NBC’s Dishonest Edit Of Romney’s “Wawa Moment”

NBC is at it again with their deceptive edits. This time their target is Mitt Romney. Apparently NBC will stop at nothing to get Obama re-elected. Mind you that Comcast and General Electric both own NBC. GE’s CEO sits on one of Obama’s White House economic advisory boards and Comcast executives are bundlers for the Obama campaign. It should not come as a surprise when NBC and MSNBC’s news coverage is slanted in favor of Obama. The problem here as you will see is that their coverage in this case isn’t just slanted, it’s outright false and dishonest.

Wawa is apparently a chain of sub shops. Their gimmick is that customers order their subs on a touchscreen. By the time the customer pays the cashier, the sub is ready to be consumed. Mitt Romney visited a Wawa in Pennsylvania and spoke about it at one of his campaign stops. According to the NBC version of events, Romney is amazed that he can order a sub via a touch screen. Andrea Mitchell mocks Romney’s amazement and then dreams that this is Romney’s Supermarket check out lane moment. You’ll recall that in 1992 Bush 41 was made to look a fool, amazed by a check out scanner at a grocery store. That story of course was false at the time.

The truth in this case is that Romney wasn’t amazed by Wawa’s touch screen ordering system at all. He was in fact making a point about how inefficient the public sector is when compared to the private sector. Listen to his statement yourself, it’s clear as day he’s not the least bit interested in Wawa’s itself. His point is that through competition Wawa’s came up with their system. He cites an eye doctor who had to fill out a 33 page form for the government because he moved across town. He’s amazed not by Wawa’s touch screen but by the inefficiency of government, especially when compared to the private sector.

NBC should be ashamed of itself. Andrea Mitchell ought to as well. What’s funny about Mitchell is that she had the audacity to mock Romney for not having been to a Wawa’s before. We’re supposed to believe that Alan Greenspan’s wife is munching on Wawa subs every day for lunch. Give me a break. Mitchell had to have known about the deceptive editing, she’s clearly trying to attack Romney. It’s an absolute disgrace. Keep in mind NBC has always held Mitchell out as a legitimate reporter. There’s nothing legitimate about this story though.

There was a time when NBC and the mainstream networks could get away with deceptive edits like this. But they can’t anymore because of the internet. Back in 1992 when Bush 41 was unfairly attacked, by the time his team could put together a response proving the media wrong it was too late. The narrative took hold, his incompetence had been shown on the news for days. Now NBC pulls a stunt like this and in less than 24 hours Romney’s full comments are available online while bloggers and other media members can debunk the outrageously edited claims of NBC. The lie therefore cannot become part of the Romney narrative and in fact Romney looks all the better for it. What was a throw away point, not even terribly well argued, is what people will listen to and believe. They won’t believe the media.

NBC and Andrea Mitchell are a disgrace. Someone ought to be fired over there, whether it’s Mitchell or whatever leftist lackey edited the piece. The media loves to drone on about how Americans don’t trust government, pointing to how much we don’t approve of Congress or the Supreme Court. Americans also don’t trust the media, they lie to us as much as politicians do. What NBC and Andrea Mitchell did was nothing short of a lie. Why should we trust these people going forward?

UPDATE: Andrea Mitchell and MSNBC didn’t even acknowledge their dishonest editing during her show today. They glossed over it and offered no apology. How do they sleep at night knowing they lied yesterday?