[SEE IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW]

As it turns out, the "full" video of Mitt Romney's remarks where he turned his back on half the U.S. and spouted an anti-American libertarian talking point is actually missing one to two minutes [1].

In the real world, this doesn't change anything: what Romney meant is clear as a bell. Romney quickly accepted responsibility for his remarks and didn't back away from them, only saying they were "not elegantly stated" and requesting that the full video be released [2].

Many conservatives knew exactly what he was saying because they've been saying it for a while. In fact, in October 2011, several conservatives pushed the "I Am The 53%" movement which Romney could have been reading from. That's not - by a long shot - the only way those in the conservative movement have continued a war on poor people.

Two of the conservative leaders behind the "53%" effort (Erick Erickson and Kevin Eder) recognized that Romney was basically repeating something they'd started [3] [4]. Rush Limbaugh embraced Romney's remarks (link). See more here.

That's the real world. Now, to the world of William Jacobson and of Joel Pollak of the Big Government sites.

Of the missing 1 to 2 minutes, the former says (link):

It is impossible for us to know if Romney said something which changed or put the remarks in context. Romney doesn’t remember the event except for what exists on audio/video. Maybe in the fullness of the answer, the answer was less “inelegant” than it appears. Maybe Romney put some of the context on it that we have heard in his interviews the past two days.

The latter says (link):

There is no way to know, without the missing footage, exactly what Romney said. On Monday evening, Romney called for a complete video of his remarks to be released. That now turns out to be impossible, either because Romney's remarks were never recorded in full (as Mother Jones now claims), or because some of his remarks--perhaps mitigating some of the controversial effect of his statements--were selectively edited out of the tape by Mother Jones or its chain of sources (including former President Jimmy Carter's grandson).

The fact that there's a missing segment and that the reporter of the story didn't initially reveal it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know [5], and his credibility is a different issue than the tape itself.

So, my challenge to Joel Pollak and William Jacobson is this: imagine the context that would "mitigate" or make less "inelegant" Romney's remarks. He's stating what amounts to the ideology of a large share of the GOP base; libertarian-influenced comments like his have been said countless times by those in the Tea Parties movement and their leaders. He was basically reading from a script written several months before by the "I Am The 53%" movement. What exactly could Romney have said that would fit into the flow of his remarks on the original video that would make his comments less anti-American?

I eagerly await your highly creative responses.

UPDATE: See [6].

5/20/12 UPDATE: The complaints by Jacobson, Pollak, and others are moot, at least as far as Mitt's "47%" comments are concerned. Of course, they were moot to begin with, but now we've got confirmation from the Romney campaign. Around 4 hours after I wrote this post, Dylan Byers of the Politico appended this update to his story about the video tape ( peekURL.com/zKdy79V ):

A Romney campaign spokesperson reaches out to say that they only take issue with the clip addressing the Mideast peace negotiations, not with the entire video of Romney's remarks at the fundraiser.

I've only discussed the "47%" comments, so there you have confirmation from the Romney campaign that those comments were accurately presented. Everyone already knew that, even if Jacobson, Pollak, and other hacks tried to pretend otherwise.

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[1] Supposedly the recording device turned off unexpectedly but was quickly turned back on.

[2] link

Mitt Romney said Monday evening that his comments about voters who don't pay income taxes were "not elegantly stated," but did not distance himself from the substance of his surreptitiously recorded remarks at a closed-door fundraiser in May.

[3] twitter dot com/EWErickson/status/247847415464488961
Seeing these undercover videos actually make me wish Romney would talk more about this issue on the trail.

[4] twitter dot com/keder/status/248146111905271809
I don't think Dems like this '47%' discussion. It makes their rhetoric about people's 'fair share' look downright silly. #iamthe53

[5] That reporter is David Corn of Mother Jones, someone I've had sharp words for on Twitter (22 tweets) based mostly on what's at his name's link but also on immigration topics. I've sent more than two times as many tweets to others at the magazine itself, mostly about immigration. For instance, this to their publisher: "please list fundamental ways #MoJo #immigration stance differs from #Koch stance". I've also left dozens of comments at their site over the years pointing out how they're wrong. I have to point this out because those in the Tea Parties sphere have been trained to reflexively think that because I'm opposing those like Pollak, that means I must be supporting Corn.

[6] To highlight how what Romney said is standard ideology among a certain segment of supposed conservatives, here's a quote from a post about the tape from the site Right Sphere ( bolding added, peekURL.com/zmGLCUQ ):

Romney could then go on the offensive with Obama and his incessant growth of entitlement programs, desire to eliminate the work requirements for welfare and willingness to have 53% of us pay for the existence of 47%.

The bolded portion isn't true; see this, such as "the bottom fifth of households pays about 16 percent of their incomes in taxes, on average". It ignores the fact that without "47ers" the U.S. economy would stop functioning (unless Romney and Michael Bloomberg are going to take turns working at gas stations and 7-11s). It ignores everything that isn't economic, boiling someone's worth down to just how much they earn. It ignores the fact that many "47ers" were or will be "53ers". Not only are such sentiments anti- and un-American, they have a vague, "to the gas chambers - go!" feel to them.