NBC Busted for Doctoring Romney Tape

RUSH: MSNBC is back at it. We have to temporarily set aside our ban today. MSNBC, NBC, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington, they've doctored another tape. And this time everybody caught 'em. Everybody in the Drive-Bys pointed it out. We'll go back and play the audio for you. They doctored the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin 911 phone call tape to make it appear that Zimmerman was a raging racist, when he wasn't. Now, what they've done, they took a Romney address where he was talking about... well, remember when George H.W. Bush was in the grocery store, saw a supermarket scanner and the press said, "This guy doesn't know what a supermarket scanner is. This guy's so out of touch, doesn't know what a supermarket scanner is 'cause he never goes there." We found out that they totally misrepresented what had happened.

Well, in this case involving Romney, the video of Romney enthusiastically describing a sandwich-ordering machine at the Pennsylvania convenience store Wawa, and they edited out the point that he was making about it and made it look like he'd never seen one before and didn't know what it was. It was blatant, and they got caught. The worst thing that can happen to you, folks, is ridicule. And everybody is now ridiculing MSNBC. I mean, Politico tried at first to go along with the MSNBC version and then they quickly sized up what had happened and wanted no part of it. The Atlantic, Politico, everybody else in the Drive-By Media just distanced themselves from MSNBC. We have the tape coming up to show you what happened.

RUSH: Okay. Let's move on to MSNBC, the laughingstock of the news business. Not just cable news. They are the laughingstock everywhere. "Discussing how the public sector suffers from a lack of competition, Romney told the audience about an optometrist who wanted to change his address and subsequently received 33 pages of paperwork from the federal government, which begat a months'-long bureaucratic nightmare during which the optometrist in question wasn't receiving his checks.

"'That's how government works,' Romney said. Then, to illustrate the advantages of competition in the private sector, Romney shared an anecdote from his visit to the local Wawa chain store. 'I was at Wawa's, I went in to order a sandwich. You press a little touchtone keypad -- you touch this, touch this, go pay the cashier -- there’s your sandwich. It’s amazing. People in the private sector have learned how to compete. It's time to bring some competition to the federal government.'

"But in the MSNBC clip, which first aired on Andrea Mitchell Reports, Romney's remarks begin with the Wawa anecdote and end at 'It's amazing,'" as though he's never seen it before. But somebody was there with a telephone, a cell phone, and they were video recording the whole thing. And so the Drive-By can't get away with these edits. This really is nothing new. Them getting caught at it is what's new. Because everybody's a journalist.

Let's go to the audio sound bites. Here's the report as aired by Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington.

MITCHELL: Maybe this was Mitt Romney's, uh, supermarket scanner moment, but I get the feeling -- take a look at this -- that Mitt Romney has not been in too many Wawas (snickers) along the roadside in Pennsylvania.

ROMNEY: By the way, where do you get your hoagies here? Do you get them at Wawa's? Is that where you get 'em? Well, I went to a place today called Wawa's. You ever been to Wawa's? Anybody been there?

ROMNEY: Some people don't...? I'm sorry. I know it's a very big state divide. But we went to Wawa's. [MSNBC edit] I was at Wawa's. I went in to order a sandwich. You press the little touch-tone keypad, all right? You just touch that, and, you know, the sandwich comes. You touch this, touch this, touch this; go pay the cashier. There's your sandwich. It's amazing.

RUSH: "It's amazing. It's amazing." And they all started laughing at MSNBC. Here's what Romney actually said.

ROMNEY: By the way, where do you get your hoagies here? Do you get them at Wawa's? Is that where you get 'em? Well, I went to a place today called Wawa's. You ever been to Wawa's? Anybody been there?

ROMNEY: Some people don't...? I'm sorry. I know it's a very big state divide. But we went to Wawa's. And it was instructive to me, because I saw the difference between the private sector and the governmental sector. Look, the people who work in government are good people, and I respect what they do. But, you see, the challenge with government is it doesn't have competition.

ROMNEY: Then I was at Wawa's. I went in to order a sandwich. You press the little touch-tone keypad, all right? You just touch that, and, you know, the sandwich comes. You touch this, touch this, touch this; go pay the cashier. There's your sandwich. It's amazing. People in the private sector have learned how to compete. It's time to bring some competition to the federal government so it can begin to --

RUSH: MSNBC got caught. They got caught. And in the process, by the way, everybody's repeating the lie about George H. W. Bush's scanner incident. In reality, Bush was at grocers convention. He was being shown a new type of scanner that could weigh groceries and read mangled and torn bar codes. It was new and amazing for the times, and it was not yet widespread commercially. But in this case, while they continue to spread the lie about George H. W. Bush, this is exactly what NBC fired three people for doing in the Trayvon Martin case.

You at NBC are becoming a laughingstock, and don't think this is just confined to MSNBC. This is NBC corporate. It was NBC corporate and local in Miami that monkeyed around with the Zimmerman 911 tape, and now this. And what people are learning is that it really isn't new. It's standard operating procedure when you attempt, in the mainstream media, to criticize and impugn Republicans. This is blatant. And because somebody was there and able to record the whole thing with their cell phone, MSNBC and NBC are totally exposed.

RUSH: Somebody just said to me, maybe the fired NBC producer in Miami who doctored the George Zimmerman 911 tape was transferred over to MSNBC to ply his or her wares there. That could very well be. I'm still not convinced they fired anybody. I think everybody they hire's capable of this. This is corruption, folks. First, the George Zimmerman 911 tape, and now this. All Mitt Romney was doing was talking about ordering sandwiches in a private sector store is easier than telling the government where to send your paychecks. He was talking about an optometrist who was not getting paid. The federal government was not submitting his checks, a total of 33 of them. The guy could not get paid because of the bureaucratic nightmare of dealing with the federal government.

Romney was telling everybody about how simple it is to go order a sandwich at Wawa's. By the way, I didn't know. I'd never heard of Wawa's. I had no idea that Barbara Walters had a bunch of stores that sold sandwiches in 'em. Yeah, I knew you could order sandwiches pushing buttons, I know about that, but I didn't know Barbara Walters owned any of these stores. Well, the last time I was in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, I was at a football stadium, Heinz Field. I haven't been to a Wawa's. Anyway, let me tell you something, folks. This is institutional corruption, and NBC, this is the second time this has happened. By the way, you heard the laughter on that clip when Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington, was trying to make fun of Romney. That was our buddy Chris Cillizza yukking it up there. Now, Chris Cillizza shoulda known. Everybody involved in this knew what really happened, and if they didn't, they don't qualify as journalists. They had no business being hired and doing their jobs.

I'll tell you something else about this. Shouldn't there be more outrage at this than at Neil Munro at the Daily Caller who tried to time a question for Obama for when he thought Obama was finished speaking on this immigration thing. What is more outrageous, a reporter trying to ask our king, uh, president a question, or NBC editing tape and lying about a politician's statement? A major American news operation edits tape in an effort to lie about a Republican, in this case Mitt Romney, presidential candidate, where is the outrage? There's a little embarrassment and there's some people in the news business ticked off at MSNBC because they're making everybody look bad here because this is institutional corruption. And NBC had assured us, this is not the way they do business. Back during Trayvon Martin, the George Zimmerman tape was doctored. It was a one-time thing, and they got rid of the people that did this. Apparently everybody that works at NBC is capable of this.

"Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Limbaugh, do you not know what you're doing? You are seeing to it that you are never, ever gonna get a break from NBC News. Any time your name comes up, NBC News is gonna..." What's new about that, Mr. New Castrati? Now, I'll tell you, folks, you let me try something like this and see what happens. You let somebody at Fox try something like this and see what happens. The thing is, it doesn't happen at Fox. And it doesn't happen here. It does happen at MSNBC. It does happen at NBC. And the truth of the matter is, it's been standard operating procedure. This stuff is pretty common. It's only with the advent of citizen journalism, everybody running around with their cell phones videotaping these events in toto for posterity, whatever, that the news media is exposed for what it's always been: biased, selective.

Again, it's another template. Rich Republican Wall Street guy out of touch. Doesn't matter if it's true or not, that's the image. Republican, rich, out of touch, Wall Street guy. Let's prove it. Let's illustrate it, and here's how they do it. Doctor the tape. Essentially what's happening, NBC News is an annex of the Democrat National Committee, and it is posing as a news network. It's a branch. It's a satellite office. I look at everybody upset over Neil Munro. Everybody in a tizzy. The media wants this guy censored. Reporters chasing him down to the Washington Monument all upset, how dare he do that to our president. What did he do? Asked a question. No, I do not think I'm making too big a deal out of this at all.

Anyway, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington, is going to explain this at the beginning of her program today. She will explain her program's, or editor's, whatever, decision to edit the Mitt Romney footage from his campaign stop. They're going to explain what happened. It's about 20 minutes from now when her show starts. We'll see if they say, "Well, you know, it was another inadvertent error or a gaffe on the part of a producer. We were up against it time-wise. We had to get it on the air quickly, and our editing review process failed, which we will reexamine." If there's anything less than a full-fledged mea culpa apology, then we will know.

But just so you know, The Politico wanted to go with this at first, then they caught themselves. The Atlantic Wire has a piece ripping them. Politico has a piece ripping them. "MSNBC's in Trouble for Selectively Editing Romney's Wawa Moment." But still, the level of outrage doesn't get anywhere near that of Neil Munro of the Daily Caller. Let's go back and review. Grab sound bites four and five. This is March 27th, on the Today Show. They played tape of the 911 call between George Zimmerman and the police dispatcher shortly before Trayvon Martin was shot where Zimmerman was asked about Martin's race. This is just a short portion.

RUSH: That's what NBC aired. He calls 911, "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black." And that got the ball rolling that George Zimmerman was a racist and it was a racist hate crime. This is what actually happened.

ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. It's raining, and he's just walking around, looking about.

RUSH: He was asked whether he was black, white, or Hispanic. He didn't volunteer it. It was not part of Zimmerman's original description. He didn't describe Trayvon Martin until he was asked. NBC purposely misled their viewers on the Today Show and the rest of the news media picked up on it and ran with it as well. Everybody knew what had happened, nobody called 'em out on it for a while. And now they've tried the same thing here with Mitt Romney, after apologizing, after the big mea culpa, after assuring us it wouldn't happen again. It is institutional corruption.

Anybody demanding MSNBC should lose their press credentials like they're demanding that Tucker Carlson's outfit should? Anybody demanding that? Anybody demanding that Andrea Mitchell needs to have her press credentials pulled? Anybody demanding that Andrea Mitchell needs to be officially criticized, censured, or whatever? Even if it were true, folks, even if what their attempted deal was, even if it were true that Romney had no clue about the technology at Barbara Walters' sandwich shop, that wouldn't compare to Obama blaming ATMs for people losing their jobs.

Now, it's not true, Romney was not unaware. He was not dazzled. He was not seeing something for the first time. That was not of his point. But even if it was, we have that, by the way. This is June 14th on the Today Show, cohost Ann Curry interviewing President Kardashian. She said, "Businesses spent just 2% more on hiring people, at the same time spending 26% more on equipment. So why at a time when corporate America's enjoying record profits, have you been unable to convince businesses to hire more people, Mr. President?"

OBAMA: There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM. You don't go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.

RUSH: All right. So we have a president who is so out of touch he thinks automation is bad for the economy. ATMs are responsible for lost bank teller jobs. The media ignores all of that. In fact, even tries to give weight to it, and then lies about Mitt Romney and George H. W. Bush back in 1992 on scanner technology at retail outlets.

RUSH: Yeah, so we wait. We wait with bated breath for "Angrier" Mitchell and her one o'clock show on MSNBC, where she will explain the accident. But I don't want to predict. No, I don't want to presuppose what "Angrier" Mitchell will say or offer as an explanation for this.

RUSH: Here's Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, explaining what happened with the Mitt Romney tape.

MITCHELL: There's been a lot of discussion overnight about a conversation you and I had yesterday. We ran clips of Mitt Romney in Cornwall, Pennsylvania, talking about his trip to a Wawa. Well, the RNC and the campaign both reached out to us saying that Romney had more to say about that visit about federal bureaucracies and innovation in the private sector. We didn't get a chance to play that, so here it is now.

RUSH: Oh, so that's it? Uh, that was it? They just didn't have time to play the whole thing, and that's it? They had time to laugh! I mean, they had the whole thing. They didn't have time to play the whole thing? In a one-hour show, they didn't have time to play the whole thing. No, they didn't have time to apologize. They had to move on to immigration. "And now on to that other subject: Immigration." That's it? Wow. That is pathetic. That is laughable. They got caught and they're now trying to minimize the damage. By the way, she still didn't play the intro to Romney's remarks, which was the context for the anecdote. She still didn't play the part about the doctor, the optometrist who can't get paid because of the bureaucracy of Medicare.

RUSH: I'll tell you, this MSNBC, folks, is a total laughingstock. An absolute, pathetic joke. They didn't have time. They didn't have time to play the whole Romney tape. So they had to edit it to make Romney look bad and then laugh at him. MSNBC has nothing but time on its hands. And she still didn't play the intro to Romney's remarks, which was the context for his anecdote. The whole point of what Romney said...

And I mentioned this to you the top of the program. The whole point was that it took 33 pages of forms to change your address with the government. That's the context. Romney was talking about an optometrist. He couldn't get paid. He was running through all kinds of bureaucratic nightmares, and Romney was comparing this to the efficiency of a sandwich-ordering keypad at Barbara Walters' store (Wawa's).

And he was talking about the private sector and how it does things much better because of competition. It's more efficient. And it's cheaper. And they edit all of that to make Romney look like he doesn't know what a keypad is! It is journalistic malpractice. Yet we sit around and we laugh at this reporter for daring to ask Obama a question. We try to drum him out of the business. Yet we ho-hum MSNBC.

Let’s see. Micro-Soft MBC.

That is why I use Linux.

Blessings, Bobo

HUH?

Andrea Mitchell
NBC News / MSNBC

Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and MSNBC will receive the Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism from the National Press Foundation. The award will be presented at NPF’s 28th annual awards dinner, March 1, 2011, in Washington.

“Andrea Mitchell is a great reporter and commentator who regularly breaks important Washington and national stories,” the judges said. “She understands the complexity of political and legislative life and conveys it simply and clearly. The public benefits. She has sources everywhere, and she has added an important interview show to her work load.”

http://nationalpress.org/awards/winner/andrea-mitchell/

NBC is in a race to the bottom.

Irrelevant and marginalized.

Jay Leno, the cash cow for his network; constantly pokes fun at its decline.

Because the news media has zero credibility, they don’t really have anything to lose by doing this. It really is an outrageous crime against what was at one time a fairly honorable profession of western journalism.

I wish Romney would call a press conference and demand that Andrea Mitchell and her producer resign. She, and many in the lame stream media probably wouldn't, but their tactics would be exposed. At some point, Romney can keep producing the real version and the edited one, and let the voters choose.

At the very least it may make other "creative" reporters think twice before doing a hatchet job, if they know they may get called out. He should also refuse any questions from her, or any other distorter, in the future, and let everyone know why he's self-editing.

I’ve been into a lot of convenience stores but I’ve never seen anything like this Wawa system. How is this more efficient than just picking up the sandwich, taking it to the clerk and paying for it.

What benefit is there for me to press those buttons?

NBC isn’t selling their credibility and clearly doesn’t care about it.

Their business model is to attract eyeballs to the ads by making fun of conservatives.

Since their audience is barely measurable in many time slots it doesn’t seem like a very good business model but so be it.

“Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and MSNBC will receive the Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism from the National Press Foundation.”

Is this from The Onion?

How is this more efficient than just picking up the sandwich, taking it to the clerk and paying for it.

What benefit is there for me to press those buttons?

It’s a system for ordering a sandwich and selecting options (e.g., “What kind of bread do you want . . . you want mayo on that?”). It’s not a question of buying a prepackaged sandwich off the shelf.

Weren’t they also the network that planted an explosive device on a vehicle in order to “prove” that the vehicle would explode when it crashed into another car?

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