ABC’s of media manipulation

The network can direct and edit a recorded interview as much as it desires, like….say….Charlie Gibson’s widely seen interrogation of Sarah Palin. But she knows what she said.

And the McCain campaign is trying to set the record straight on a thing or two.

Millions of TV viewers who watched ABC News’ interview with Sarah Palin Thursday night never saw her take issue with a key question in which she was asked if she believes that the U.S. military effort in Iraq is “a task that is from God.”

The exchange between Palin and ABC’s Charlie Gibson, in which she questioned the accuracy of the quote attributed to her, was edited out of the television broadcast but included in official, unedited transcripts posted on ABC’s Web site, as well as in video posted on the Internet.

But in the version shown on television, a video clip of her original statement was inserted in place of her objection, giving a different impression of how Palin views the Iraq war.

Yep, I saw this getting a lot of play the other day, but read for myself what her full quote actually was on this. It’s misleading if you just get one soundbite out of a fuller statement.

In the interview, Gibson asked Palin: “You said recently in your old church, ‘Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.’ Are we fighting a Holy War?”

Sounds like a fair question of considerable concern, if that’s all she said. But it’s not. Gibson and ABC left out this part of what Palin said:

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

Considerable difference.

It reminds me of one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s quotes I remember best:

The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.

The Christian goal is to pray ‘God’s will be done’. Distorting that for political reasons is beyond the pale.