{"id":14360,"date":"2008-01-25T15:11:14","date_gmt":"2008-01-25T20:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14360.html"},"modified":"2008-01-25T15:11:14","modified_gmt":"2008-01-25T20:11:14","slug":"the-tax-whisperer-romney-debate-answer-sparks-intrigue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-tax-whisperer-romney-debate-answer-sparks-intrigue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tax Whisperer — Romney debate answer sparks intrigue"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw a couple of headlines earlier about Mitt Romney and “whispers” during last night’s debate, and paid no attention to it. Then, a reliable friend emailed me, and encouraged me to give this a serious look. I did, and I have to admit, it’s odd.<\/p>\n

Here’s the relevant portion, from the debate in Boca. To hear the part that’s causing such a stir, you may need to put on headphones, and turn the volume up a bit.<\/p>\n

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For those of you who can’t watch clips online, the video shows Tim Russert speaking to Romney: “I know you’re a big fan of Ronald Reagan. Will you do for Social Security what Ronald Reagan did in 1983?” When Romney pauses to answer, there’s a distinct, audible whisper from someone who says, “Raise taxes” (or, possibly, “raised taxes”). A moment later, Romney said<\/a>, “I’m not going to raise taxes.”<\/p>\n

It’s not just the YouTube clip. It was apparently part of the live broadcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, what on earth was that whisper all about?
\n
\nI suspect the most innocuous explanation is that one of the other candidates on the stage, all of whom had live microphones, must have whispered the comment to themselves, perhaps making a note on the pad in front of them. That it happened shortly before Romney answered is just a coincidence.<\/p>\n

Of course, for the more suspicious minds among us, I should note that MSNBC published an item exploring the mysterious whisper, but the item has since been removed<\/a>, without explanation.<\/p>\n

One can’t help but be reminded of the now-infamous flap from 2004 about the “bulge<\/a>” behind Bush’s jacket during one of the presidential debates, but that became a fun little diversion because it reinforced suspicions about the president’s ability (or inability) to answer questions without assistance.<\/p>\n

With Romney, it’s an entirely different story. Romney has plenty of shortcomings, but no one seriously believes he’s a dim bulb, needing someone to feed him answers at a debate.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the story here? I have no idea, but my guess is that it’ll make for entertaining speculation, but there’s probably nothing to it.<\/p>\n

Update<\/i>: Raw Story got a response from MSNBC:<\/p>\n

“We had some audio issues and Gov. Romney’s mike wasn’t working momentarily. Simple as that,” MSNBC VP for Communications Jeremy Gaines said in a one-line e-mail response to questions about overheard whisper.<\/p>\n

The response leaves some questions unanswered, such as, Whose voice did viewers hear, and why did MSNBC apparently scrub a reference to the Whisper from its Web site?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I doubt there’s anything nefarious going on, but a) the microphone-malfunction explanation seems odd; and b) news outlets should realize by now that pulling a published item, and then pretending it didn’t exist, is a no-no. It’s far preferrable to keep a published item online with a correction, addendum, or editor’s note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw a couple of headlines earlier about Mitt Romney and “whispers” during last night’s debate, and paid no attention to it. Then, a reliable friend emailed me, and encouraged me to give this a serious look. I did, and I have to admit, it’s odd. Here’s the relevant portion, from the debate in Boca. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}