Mitt Romney's Wawa Moment: Gaffe Or Selective MSNBC Editing? [VIDEOS]

By Howard Koplowitz | June 19 2012 5:04 PM

Was Mitt Romney out of touch when his Wawa moment lit up the Internet yesterday, or was he the victim of selective editing?

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Was Mitt Romney out of touch when his "Wawa" moment lit up the Internet yesterday, or was he the victim of selective editing?

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Romney repeatedly referred to the Pennsylvania-based chain as Wawa's and called their touch-tone keypad method of ordering sandwiches amazing, according to an MSNBC clip. The video caused Wawa to trend on Twitter yesterday.

By the way, where do you get your hoagies here? Do you get them at Wawas, is that where you get them? Romney says in the MSNBC video, which can be viewed below. Well, I went to a place today called Wawas. You ever been to Wawas? Anyone been to Wawas? I was at Wawas. I went in to order a sandwich. You press a little touch-tone keypad ... you just touch that, and, you know, the sandwich comes out ... it's amazing.

But theblaze.com, the website owned by conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, posted a full version of Romney's remarks in Cornwall, Pa., where the full context shows Romney comparing the ease of ordering sandwiches at Wawa to the federal government's complexity in making an optometrist fill out a 33-page change of address form. Scroll to the bottom of the article to view theblaze.com's version of Romney's speech and decide for yourself if Romney is out of touch or the victim of selective editing.

MSNBC's version of the video appears to show Romney as being out of touch, but conservatives are accusing Mitchell and the network of selective editing.

Truth in Advertising: @MitchellReports needs to change her show's name to Andrea Mitchell Distorts. Actually, every MSNBC show should, tweeted user Derek Hunter.

Shameful that @MitchellReports did not take opportunity to retract presentation and apologize, wrote conservative radio host Dana Loesch.

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell wondered whether the Wawa comments were Romney's supermarket scanner moment, referring to then-President George H.W. Bush's incident when he was in awe of how groceries were checked out of a supermarket during the 1992 campaign. Many saw the incident as showing Bush to be out of touch with the public.

Criticism of the MSNBC clip is not just coming from conservatives, however.

Media critic Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast admonished MSNBC on his Twitter account.

Looked at MSNBC video of Mitt saying amazing to Wawa touch-screen menu, and the editing is misleading -- he was making a different point, Kurtz tweeted Tuesday.

Decide for yourself by viewing both videos below.