty old idiot Reagan" then there'd be a story. But when someone's just acting like a human cue card, it doesn't bother me.

That's even if the person doing the whispering has anything to do with Romney. More likely, it's someone from MSNBC, talking to Russert.

People are aware that people are talking to Russert during the debate so that what Russert says comes out the way they want it to, right?

[dawn53]

LOL, this bring back memories of the GWB/Kerry debates. Remember how the DUers were convinced Bush had a bulge under the back of his jacket and was being fed the answers by Rove?