If you live or ever spent time in the Delaware Valley, feel free to skip the following paragraph. Or if, as is likely, by the time you read this post, you already know what a Wawa is. (And no, it has nothing to do with Gilda Radner’s Barbara Walters parody):
Wawa is a convenience store chain that’s been a staple of the eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey area since the 1960s. They were sort of the predecessor to the concept of gas station convenience store — you could fill up, get a hoagie and a Diet Coke, and get back on the road quickly and easily. There was one around the corner from the home in NJ where I grew up — and I visited that Wawa back in February to get coffee for my mom while she was in hospice, when the nursing home’s cafeteria was closed. Other than the chain’s silly-sounding name, it certainly seems to do a good job of providing its service.
OK, that background out of the way, as Bryan Preston writes at the Tatler, “Surprise (Not): MSNBC Lies About Romney’s WaWa Speech, and There’s Video Proof:”
There’s a headline I never thought I’d write. Not the MSNBC lie part, but “Romney’s WaWa speech.” Anyway, Mitt Romney delivered a speech about about technological innovation in the private sector. He used as an example those touchscreen sandwich (mmmm, sandwich) ordering systems at WaWa convenience stores. MSNBC’s ridiculous waste of cable real estate known as Andrea Mitchell quickly turned that into a “Wow, Romney’s out of touch!” trick. The media keeps going back to its old successes, this time trying to use the “Bush astonished by supermarket scanners” bit as “Romney astonished by touchscreen sandwich ordering.” Which he wasn’t, even though Mitchell explicitly makes just that connection in this clip. Because she’s a liar.
Click over to Bryan’s post for the full context of the video that MSNBC deceptively edited — and then click over to blogger “Sooper Mexican,” who has the full video of Romney’s appearance at a Pennsylvania Wawa. As Allahpundit writes at Hot Air:
When Romney says “amazing,” he’s not talking about how gee-whiz cool the touchscreens are at Wawa, he’s remarking upon the contrast between the efficiency of those screens and a 33-page government change-of-address form. Good work, MSNBC.
On Friday, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir spliced in silly explosion clipswhile showing Romney’s campaign bus on the road. Now we know he was simply foreshadowing his own network’s implosion. Or as Ken Shepherd writes at Newsbusters today, “The next time a liberal friend of yours — with a straight face — tells you that MSNBC is concerned with substantive campaign reporting, you can throw this back at them.”
There’s good news though for the flailing network — an influx of fresh new talent could soon be arriving:
On a permanent basis, MSNBC is thinking of going the race-baiting route with Toure’ or the journOlist route with the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein.
As we’ve seen today, doesn’t the network have enough trouble with reality already, without hiring a 9/11 Truther?
Update: How badly did MSNBC screw the pooch? So badly that even JournoList-tainted Politico is calling out MSNBC for airing “footage today that inaccurately portrayed Mitt Romney’s remarks at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania.”
More: Pejman Yousefzadeh adds, “If the people who constantly whine about Fox aren’t willing to call shenanigans when MSNBC pulls dishonest stunts like this one, then there is no reason to take their whining seriously.”
And Moe Lane reminds his readers to always take a video camera when attending a political event. Romney himself would be well advised to heed that suggestion as well.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member