As Twitchy reported Monday, Bill Clinton sat for an interview with Charlie Rose and spoke briefly about the medical episode that forced Hillary Clinton to cut short her visit to a 9/11 memorial service Sunday morning.
The former president wasn’t quite on the same page as his wife’s campaign, citing dehydration and not pneumonia as the reason she felt faint, adding that she “frequently” experienced such episodes. Clinton quickly walked that admission back, saying that such episodes rarely happened. Frequently, rarely … same thing, really.
Here’s the transcript that was making the rounds Monday night.
Bill Clinton with Charlie Rose: "She just got dehydrated yesterday." pic.twitter.com/nq4pygGCCi
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 12, 2016
People watching the CBS Evening News though (there must be a few, still) would never have known about the slip-up, since CBS cut the word “frequently” from the broadcast, although it did appear intact online and on CBS the following morning. Here’s the original segment, along with the missing words, “because frequently — well, not frequently.”
So what happened?
CBS News: Bill Clinton comment about wife "frequently" having health episodes was edited out 'for time': https://t.co/W9hievf2Fx
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) September 13, 2016
CBS issued a statement explaining that the clip that aired on the evening news “was edited purely for time while on deadline for the live broadcast.” That’s certainly possible, but it would seem that if a broadcast deadline were looming, it would take more time to cut the words from the middle of Clinton’s sentence and splice the remainder into a seamless whole. Why not cut “She’s doing fine” and roll from there?
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It’s reminiscent of the time NBC News cut from its online archive Andrea Mitchell’s aside that Juanita Broaddrick’s rape claim had been “discredited” — whatever the network’s excuse, whoever made the cut was careful to make sure the edit didn’t show.
So, CBS News cut the five words purely to trim a second or so?
https://twitter.com/hansgruberdies/status/775812383256170498
.@ErikWemple @washingtonpost This is why an overwhelming majority of the public hates the media: print, TV, radio, etc. U lie & pander to us
— Paul Thomas (@paulthomas1020) September 13, 2016
this is the best excuse they got? They wonder why we don't trust any of them.
— ₮ⱧɆ ₩₳₮₵ⱧɆⱤ #NotMeUs (@Franklin_So_Cal) September 13, 2016
https://twitter.com/smcosta1969/status/775814851612454917
https://twitter.com/ShannonAltman/status/775819245812748288
@washingtonpost Seems a particularly optimum choice of words to edit.
— Peggy Todd (@redreader5346) September 13, 2016
It does, doesn’t it? Like that State Department “glitch” that magically deleted exactly one inconvenient question.
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