A few months ago, I did a segment on NBC Nightly News and was quite satisfied that the editing was fair. So when they called tonight and asked me to comment on Rush and the contraceptive flap, I agreed.
I did a taped segment (about 25 minutes before airtime) giving a full-throated and vigorous defense of Rush that went on for 5 minutes. Naturally, they picked out the dozen words or so that could be interpreted as criticism and used only those.
I post this not to complain, much, but rather to note that it always makes me sympathic to politicians to be put in this position. Your words are selected, diced, and edited to portray something remote from what you really said.
That’s why politicians get that artificial, unspontaneous look about them. They have to weigh every goddam word thinking “how can I phrase this so that it won’t be twisted?”