CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield wanted her viewers to know she was so, so sorry, after a clip aired on Monday appeared to show Hillary Clinton laughing about the murder of four Americans during the Benghazi terrorist attack. “That is our mistake,” she declared. “She was not laughing. Let’s be very clear that the secretary of state was not laughing.”
The clip in question showed Hillary Clinton expressing regret over the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans during an attack on American compounds in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. In a sudden video shift, the former secretary of state went from mournful over Stevens death to laughing over a question on her 2016 presidential prospects.
Most viewers would be expected to notice the tape shift, correctly inferring that the comments occurred during two different parts of the interview. But Banfield’s sense of journalistic integrity compelled her to spell it out.
“OK, I wanna be real clear here,” she began. “Those were two separate soundbites that we tried to get to you as quickly as possible; we call them ‘tape turns.’ One of them was about Benghazi, and another — that was completely separate, at a different time — was about her thoughts about 2016. It was brought in while she was laughing about something completely unrelated at a different time.”
“That is our mistake,” she continued. “She was not laughing. Let’s be very clear that the secretary of state was not laughing about the previous comments about Benghazi. That was just a quick ‘butt SOT,’ we call it. ‘Butted’ soundbite.” Got that?
The explanation would be an innocent one, were it not for CNN’s disregard for the slightest semblance of fairness or context where Republicans are concerned. Earlier this month the network ran a blatantly inaccurate story on New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie, alleging the governor was under federal investigation after agents found evidence his office misused Hurricane Sandy relief funds for a self-serving ad campaign.
That story quickly fell apart, after a federal agency released a statement saying the governor received a waiver to use the funds for advertising and that a routine audit, not an investigation, was being conducted. CNN has yet to correct or apologize for flagrant falsehood. (RELATED: CNN fails to retract ‘exclusive’ on second Christie scandal after their story implodes)
(h/t Washington Examiner)
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