On the Blaze’s accusations of misleading editing by O’Keefe

I think it’s impossible to deny: O’Keefe should not have edited the clip this way. If a person is describing the views of someone else, you can’t edit the clip to make it look like they are describing their own views.

But here’s the thing: when you look at the body language, listen to the tone, and put it in context with the rest of the video, it’s clear that Schiller is describing his own views here. He’s just using that old Aristotle device of putting his words in the mouths of Republicans to give them more credibility.

Watch the above video and tell me that he is not signalling his agreement.

Even if, like Dave Weigel, you want to insist that this is somehow unclear, you have to look at the context of the rest of the video. (By the way, stay with me until the end of the post for an amusing bonus story about Weigel blocking me on Twitter over all this.) The rest of the video provides context, and — once again, ironically! — the critics of O’Keefe are omitting the context that makes it so clear that Schiller agrees with every word of this criticism…

When he relates that they are “seriously racist,” he is, I will grant you, very arguably still in the mode of describing the views of his Republican friends. But he is invoking those friends to show that “even” Republicans think this! It’s much the same as when people cite the Blaze criticism of O’Keefe’s editing: even Glenn Beck’s site is criticizing O’Keefe! It’s a variant of the old tactic I described at the head of the post of appearing neutral: you cite people on the other side from you and say: “even the other side is saying this!”