*sigh... I don't expect this to be a popular diary, all things considered, but this is my first foray into writing a candidate diary, and I'll probably regret it.
I'm not writing about the candidates per se: I'm writing about how you and I assess information, and whether the intensity of primary season causes us to leap at conclusions we might otherwise not if we were thinking more clearly. The candidate race is very heated, which means that every comment and every intonation are coming under intense scrutiny. That means it's doubly important that we take care not to let our opinions get ahead of our brains, although the temptation is strong otherwise.
Yes, this is about the 60 minutes interview...
The first part of this diary is generic: how do you assess quotes you see from candidates in various situations? Do you take them at face value? Do you research the context? Do you consider the editing?
These should be basic enough questions, but we have a bad tendency of jumping the gun when it comes to information we get second- or third-hand. As a general rule of thumb, whenever we see a quote from a candidate (actually whenever we see a quote from anyone), we should immediately
- Go back to the original source. I have no doubt that different writers intend to present quotes in the light they feel is most accurate, but with so much intense debate about what people really "mean", it's vital that every quote you see, you take in the full context in which it was made.
- Keep a watchful eye for how the original source presents the material. A full speech is a full speech, but a television interview is often truncated, which can destroy the context against which a particular quote is made. If you need further evidence, re-watch Clinton's and Obama's answers to the trade question in the recent 60 minutes interview: it's painfully clear that both candidates gave fuller answers which were edited down to a few lines to meet the time constraints of the television slot.
This has a corollary, which we'll call 2b: has the secondary source you're getting the information from reframed the quote significantly enough to change the meaning? If so, may you have more cause to doubt the secondary source's interpretation.
- Try - and this is the hardest part - to leave aside your personal feelings about the subject. This is impossible for us to do entirely, but if you take for granted that your like/dislike of a figure can prejudice your interpretation of their comments, then you're shutting off a vital part of your brain function.
Even if you disagree with me about what follows, these three (and a half) things should be basic reactions to anything we see, hear, or read about the candidates on the blogs. I understand not everyone has time to trace back and to read everything, but before you jump in with an extreme reaction ("I will never vote for X after hearing that quote!"), you at least deserve to know the fullest possible context of the quote you're assessing.
So here's my beef:
There's a diary currently on the rec list (at the top, when I started writing this) that does you a disservice by failing 2b: it fails to provide the full answer to Clinton's question about Obama's alleged Muslim-ness. What's been left out of the transcript snippet is significant:
"[The allegation] is just scurrilous...?" Kroft inquired.
"Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors, that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time," Clinton said.
This is from the transcript, which the diarist quoted until this point. It might have been for space, but it clearly changes the tone of the interview, since Clinton compares the Obama=Muslim meme to the ridiculous rumors she's been smeared with. This complicates both the diary's and the comments' interpretations of Clinton's answer - but even if it doesn't change your opinion, it at least deserved to be part of the conversation. Leaving it out is not only incomplete, but manipulative: it's aiming at a stronger reaction than might be warranted if the full quote were presented.
But even that's not good enough, because a transcript doesn't give us tone, attitude, significant pauses, etc. When Clinton says "As far as I know", is it jokingly, or with a Snidely Whiplash-like elipsis? That's why it's doubly important to listen to the interview if possible.
Fortunately a video clip is available, but here the diarist commits a second sin against 2b by posting a video clip that cuts off at the moment Clinton goes to call it a ridiculous rumor [update: just to clarify, the diarist did not create the video clip. See this comment for more.] A truncated transcript, I can understand (as strongly as I dislike it). A truncated video clip is just plain dishonest, especially to shut off right where it does. If you watch the full interview and the posted clip back-to-back, you'll see just how shamelessly manipulative it is.
So if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and watch the whole video. If you don't want to sit through the whole thing, skip ahead to 11:41, where the allegedly offensive quote begins. You may come out thinking about it differently, and you may not, but at least you'll have watched the whole thing (although remember point 2, as well).
A few points that I'd like to address before they come up in the comments:
Point 1: You are more than welcome to continue viewing Clinton's words as poorly chosen. My objection is to the deliberate reshaping of the material in a way that clearly influenced the reactions of a number of commenters. If you're not one of those commenters, then this doesn't pertain to you. But it was painfully obvious that a lot of comments made in said diary were based on the diarist's selectively chosen snippet from the transcript, not from the full interview. In fact people admitted as such in the comments. This is a bad habit to get into.
Point 2: I don't think Clinton's answer was totally on the mark: I'd have much preferred an answer that questioned why the Muslim religion is considered a slur in the first place (Obama did just that, and major points to him). Then again, because we're watching an edited interview, I'm willing to give my outrage meter the evening off. From what we're given by 60 minutes, I don't see anything that strikes me as ill-advised, and at the most allegedly offensive comment - "That I know of" - she bugs her eyes out to indicate how ridiculous the comment is, follows it up with a sigh, and launches into a discussion about ridiculous rumors used as smears. Your mileage may vary, but the full quote makes her seem more exasperated by the question than sinister. At worst she seems guilty of being sloppy and/or milquetoast.
Point 3: I'm also not defending Clinton's candidacy overall, so let's please not make it a discussion about that. This is about the way that information gets filtered and re-filtered before it arrives here, and why we should be very careful of taking things at face value.
Have at me.