One of the really low points in Kamala Harris' interview on 60 Minutes was her answer on the administration's failed (luckily) diplomacy with Israel. 

Bibi Netanyahu and his cabinet have rightly ignored the pressure put on them to give up their efforts to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah and have even taken to making big moves without consulting or even informing the United States about their intentions. This is tactically smart because the administration leaks like a sieve. 

Bill Whitaker did what I consider a decent to good job with Harris--not letting her slide too much when she pivoted--and that clearly caused some heartache for the Harris campaign. A lot of stuff was left on the cutting room floor, and chances are good that we missed out on some good word salads with fat-free dressing, but Harris' interview still contained a few. 

One fewer now. CBS has cleaned up her answer, at least on Twitter, to make it sound stronger and more coherent. 

Remember Kamala’s word salad answer about Israel on 60 Minutes? It’s gone.

This is what many Americans will now see. pic.twitter.com/H4w7btDv6x

— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 8, 2024

Because this was so stunning--essentially revising an already strongly edited interview--I double-checked before I decided to write a post. This is from Twitter after all, and not everything you read can be trusted. 

But it's true. CBS DID slice and dice her answer to make her look better, although they didn't do it everywhere. As far as I can tell this is a Twitter thing. 

You can still find the original clip from 60 Minutes, which goes like this:

Monday, on a 60 Minutes election special, Bill Whitaker asks Vice President Kamala Harris if the U.S. lacks influence over American ally Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. https://t.co/TG3WOCA23A pic.twitter.com/IH6MXMjuCP

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 6, 2024

CBS has put out a newer clip, and it is completely different. 

With just 29 days until Election Day, Bill Whitaker sits down with Vice President Kamala Harris. One year after Hamas' terror attack on Israel, Whitaker starts by asking Harris what the U.S. can do to prevent an all-out regional war in the Middle East. https://t.co/NsOjzQIL5O pic.twitter.com/dRruqbEaqg

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 8, 2024

Of course, Twitter is still a very big deal. Their tweets get millions of views and are the prime place for seeing clips instead of watching the entire interview. So, editing out the worst moment of the interview is also a very big deal. It makes it look like they are hiding the incoherence of Harris, because that is exactly what they are doing. 

You can still find the original interview as aired, so they have given themselves some cover. "Edited for Twitter/X," which isn't totally memory-holed. 

How about "quasi-memory-holed?" 

This, of course, makes you wonder about what else they edited out before airing. If the Israel answer--already sliced and diced--was allowed on the air and then revised, what worse answers wound up on the cutting room floor? 

60 Minutes should release the unedited interview. If they are so blatant about helping Harris get across the finish line, they could help their credibility more than a little by letting the American people see what was cut out. We can then judge for ourselves both Harris' answers and the extent to which 60 Minutes went to help her--or not. Perhaps Harris was brilliant in the cuts that didn't make it, right?

Filled with JOY!

Whitaker did a good job overall in the interview. He looked like a journalist, which is rare these days. And then some 60 Minutes producer or exec decided to undermine the credibility of their news division further by cleaning up after Harris.

That is shameful, although I have to admit it isn't surprising. It's surprising that anything that made Harris look bad made it on the air. I suspect that this was the best they had, so they went with it. It's not like Harris can stand any scrutiny.  

Did the Harris campaign ask for this edit? Was it an executive who made the decision? What explanation can 60 Minutes provide? Will anybody ask them?

However low you think the media can go, they find a way to go lower.