Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Today's Washington Post False claim on a point of fact

Terri Rupar wrote


House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the party's vote counter, began his talk by showing a clip from the movie, "The Town", trying to forge a sense of unity among the independent-minded caucus.
One character asks his friend: "I need your help. I can't tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later."

"Whose car are we gonna take," the character says.


Brian Beutler comments

A couple things. First, that's not the complete movie quote. Here's the complete quote:

Doug MacRay: I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna hurt some people.
James Coughlin: ...Whose car we takin'?


Second, having rallied their troops with the clip of a scene of two guys agreeing to a revenge attack, the man who rises to the moment for GOP leaders is...Rep. Allen West.

It's not clear if House Republicans fed an edited script to the Post, if the Post omitted the "hurt some people," line themselves, or if GOP leadership actually edited the clip itself when it was screened.


In any of the three cases the Post's reporting is inaccurate. The least bad would be case three in which, to report the facts correctly, the Post would have to have written "by showing an [edited clip] clip from the movie." To be OK the post should have explained that the clip was edited to remove the explicit reference to criminal violence. The

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