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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Missing Two Minutes in the Romney Video? Everyone Has a Theory

September 19, 2012, 4:13 pm
By MICHAEL ROSTON

The video of Mitt Romney's speech at a fund-raiser in Boca Raton, Fla., released by Mother Jones magazine this week has been discussed broadly across the political spectrum. It has even apparently darkened the mood of Mr. Romney's campaign team. There seemed to be little Mr. Romney could do but clarify that his remarks “were not elegantly stated” and fully embrace the ideas that drove them.

But not everyone agrees with the approach of the Romney campaign.

Late on Tuesday, some observers questioned why approximately two minutes were missing from the videos posted by Mother Jones. On The Blaze, Benny Johnson posted an edit of the video clips that highlighted a gap in the recordings, and argued that “the ‘uncut' videos leave out a critical portion of the speech.” The editor-in-chief of Breitbart.com, Joel B. Pollak, took the point a step further and warned that “there is new reason to suspect manipulation” of Mother Jones's video.

The response to this provocation gathered swiftly on Wednesday morning as users of Twitter created a viral hashtag, #Missing2Min, that speculated and cracked wise about what occurred during the moments missing from the recording posted by Mother Jones.

Some left-leaning observers shared their wit on the subject:

But they weren't alone. Twitter users connected to some conservative causes and organizations also had their own satirical remarks about missing footage:

Some Twitter users embraced the hashtag to highlight controversies that have bedeviled President Obama over the years:

But turnabout was fair play when it came to lingering controversies for Mr. Romney:

A bevy of jokes that were not particularly political were also offered, and these were some of the highlights:

And comparisons of Mr. Romney with Springfield's own Montgomery Burns were also common:

But of all the speculation about what happened in the missing two minutes, this Twitter user's theory seemed the most reasonable: