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Critical audio gap in “complete” Romney tape released by Mother Jones (Update – Corn responds, 1-2 minutes missing)

Critical audio gap in “complete” Romney tape released by Mother Jones (Update – Corn responds, 1-2 minutes missing)

Turns out tape cuts out part of controversial Romney answer

David Corn of Mother Jones released the “complete” audio and video of the secretly recorded Mitt Romney speech at a private fundraiser.

Yet the complete audio and video is not complete.  There is a gap in the recording immediately after Romney’s now famous discussion of the 47% of voters who don’t pay taxes.  The cut in the audio and video comes while Romney is in mid-sentence, so we actually do not have the full audio of what Romney said on the subject.

The next audio/video (Part 2) picks up with Romney talking about China.

I noticed this this afternoon and sent two tweets to Corn seeking an explanation.

I also sent Corn a Facebook message. I have yet to receive a response. I don’t have and can’t find Corn’s email address, or I would have done that also.

This audio/video from The Blaze shows the gap (via Moe Lane):

[Romney]“We do all these polls — I find it amazing. We poll all these people to see where you stand in the polls but 45 percent of the people vote for the Republicans and 48 or 49–,” This is where the first part of the video cuts out.

Part two picks up seemingly on a completely different subject: China.

“…about twice as much as China, not 10 times as much like is reported. And we have responsibility for the whole world, they’re only focused on one little area of the world, the south china sea…”

Something is missing.  Romney’s 47% answer was cut off before completed, and is not picked up on the Part 2 audio video.

So the “complete” audio/video has not been released by Corn, or Corn never had it to begin with.

The explanation may be innocent, or the audio/video may be incomplete.

Given how various pundits have projected that the tape destroys Romney’s campaign, and the audio/video gap cuts off Romney’s highly publicized answer, I think we are entitled to the full audio/video, or an explanation of why we don’t have it.

Update: I found Corn’s email address, and he responded as follows:

According to the source, the recording device inadvertently turned off. The source noticed this quickly and turned it back one. The source estimates that one to two minutes, maybe less, of recording was missed.

Update 9-19-2012 – Maybe Romney answer was “inelegant” only because Mother Jones didn’t disclose that part of tape was missing

AND, see this blog post by a reader who says he’s not buying the source’s story about the recorder stopping then being restarted, Romney Tape Gap NOT Recording Error.

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Comments

This taping was illegal. This fundraiser was in a private residence and in Florida you must have consent to record someone. This is against the law and a violation of Gov. Romney’s civil rights. Check out Florida law, the stance is clear. You can not enter someone’s house and record them without permission.

    theduchessofkitty in reply to dawnincfl. | September 18, 2012 at 10:18 pm

    That tells me future fundraisers will have to screen for everything under the sun before they even start.

    jimzinsocal in reply to dawnincfl. | September 19, 2012 at 8:22 am

    I had similar thoughts about the legal aspects as well.
    Then I figured how voters would react to that sort of angle.

    The tape isnt changing opinions the way democrats had hoped….and I think folks reason correctly its all like a bootleg music deal. Not intended for public consumption so its difficult to judge the same way as we do with a genuine finished/authorized product.

    But its remarkeable the label “secret tape” was used rather than thr true “unauthorized/illegally obtained tape never intended for public consumption”

      jimzinsocal in reply to jimzinsocal. | September 19, 2012 at 8:25 am

      Unintended Result from Yahoo News

      Do Governor Romney’s remarks at a recent fundraiser regarding 47% of Americans being dependent on government make you more or less likely to support his candidacy?

      .More likely (60094)
      47%
      Less likely (37428)
      29%
      Will have no impact (30243)
      24%
      .

    Maybe that Sea Hag of a prosecutor can drop the George Zimmerman case and go after David Corn and Mother Jones over this. But I think we know the answer to that.

    But who had a bad week? Funny how the Dems do not want to discuss Libya or the Arab Spring anymore.

    Constitution Ga in reply to dawnincfl. | September 19, 2012 at 10:55 am

    We need to push Pam Bondi to get behind this and prosecute to the full extend of the law! Make sure from this day forward that full recordings are made to prevent “snippets” as the left is in full attack force just as they did to Sarah Palin. They take “nothing” and turn it into something it’s not to keep the true issues of Obama’s failures a chance to be discussed.
    Even when they do attempt to discuss and issue, it’s truth on it’s head, AKA – LIES!

I’m praying it’s an 18-minute gap. “Paging Rosemary Woods. Rosemary Woods to the Glory Hole room, stat.”

    GrumpyOne in reply to Joel Engel. | September 19, 2012 at 3:59 am

    Yep, another “Rosemary Woods” moment.

    All of this demonstrates the desperation in the O’bammy campaign as everything is collapsing around them.

    My major fear is that the dumb downed public might buy into some of this nonsense…

Romney is getting the George Zimmerman audio dub treatment….

I have yet to see an edit that alters the intent of the speaker to be “innocent”.If something is missing it is because somebody does not want us to see it.
They do it all the time.

A “Gap”? That didn’t help Nixon.

huskers-for-palin | September 18, 2012 at 10:35 pm

Paging Newt….Paging Newt

      The Daily Caller is incorrect about Mitt being afraid to attack. He used his organization and money advantage to attack and cripple all of the other Republican challengers, including Newt.

      His handlers have apparently changed, perhaps with more Establishment Republicans joining the entourage. Whatever – it is a change for the worse.

        CalMark in reply to gad-fly. | September 19, 2012 at 2:18 am

        I think it’s because GOP Establishment types consider conservatives far less worthy of respect than Democrats.

        Case in point: Mitt hasn’t reached out to Tea Parties AT ALL. As for his conservative opponents, whom he savaged so mercilessly, Santorum (whose talk-radio trumped-up phony boomlet essentially handed Romney the nomination) may as well not exist; Gingrich gets TV slots because of who he is, not because Romney wants him out there. (And Gingrich is defending Romney aggressively.)

        In short, I hope Romney wins big. That said, I still think he’s an arrogant Establishment ingrate.

        We’ll vote for him, but he’s to ignore us and to be so nice

          CalMark in reply to CalMark. | September 19, 2012 at 2:21 am

          Disregard the last sentence. Editing error. Too many of those lately. I’ll have to get on the ball.

          Good thing my posts aren’t the equivalent to running for office; as a Republican, my campaign would suffer “death by typo.” (As a Democrat, the typos would be praised for their courageous grammatical trail-blazing.)

heh…..next they will probably tell us that the recording device ‘inadvertently’ turned off because it was made with inferior Chinese components imported under a trade agreement negotiated by George Bush.

“Selective editing! Selective editing! Selective editing!”

That’s what these hypocritical scumbags accused Andrew Breitbart of, again and again on kneejerk principle, without proof. Now we have an obvious edit and they want us to take its innocence on good faith!? Go to hell.

This whole thing is sickening. This is no “story”. These people want to turn an innocuous political exchange into a fatal revelation, purely on the power of their narrative-making hysteria. Have any of them shown the slightest interest in the Rashid Khalidi tape? Of course not. The LA Times is keeping it in a secured vault. Did Obama raise his glass to the end of Israel or not? Aren’t they interested? Nor are they remotely interested in any of the other aspect of this hideously non-transparent and power-abusive White House.

TeaPartyPatriot4ever | September 18, 2012 at 11:06 pm

If the self-proclaimed Obama propaganda pravda praetorian guards-ie; the mainstream media, had any journalistic integrity, they wouldn’t be self-proclaimed Obama propaganda pravda praetorian guards.. they would actually be professional journalists doing their jobs.

As it is, they have forsaken their profession, the American people, Freedom of the Press and Speech, and their souls.

The people publishing the likes of Mother Jones and Rolling Stone have gaps between their ears, are stoned, or both. So do the peoples subscribing have gaps between their ears.

Scarier, is the great number of highly functioning people who think alike, because their have allowed themselves to be trapped in a Democrat media bubble, and truly think WE’RE nuts. That’s what we get for not having fought back against leftist indoctrination earlier and more often.

This really reminds me of the time after Pearl Harbor, when the US was caught flat-footed, and had to slog its way (over a period of 4 years) back to victory. Here, the left has built up enough propaganda to have snuck the “Obama bomb” in on the nation. We just have to slog our way back from the sneak attack as Americans did in 1941.

This tape is bracketing the argument that should be happening. Imagine there’s no property…it is easy if you try. Matt Yglesias comes to Barack Obama’s rescue and explain what Obama is really all about…

1. Gosh, if the claim of an accident came from anywhere but my moral and intellectual superiors on the Left, I’d be suspicious.

2. OT: The Romney campaign reminds me of an inexperienced team that gets off to a fast start against the defending champion. Then their inexperience shows, nothing goes right for them, and the champs take charge of the action. Yet somehow, entering the fourth quarter, the newbies are less than a touchdown behind.

I wonder if that scenario is entering the Sports-Fan-in-Chief’s head.

ConserveLiberty | September 19, 2012 at 12:15 am

Hw conveeeenient!

I’m more concerned about a bigger “gap” than a 1-2 min one on a tape, illegal or not. I continue to think, and hope for, Romney Team will amount a major campaign push. Yet, it’s not appearing.

Where’s the sense of urgency? Why aren’t the previous GOP primary candidates more involved? Is Romney relying too much on the outcome of the debates (Remember, in the primaries he had the assistance of the other candidates, knocking one another off)? I hope not. Anything less than a “knockout’ by him and the Liberal Stream Media will declare Obama the winner.

The question I’ve asked previously continues to nag me: Does Romney have some “stealth” campaign plan? Or, is it what you see is what you get? Because if it’s the latter, I’d better be stocking up some cases of “Jack”. It’ll be a long, long, long four years.

    Juba Doobai! in reply to ALman. | September 19, 2012 at 8:43 am

    I haven’t seen a Fomney ad in my home state, and it’s a swing state. Instead, I’ve been inundated by Obama ads. Who has money?

In an April 2008 campaign appearance to an affluent group, Obama described blue collar workers from Pennsylvania and the mid-west as “bitter clingers” and “anti-immigrant.”

StrayYellarDawg | September 19, 2012 at 5:06 am

Not (yet) a Romney supporter here. But… my guess is this was NOT an innocent omission. This continual B.S. by the Obama camp is about to push me over to the GOP side again. (It happened in 2008, could happen again.)

I am so damned tired of the lying, cheating and stealing … not to mention intimidation… that goes on amongst Barack’s supporters. They have pushed the Dem Party to a point where it is unrecognizable. And untenable.

[…] Malkin, Associated Press, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, ABCNEWS, Washington Wire, Twitchy and Moe Lane If you like it, SHARE […]

FRONT PAGE Retraction from David Corn of Mother Jones that the “complete” audio and video is incorrect in 4, 3, 2, …never.

Didn’t we just have a Democratic National Convention where they trumpeted “more free stuff,” in the form of birth control, as a reason to vote for them?

You’d think the Democrats would be happy to hear that Romney thinks they have 47% locked up with those kinds of giveaways.

Barack Obama is the decider-in-chief of which Americans are victims… to him 100% of Americans are victims.

That’s why he’s denigrated, bashed and run roughshod over every market, institution while dividing America at every possible crevice of opportunity.

When Obama says he works ‘for everybody, not just for some’ its a blatant lie … turn off Limbaugh, you didn’t build that, and was notably silent when his union emissary said:
“Let’s Take These Sons Of Bitches Out!”

[…] Jacobson scoops the “professional” journalists by getting David Corn to admit that there is a minute to a minute and a half missing from the middle of the Romney video…what happened? Apparently the dog ate it: Turns out tape cuts out part of controversial […]

[…] Some of the statistics are even worse than what Romney was caught reciting in the hidden-camera video. [Turns out "secret" Romney tape was edited. See Legal Insurrection.] […]

I don’t believe Corn.

Obama campaign abandons white working-class voters in favor of minorities and the educated
By Daily Mail Reporter
UPDATED: 12:04 EST, 28 November 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067223/President-Obamas-2012-campaign-abandons-white-working-class-voters-favor-minorities-educated.html

Obamanomics and Democrat policy and agenda is hell bent on creating more poor … destroying small businesses that will be scooped up by large conglomerates and the foreign investor.

Legal aspects here. Also note the poll there 75% agree with Romney

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49074226

The 2 minute gap(s). Cough it up Mother Jones or shut up. Congrats, MJ now you look pathetic and desperate.

Shouldn’t Corn and Mother Jones be evicerated the way Breitbart was over the Sherrod video?

Why is Corn upset by this: Isn’t it what he wants?

RefudiateObama2012 | September 19, 2012 at 9:22 am

Keep in mind that David Corn is the lowlife who used the FOIA to get access to those 30,000 Palin emails.

Khalidi tape? Where is the unedited — heck where is any of the — Khalidi party tape?

A reader over at Insty suggested a $10 million offer for the tape to the Tribune Company which is in Chapter 11 — offered with a deadline — to either get the tape or put the Tribune Co. in a legal bind.

Obama operates this way (Ryan mutually ageed on sealed court records et.al.). He got someone else to apply the pressure and bingo! {“Well, isn’t that a surprise! My goodness me!!”} Romney could take a lesson. And have deniability and all …

Heh.

[…] Facebook, Twitter and email, Jacobson pressured Corn to explain the missing segment from the supposedly “full tape.” @DavidCornDC audio missing bet parts 1 and 2 of full […]

[…] Jones has now released the full audio recording — only it isn’t the full audio recording. Right after Romney makes his 47% remark, the audio skips to discussing China. David Corn of Mother […]

[…] a look here at a cornered David Corn of Mother Jones finally admitting that, yes indeed, Mother Jones has […]

[…] 9/19/2012: Then there is this, which just goes to underline that the Mitt Romney campaign ought to have its own independent audio […]

    This.

    Remember the advice to Sarah Palin after her interviews were edited?

    It is obvious when going into a hostile interview — but probably did not occur to the Romney camp in a safe setting. But of course, everyone has phones that film and record now, so maybe there is an unedited copy out there?

    Isn’t that how Obama’s bigoted comments in SF about the “bitter clingers” got out?

    But then again — what was wrong with what Romney said –?

[…] Lie While Peddling Incomplete Romney Tape Posted on September 19, 2012 7:30 am by Bill Quick » Critical audio gap in “complete” Romney tape released by Mother Jones (Update – Corn respon… Something is missing.  Romney’s 47% answer was cut off before completed, and is not picked […]

[…] from David Corn and Mother Jones brings us a new innovation — the triple standard.  William Jacobson, Moe Lane, and The Blaze discovered that, contrary to claims made by Corn and MJ, the video […]

[…] blog Legal Insurrection was able to get a comment from David Corn, the reporter at Mother Jones peddling the videos, […]

[…] wjjhoge It turns out that that the “raw” video of the Romney 47 Percent speech has a couple of minutes missing, part of which is the remainder of his comments about Income Tax non-payers and Obama […]

[…] 19, 2012 | Filed under Mitt Romney | Posted by Doug JohnsonProfessor William Jacobson at Legal insurrection noticed that the “full and complete” secretly recorded video of Mitt Romney speaking to […]

[…] of the speech missing. Legal Insurrection’s William Jacobson first noticed the gap in the video last night: David Corn of Mother Jones released the “complete” audio and video of the secretly recorded […]

[…] There’s a gap in between the two videos posted. William Jacobson picked up on it and posted the videos at Legal Insurrection.Yet the complete audio and video is not complete.  There is a gap in the recording immediately […]

Nobody even bothered to note that, once again, a lowly blogger has to do what should be the bare minimum expected of the MSM: ask for the unedited tape. A full time law professor finds a moment to do what never even occurred to thousands of full time “journalists.”

Kudos to the Professor for discovering the two-minute (or more) tape gap. The gap suggests that the tape might have been edited.

Why not have an audio expert check the tape carefully to see if the audio has been edited?

You might also have a lip-reader inspect the tape to see if Romney’s lip movements coincide with the audio.

[…] Never mind the tapes we hear dropped some 1-2 minutes from the presentation by Mother Jones (which constitutes selective editing). Never mind the MSM and the like-minded hacks were livid when they thought Breitbart did it. This is okay….. because it serves the purpose they are embracing, which is to get Obama re-elected at any cost. […]

[…] Blaze, is already causing some controversy on the right. The conservative blog Legal Insurrection sought Corn’s explanation and Joel Pollak, editor-in-chief of Breitbart.com, accused Mother Jones of breaking its promise […]

[…] Tuesday evening, Jacobson obtained the following comment from David Corn of Mother Jones: According to the source, the recording […]

[…] At least 2 minutes were chopped from the tape, likely by Mother Jones, who “discovered” it in the first place.  And oh, by the way, James Carter IV, the unemployed, 35 year-old grandson of former president and abject failure Jimmy Carter, had a hand in the leaked video. […]

[…] Jacobsen asked Corn about the gap, and this is his explanation for it: According to the source, the recording device inadvertently turned off. The source noticed this […]

[…] 47% Romney “embarrassing” tape has a convenient “recording error” chopping out a couple of minutes right at the 47% junction. ::::cough:::: Rosemary Woods […]

[…] William Jacobson notices that the two YouTube videos representing Romney’s “complete speech” during the fundraiser have an audio break between them. He emailed David Corn of Mother Jones, who responded: According to the source, the recording device inadvertently turned off. The source noticed this quickly and turned it back one. The source estimates that one to two minutes, maybe less, of recording was missed. […]

[…] a look here at a cornered David Corn of Mother Jones finally admitting that, yes indeed, Mother Jones has […]

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