Campaign watch: Brother Hayes seems to take it back!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016

And then, he changes his stance: Midway through last evening's show, Chris Hayes seemed to take it back.

He seemed to acknowledge that he had erred at the start of Friday night's program. For our report on Friday's groaner, you can just click here. For TPM's report on his semi-retraction, you can just click this.

(Warning! TPM didn't bother producing an accurate transcript of the remarks in question, the remarks Bill Clinton made in Memphis last Thursday night.)

We say Hayes made a semi-retraction for the following reason. First, he acknowledged that he'd made an error. (Everyone does.) But then he took it back!

This is the start of his presentation. He seems to acknowledge his error:

HAYES (2/15/16): On Friday night, we reported on comments [Bill Clinton] made during a stop in Memphis, Tennessee and we cited him as saying about Hillary Clinton and President Obama, quote,

"She's always making something good happen. She's the best change maker I've ever known. A lot of people say, 'Oh well, you don't understand. It's different now. It's rigged.' Yeah, it's rigged because you don't have a president who is a change maker."

Now, a number of people pointed out—quite a few actually, and rightly—that Clinton's full remarks changed the context of that point and that he actually went on to defend President Obama against his critics. So here it is in full.

At this point, Hayes played the full tape of what Bill Clinton had actually said. Hayes had already seemed to say that people who criticized his previous report had actually done so "rightly."

Hayes played the full tape of what Bill Clinton said. But then, after playing the tape, he had to go and say this:

HAYES: Now, we did not characterize Clinton as trashing the president or slamming him as some others did. We said he went off message, which is arguably true. But here's the important thing. In cutting off that clip in the editing, we didn't allow you the chance to make that judgment for yourselves in the full light of context. We shouldn't have done that.

Hayes may not have been wrong after all! "Arguably," his claim had actually been right!

We're sorry Hayes made that remark, which was total BS. In fact, Bill Clinton did not go off-message in Memphis that night. In fact, he was directly on message. He was suggesting that Candidate Sanders, or some of his supporters, have been saying bad things about Barack Obama.

Bill Clinton said nice thing about Obama that night. His insinuations were pretty clear about those who have criticized Obama.

Personally, we'd be happier if Bill Clinton didn't do that. We also would have been happier if Hayes had simply acknowledged his howling error and had said nothing more after that!