Apostrophe-gate

probinson · Nov 1, 2024

The other day, I coined the term "Apostrophe-gate" in one of my posts. It seems I was not that far off.

For the uninitiated, Biden recently said the following:

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters".

Democrat apologists came out of the woodwork to try to say that what Biden said was this:

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's."

They point to the official White House transcript. But now there is evidence that the transcript was altered inappropriately.

WASHINGTON -- White House press officials altered the official transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a swipe at supporters of Donald Trump, drawing objections from the federal workers who document such remarks for posterity, according to two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

...

The change was made after the press office “conferred with the president,” according to an internal email from the head of the stenographers' office that was obtained by The AP. The authenticity of the email was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The supervisor, in the email, called the press office's handling of the matter “a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices.”

...

“White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more politically on message," the lawmakers wrote to Siskel.

Stefanik and Comer said the action could be in violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

AP sources: White House altered record of Biden's 'garbage' remarks despite stenographer concerns

White House press officials altered the official transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a swipe at supporters of Donald Trump, drawing objections from the federal workers tasked with recording the president’s remarks for pos...

abcnews.go.com

Cue the pivot of all the defenders of the apostrophe to now state it doesn't matter that Biden called Trump's supporters "garbage" because Trump has called them much worse. And of course they'll do this without even acknowledging that they were wrong about the apostrophe.

GoldenBoy89 · Nov 1, 2024

Well, I for one will definitely not be voting for Biden after this blunder.

JosephZ · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
For the uninitiated, Biden recently said the following:

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters".

Democrat apologists came out of the woodwork to try to say that what Biden said was this:

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's."

Aren't the two words "supporters" and "supporter's" pronounced identically in those two sentences?

When reading the surrounding context, President Biden is clearly talking about Tony Hinchcliffe’s remark.

"And just the other day, a speaker at his rally he called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage... The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been." -- President Biden

The supporter President Biden is speaking about in the above statement is Tony Hinchcliffe, and the garbage is his demonization of Latinos. President Biden didn't call anyone garbage.

probinson · Nov 1, 2024

JosephZ said:
Aren't the two words "supporters" and "supporter's" pronounced identically in those two sentences?

When reading the surrounding context, President Biden is clearly talking about Tony Hinchcliffe’s remark.

"And just the other day, a speaker at his rally he called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage... The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been." -- President Biden

The supporter President Biden is speaking about in the above statement is Tony Hinchcliffe, and the garbage is his demonization of Latinos. President Biden didn't call anyone garbage.

That's a great postulation on the apostrophe.

Don't you think the White House stenographers are far more qualified than you or I to state if there has been a "breach of protocol and a spoliation of transcript integrity"?

JosephZ · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
That's a great postulation on the apostrophe.

When someone is speaking, you can't hear apostrophes, so even with the omission of an apostrophe in the transcript, the surrounding context makes it clear what President Biden was talking about.

probinson said:
Don't you think the White House stenographers are far more qualified than you or I to state if there has been a "breach of protocol and a spoliation of transcript integrity"?

Yes, they certainly would, but in this case, surrounding context shows that adding an apostrophe was apprpriate. It may have been against protocol to go back and add the apostrophe after the fact, but it is the correct interpretation of President Biden's statement.

probinson · Nov 1, 2024

GoldenBoy89 said:
Well, I for one will definitely not be voting for Biden after this blunder.

I'm sure you won't.

But it's silly to pretend like this comment doesn't matter. Who can forget Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment from 2016? That was incredibly significant, in fact...

After the election, Diane Hessan, who had been hired by the Clinton campaign to track undecided voters, wrote in The Boston Globethat "all hell broke loose" after the "basket of deplorables" comment, which prompted what she saw as the largest shift of undecided voters towards Trump.[40] Political scientist Charles Murray said, in a post-election interview with Sam Harris, that because the comment helped get Donald Trump elected, it had "changed the history of the world, and he [Haidt] may very well be right. That one comment by itself may have swung enough votes, it certainly was emblematic of the disdain with which the New Upper Class looks at mainstream Americans".[41]

Basket of deplorables - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Biden's "garbage" comment was an unforced error by the Democrats. Will it prompt the same shift of undecided voters as Clinton's comment? We'll soon know.

probinson · Nov 1, 2024

JosephZ said:
When someone is speaking, you can't hear apostrophes, so even with the omission of an apostrophe in the transcript, the surrounding context makes it clear what President Biden was talking about.

It does not. You are offering a tortured explanation of what you want the context to tell you.

JosephZ said:
Yes, they certainly would, but in this case, surrounding context shows that adding an apostrophe was apprpriate.

It was not. According to the stenographers, it was a "breach of protocol and a spoliation of transcript integrity."

GoldenBoy89 · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
I'm sure you won't.

But it's silly to pretend like this comment doesn't matter. Who can forget Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment from 2016? That was incredibly significant, in fact...

After the election, Diane Hessan, who had been hired by the Clinton campaign to track undecided voters, wrote in The Boston Globethat "all hell broke loose" after the "basket of deplorables" comment, which prompted what she saw as the largest shift of undecided voters towards Trump.[40] Political scientist Charles Murray said, in a post-election interview with Sam Harris, that because the comment helped get Donald Trump elected, it had "changed the history of the world, and he [Haidt] may very well be right. That one comment by itself may have swung enough votes, it certainly was emblematic of the disdain with which the New Upper Class looks at mainstream Americans".[41]

Basket of deplorables - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Biden's "garbage" comment was an unforced error by the Democrats. Will it prompt the same shift of undecided voters as Clinton's comment? We'll soon know.

Clinton was the candidate that election. Biden is not and has been a known gaffe machine for as long as he’s been in politics. Remember his “you ain’t black” comment? That was just before winning with something like 90% of the black vote. Nobody voting for Harris is going to be turned away because Biden said something that frankly, a lot of Harris supporters would probably agree with at this point.

essentialsaltes · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
Don't you think the White House stenographers are far more qualified than you or I to state if there has been a "breach of protocol and a spoliation of transcript integrity"?

Stenographic protocol has been breached.

probinson · Nov 1, 2024

GoldenBoy89 said:
Clinton was the candidate that election. Biden is not and has been a known gaffe machine for as long as he’s been in politics.

Biden is also the current President of the United States and the ostensible leader of the Democrat party.

GoldenBoy89 said:
Nobody voting for Harris is going to be turned away because Biden said something

You're correct. But that's not the concern. People who were voting for Clinton didn't turn away from her when she made her comment either. But she caused "the largest shift of undecided voters toward Trump", at least according to one analysis.

GoldenBoy89 said:
that frankly, a lot of Harris supporters would probably agree with at this point.

Yikes. Harris supporters probably agree that Trump supporters are garbage. The more this get discussed, the worse it gets.

probinson · Nov 1, 2024

essentialsaltes said:
Stenographic protocol has been breached.

Yes. And it resulted in "spoliation of transcript integrity". All so Democrats would be able to make a flaky argument about an apostrophe.

JosephZ · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
It does not. You are offering a tortured explanation of what you want the context to tell you.

"And just the other day, a speaker at his rally he called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage... The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been." -- President Biden

President Biden is without a doubt talking about a speaker at Trump's rally (Tony Hinchcliff) and not all Trump supporters. We know this because he mentions this at the beginning of his statement and in a later sentence, uses the pronoun "him." If President Biden was talking about all Trump supporters, he would have used the pronoun "their." And when you read that statement, it's also clear that President Biden doesn't call anyone garbage.

Larniavc · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
The other day, I coined the term "Apostrophe-gate" in one of my posts. It seems I was not that far off.

For the uninitiated, Biden recently said the following:

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters".

Democrat apologists came out of the woodwork to try to say that what Biden said was this:

"The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter's."

They point to the official White House transcript. But now there is evidence that the transcript was altered inappropriately.

WASHINGTON -- White House press officials altered the official transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a swipe at supporters of Donald Trump, drawing objections from the federal workers who document such remarks for posterity, according to two U.S. government officials and an internal email obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

...

The change was made after the press office “conferred with the president,” according to an internal email from the head of the stenographers' office that was obtained by The AP. The authenticity of the email was confirmed by two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The supervisor, in the email, called the press office's handling of the matter “a breach of protocol and spoliation of transcript integrity between the Stenography and Press Offices.”

...

“White House staff cannot rewrite the words of the President of the United States to be more politically on message," the lawmakers wrote to Siskel.

Stefanik and Comer said the action could be in violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

AP sources: White House altered record of Biden's 'garbage' remarks despite stenographer concerns

White House press officials altered the official transcript of a call in which President Joe Biden appeared to take a swipe at supporters of Donald Trump, drawing objections from the federal workers tasked with recording the president’s remarks for pos...

abcnews.go.com

Cue the pivot of all the defenders of the apostrophe to now state it doesn't matter that Biden called Trump's supporters "garbage" because Trump has called them much worse. And of course they'll do this without even acknowledging that they were wrong about the apostrophe.

I reckon he really did mean that garbage people vote Republican.

probinson · Nov 1, 2024

JosephZ said:
President Biden is without a doubt talking about a speaker at Trump's rally (Tony Hinchcliff) and not all Trump supporters.

If you say so.

I'm really not sure who you're trying to convince here. Not even the media is buying your explanation, and now that we know there has been a "spoliation of transcript integrity" from the stenographers themselves, the facts are simply not on your side.

You'd think that politicians would learn that the cover up is always worse than the thing. But I guess not. All Biden had to do was apologize and say he misspoke. People would still be discussing it, because once you say something, you can't un-say it. But these tortured denials about context and apostrophes are not helping.

GoldenBoy89 · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
Biden is also the current President of the United States and the ostensible leader of the Democrat party.

Yeah and he’s on his way out of office.

probinson said:
You're correct. But that's not the concern. People who were voting for Clinton didn't turn away from her when she made her comment either. But she caused "the largest shift of undecided voters toward Trump", at least according to one analysis.

There was also the breaking story of her investigation just days before the election. Remind me again which candidate is the one with an actual criminal record this time around?

probinson said:
Yikes. Harris supporters probably agree that Trump supporters are garbage. The more this get discussed, the worse it gets.

You’re right, it’s getting bad. That’s why I’m voting for the candidate who doesn’t engage in this kind of language at all.

essentialsaltes · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
Yes. And it resulted in "spoliation of transcript integrity". All so Democrats would be able to make a flaky argument about an apostrophe.

I await Comer's and Jordan's impeachment hearings with great anticipation.

probinson · Nov 1, 2024

GoldenBoy89 said:
Yeah and he’s on his way out of office.

Yes. But the President of the United States calling half the country "garbage" is a bad look.

GoldenBoy89 said:
There was also the breaking story of her investigation just days before the election.

Indeed there was. But there's no denying that were multiple political analysts that said Clinton's comment was detrimental to her.

GoldenBoy89 said:
You’re right, it’s getting bad. That’s why I’m voting for the candidate who doesn’t engage in this kind of language at all.

Harris certainly did the best she could to distance herself from this comment.

essentialsaltes · Nov 1, 2024

probinson said:
Yes. But the President of the United States calling half the country "garbage" is a bad look.

Devastating, if true.

Apostrophe-gate

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