Mediaite, a political website that has an interesting approach to bias—about 80% of its writers are mouth-foaming progressive, Trump-loathing propagandists, but it mixes in a few neutral and conservative reporters for contrast—revealed that the White House made an unusual number of significant alterations to the official transcript of President Biden’s recent speech to the NAACP.
At the very beginning of the speech, Biden said that President Obama had sent him to Detroit during the “pandemic.” (“When I was Vice President, things were kinda bad during the pandemic…”) ““Pandemic” was changed to “recession” in the White House transcript. Biden then told the NAACP he was “humbled to receive this organization.” No, he hadn’t been given the whole organization, just an award from it. The White House crossed out “organization” in the transcript and corrected it with “award.”
Biden said, “We’re cracking down on corporate landlords who keep rents down,” which was the opposite of what he intended to say, or so we are told. “We’re cracking down on corporate landlords to keep rents down” the White House changed the transcript to state as Biden’s message. Biden also called those who took part in the Capitol rioting “erectionists” which was changed to “insurrectionists.”
Here there was a double edit: the transcript had “irrectionists” which is a non-word, but the White House didn’t want the arousal inference that everyone heard made official (though it would have been acceptable on “Blue Bloods,” apparently.) Then the non-word was changed to ““insurrectionists.”
The rioters weren’t insurrectionists any more than they were erectionists.
Biden quoted Trump as saying there would be “bloodshed” if he loses in November, so that was corrected to the related deceit he had said “bloodbath,” when Trump was clearly talking (well, he seldom talks clearly) about the automobile market, not actual violence. ( Mediaite had an obligation to point this out, as does any responsible news organization when Democrats use one of their Big Lies about Trump. Nah...)
Biden said he had saved millions of families “$800,000” per year in premiums. He caught that one, and corrected himself by saying the families saved “$8,000 a year in premiums.” The correct number is $800, so the White House fixed it after the speech.
Then there were the places where Biden’s muttering, slurring and IQ point leakage produced “inspiresing” instead of “inspiring,” “have” instead of “are,” and “NAAC” instead of “NAACP.”
A few points:
- Members of Congress traditionally change their floor speeches in the Congressional record, often adding pages of materials, but their audience, their colleagues, know the practice. The President giving a public speech is not equivalent.
- This is a cute way to avoid “factchecks.” Donald Trump doesn’t get to revise his speeches and outburst after the fact for clarity or when he regrets his phrasing to stop Politifact from claiming statements that aren’t lies are.
- How many in Biden’s actual audience will go back to read the improved transcript to find out what Joe meant to say, or what his handlers wish he had said? My guess: none. What they heard was the speech, goofs, errors and all.
- Yes, the lines through the replaced words are transparent, but what is the standard? If the President ad libs like Trump does constantly, and the White House puppeteers decide, “Oh-oh, he shouldn’t have said that,” could they strike a whole section rather than a word? Why not? In fact, why not decide the whole speech was junk (which it was) and put a line through all of it after “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Reverend” and add, “Four score and seven years ago….”?
The mistakes, gaffes, and gibberish were part of the speech as it occurred, and an official transcript that presents a version that was not heard is changing the record after the fact. I’m not sure where the ethics line is, exactly—okay, fix grammar mistakes, and of course Biden meant to say “NAACP” and everyone there knew it—but wherever it is, this instance crossed it flagrantly.
The speech is more evidence that President Biden is cognitively impaired, and going down the metaphorical hill fast. Ultimately, the post-speech edits are unethical efforts to hide this from the public.
Ethics Alarms 
If I recall correctly, you have addressed corrections to Presidential speeches before – possibly when Obama was President? – and pointed out the ominous nature of the practice.
“How many in Biden’s actual audience will go back to read the improved transcript to find out what Joe meant to say, or what his handlers wish he had said? My guess: none. What they heard was the speech, goofs, errors and all.”
Of course, no one is going to go back and check….except factcheckers. You see, the purpose of correcting the speech is so that, when Biden is criticized for his performance, the “official” record shows what he “said”. I am assuming that there aren’t literal lines crossing out the wrong words or any notation indicating that the transcription has been corrected in any way.
This is how they maintain the conspiracy theory angle. Republicans criticize, Democrats pounce by using the transcript and excuse the video footage as…I dunno…AI tampering or something. Those evil Republicans, after all, always engage in the Misinformation.
If I recall correctly, you have addressed corrections to Presidential speeches before – possibly when Obama was President? – and pointed out the ominous nature of the practice.
It constantly disturbs me how often I have no memory at all of previous posts. That is definitely one.
That’s why you have commentators like me who dabble in vast amounts of trivia that have no discernable use until the day they actually come in handy.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
jvb
Watching a Biden speech these days is something like watching an (unintentional) Norm Crosby routine. I find myself repeatedly flipping between, “What did he say?” and “What did he mean to say?” But everything is fine and the country is in the very best of hands.
Given the fact that the official transcript does indeed show both what Biden said and the corrections (in most cases, one presumes, what his script said), I really don’t see a problem. Anyone reading the transcript will see that he misspoke, but will also see the text he intended to deliver.
Speaking as someone who has more than once misspoken, stumbled over words, or even gotten lost when reading, say, a conference paper (and there are undoubtedly numerous examples of my having done so without knowing it), I can think of no fairer way of preserving both the intent and the actuality.
I see no intent to deceive, as what was actually spoken is included. I’ve written a fair number of articles in which, when quoting a source, I include a phrase like “obvious typos corrected” rather than giving the passage as written and adding “[sic.].” I’d suggest that an oral bobble is analogous to a typo, What I did was actually a step further towards concealing what was written than this is to concealing what was spoken. I feel no shame in having done so.
And yet: what was said was what was said, and the audience for what was said heard what has been crossed out, not what has been added. Moreover, you presumably apply the same practice to all whom you quote. Those who aren’t President are stuck with the consequences of their words.
“Erectionists” was wrong, but so was “Insurrectionists.” Why didn’t the White House replace the word with “rioters” or “Trump supporters”? They could have, no? And if they could have, then someone other than the speaker is deciding not just what he should have said, but what he “said.” They could fix the lie, though it is a now standard one among Democrats, or they could endorse it, and did. That’s more than just fixing typos. The word you’re looking for is “speak-o,” courtesy of Obamacare liar, Jonathan Guber.
Oh, come on, Curmie. Next, you’re going to recite the standard talking points and say Biden 1) stuttered as a younger man, 2) his first wife was killed in a car crash, 3) one son was killed in Iraq and 4) his other son has a heartbreaking drug addiction. Biden is clearly in a class by himself when it comes to “misspeaking.” He’s demented. If you blathered as often as he does, you’d be laughed out of your classroom and run off the campus. Biden’s as ridiculous as the hilarious final grand scene in “Lucky Jim” where the drunken Jim gets sloshed and brings down the undergraduate house trying to deliver his thesis.
This isn’t about whether Biden misspeaks often, or repeats himself, or says things are aren’t true. It’s about the ethics of releasing the official transcript in the manner the White House did. I’d have done it differently (something akin to what Steve suggests), but I’m not bothered overmuch by what they did.
Oh, and by the way, that other guy has been known to spew word salads with regularity, too.
Oh, and by the way, that other guy has been known to spew word salads with regularity, too.
But nobody rewrites his transcripts.
Curmie, Trump has a nearly unique syntax much of the time, but if you go along with his style, you get his meaning. Ann Althouse touches upon this with regularity. You may be thinking of Trump’s typos on his Tweets. Fair enough. But I doubt Joe can even type. Again, his errors are simply off the charts.
And frankly, I don’t recall any previous administration having to walk back things their guy has said, never mind clean up his misspeaking, consistently and so blatantly. Joe’s in a class all his own. If it weren’t for Joes dementia, we wouldn’t even be talking about this.
And by the way, you did make “this about whether Joe misspeaks frequently, thusly:
“Speaking as someone who has more than once misspoken, stumbled over words, or even gotten lost when reading, say, a conference paper (and there are undoubtedly numerous examples of my having done so without knowing it), I can think of no fairer way of preserving both the intent and the actuality.”
In my opinion, any editing of a transcript of what was actually spoken in a speech is unethical, period.
If they want to correct something or add some kind of context to something then it should be done as addendums to the transcript and including superscript identifiers like ² or ³ to refer the transcript text to something in the addendum is fine, but editing the transcript to change its contents in any way is ethical. The transcript must be 100% accurate to actual words spoken.
Bingo. My answer to the question posed by the headline: “When it’s done.”
I think your position is reasonable. While I don’t begrudge Biden for his constant gaffes (because he has never, ever demonstrated that he is all that bright and he is clearly not a gifted orator akin to say Obama, Pres. Clinton, [and as much as people hate him] Ted Cruz), public speaking is very difficult, I think showing the original speech with addenda or footnotes is clearer.
jvb
This is why the audio version of the Hur interview needs to be compared with the written transcript.
Exactly. (Although messing with political speeches and messing with transcripts of interview and testimony are in different categories.)
Professor Turley did a nice piece on the entire Garland contempt citation. He concluded the legal theory DOJ is putting forward is preposterous in terms of executive privilege, but he concludes they’ll just run out the clock well beyond the election.
With Allah’s help, by then Joe will be in an assisted living facility’s Alzheimer’s wing.