It’s hard for me to use a publication as a news source after it does something this ethically obtuse. I often find Reason, the libertarian magazine and website, insightful and useful, especially since the Volokh Conspiracy hangs out there now. But the site has not one but two essays claiming that CBS and “60 Minutes” were “vindicated” by the unedited transcript of Harris’s infamous interview, and all I can say in response is, “What’s the matter with them?”

Well, not all I can say. In an earlier post I pointed out how egregiously CBS cherry-picked relatively coherent pieces of Harris’s typically garbled responses, indeed taking middle-of-the-answer sentences and then middle-of-the-sentence portions to make Harris sound less like the dim-witted empty suit than she is. Jacob Sullum frames his “It isn’t what it is ” piece by repeating Trump’s rant about how the editing was “illegal” and should lose CBS its license. Yawn. Gee, Trump exaggerates. He was nonetheless correct that it was attempted election interference and “fake news.”

“The transcript also makes it clear, beyond any serious dispute, that CBS did not commit any journalistic sins when it presented an edited version of Harris’ response to a question about Israel,” the author writes. Hey, let me fix that for you, Jacob: “The transcript also makes it clear, beyond any serious dispute, that CBS was engaged in unethical journalism when it presented an edited version of Harris’ response to a question about Israel.”

Guess what Sullum’s defense is. The edited version took a section of the same answer to present Harris as more concise and clear than she in fact was or is. That means the edit was OK? As a whole, her answer was an incoherent, babbling mess, like most of Harris’s responses in interviews. Taking a single relatively clear sentence out of the whole and presenting it as her actual answer is by definition deceptive. Sullum says, without explaining why this is fair or true, “The idea that making Harris seem a bit more cogent (or less “CRAZY” and “DUMB,” as Trump put it in October) could have been “election changing” was always silly, all the more so in light of Trump’s victory, which was by no means close in the Electoral College.” On the contrary, it’s not silly at all. Harris’s inability to articulate a coherent position was her main weakness as a candidate just as it was her downfall as Vice-President. The editing didn’t make her seem “a bit more cogent,” it hid the reality that the woman is a shallow, babbling fool. That Trump happened to win despite CBS’s unethical assistance to his adversary doesn’t alter the seriousness of what was done or its intent. This is like saying that the Democrats didn’t try to beat Trump by burying him in contrived prosecutions because it didn’t work.

Sullum also tries to excuse the “60 Minutes” cheat by describing it as “standard journalistic practice.” Really? Good to know: now we can safely disregard any pre-recorded interview on “60 Minutes” or any other news program because it is likely to leave out crucial information or the context of the words we hear. The fact that Kamala Harris can’t speak intelligently was crucial information for voters, at least those who hadn’t figured this out already. If the true answer would have made voters decide, “Wow, this woman really is a dummy!” and CBS made her answer sound more concise so voters wouldn’t think that, that’s election interference. That’s unethical journalism. That’s broadcast news distortion. And that’s exactly what “60 Minutes” did.. and why. Proof of the why is in discoverable material; that’s why CBS is settling Trump’s lawsuit.

The other Reason piece falsely excusing CBS, “Transcript Proves the 60 Minutes Scandal Was Always Fake” tells us, “CBS denied any wrongdoing, saying in a statement that the excerpt ‘used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response.’ In a second statement, the network clarified that ‘the interview was not doctored’ and that ’60 Minutes did not hide any part of Vice President Kamala Harris’s answer to the question at issue.'” And the author, Joe Lancaster, is satisfied with this deceit-fest!

It was not the “same answer”! The answer “60 Minutes” pretended was Harris’s answer was what the program’s editors decided that her answer should have been, if only the candidate knew how to talk. How can Reason agree that “the interview was not doctored”? Surgically removing large toxic masses of malignant verbal gunk so the speaker’s reputation isn’t killed is the essence of doctoring. “60 Minutes did not hide any part of Vice President Kamala Harris’s answer to the question at issue.” Get that? “At issue.” They hid the part of the answer that didn’t say anything, so, see, they really didn’t hide anything. But they did. They hid Kamala Harris’s incompetence….and that was something that its viewers had a right to see to be informed voters.

In the Ethics Alarms post, I wrote that everyone except the brainwashed, Trump-deranged and Axis useful idiots knew that CBS engaged in unethical journalism in a last ditch effort to get Kamala Harris elected. Which of those describes Reason’s writers? Maybe all of them, but I know this: my respect for this publication is permanently diminished.
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ADDED: Here’s another question and answer sequence that “60 Minutes” decided would reveal too much about the size of Harris’s brain-pan:

BILL WHITAKER: “But I guess my question is, it’s a pretty simple one, if this is the right answer now, what you tried to do with the bipartisan bill this trip …”

HARRIS: “And what we tried to do on day one, Bill. And what we tried to do on day one. When we came in, first order of business before we did the Inflation Reduction Act, before we did –successfully, by the way, without one Republican vote. Before we did the bipartisan infrastructure bill, before we passed the first meaningful piece of legislation to deal with gun violence in America in 30 years, the first, first thing we did was to offer a comprehensive solution to create a pathway for citizenship, and for people to earn it, and to deal with what we need to do to put more resources to ensure that we are able to heighten our level of security at the border.”

BILL WHITAKER: “So yeah, we do need to move on, because our time is short. But I’m trying to understand how it is that with this emphasis on the border, the numbers of crossings quadrupled under the first three years of the Biden-Harris Administration. What — how did that happen?”

HARRIS: “There are a variety of factors that relate to what we have seen globally, and what we are not immune from at our own border in terms of what we have seen in terms of the surge of immigration and irregular migration. And there are solutions at hand, but we’ve got to have leaders who are solution-oriented, which we’ve been and are, and I am going forward, instead of leaders who want to make it a problem they can run on.”

Oh. What?

[Pointer: Victory Girls]