TPM Horse' Mouth:
Okay, this is really a bad one. Late yesterday, ABC News posted a story called: "Is Bill Clinton getting in Obama's head?"
The piece reported that Obama had had a "testy exchange" with New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny on a South Carolina ropeline, after Obama had been asked whether Bill Clinton was getting "in his head." The whole tone of the story implied that Obama had had a very confrontational moment with Zeleny. Here's the key ABC reporting, with the language implying confrontation in bold:
"I am trying to make sure that his statements by him are answered. Don't you think that's important?" Obama shot back, while walking away.
When Zeleny yelled a follow up question suggesting the Illinois senator had not answered the question, Obama fired back angrily, "Don't try cheap stunts like that."
Obama then walked away and shook hands with the mass of voters that surrounded him.
A few minutes later, Obama came back and confronted Zeleny again.
"I will answer your question though off the record, would you like to talk off the record?" Obama asked. Zeleny refused to go off the record and then motioned toward the gaggle of TV cameras gathered around him.
Did it happen this way? Nope.
If the ABC piece initially linked to any video of the moment, I didn't see it -- I'm pretty certain it didn't. Subsequently ABC and Fox News posted video. If you watch it, you can't escape the conclusion that ABC badly mischaracterized what actually happened:
The only remotely defensible characterization here is possibly ABC's claim that Obama "shot back" with his first answer, and even this seems tenuous.
More broadly, it's clear that the tone of the exchange wasn't anywhere near as acrimonious as ABC claimed it was. When Obama said, "don't try cheap stunts like that," he was smiling -- he certainly didn't "fire back angrily."
ABC also mischaracterized the exchange about talking "off the record." ABC's telling implied that Obama did something very bizarre -- he offered to talk off the record in front of a gaggle of TV cameras! But if you watch the vid, it's hard not to see Obama's comment as a sardonic reference to the huge press presence there. "You want to talk off the record for a second? It's hard to do," Obama said, gesturing at all the cameras with something approaching a grin.
By packaging a story implying a sharp confrontation with that headline about Bill "getting in Obama's head," ABC strongly implied that Bill is getting in Obama's head and rattling him. But the video plainly shows that the event doesn't support that storyline.
By the way, I'm hardly blameless here. Yesterday I did a post over at Election Central on this ABC story that carried the headline, "Obama Gets In Verbal Tussle With Reporter." The post characterized the exchange as a "row." We featured the story on TPM's front page before we'd seen the video. But our descriptions -- which were based on ABC's reporting of the episode -- also mischaracterized what happened.
Anyway, this is a really bad one.
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