On Big Journalism, Lee Stranahan accuses Media Matters of “deceptive editing” in a YouTube video we released to accompany our report about Bill Sammon admitting in 2009 that he lied when he speculated on-air prior to the 2008 election “about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism.” Stranahan's charge is false: at no point did Media Matters deceptively edit any of Sammon's remarks.

Stranahan claims Media Matters does “such a botch job of literally making Sammon say something he never said.” Stranahan begins his charge in his video by claiming we string “together three different clips from two different dates” to attack Sammon. Here are those “three” specific clips he's taking issue with:

SAMMON: But I do think that when you start talking about, “spread the wealth around,” which is what Barack Obama said to Joe the Plumber - [10/27/08]

SAMMON: -- the red flag went up. I mean, that's just code - and I knew that conservatives would say, 'That is exactly code for income redistribution which is tantamount to socialism.' [10/25/08: Note: the date timestamp originally read October 14 in the YouTube video due to a processing error, but was immediately corrected and did not appear anywhere else; regardless, the airdate isn't a point of contention here]

Here's his graphic accompaniment about those “three” clips:

To begin, Stranahan's setup is completely wrong. “Clip two” and “clip three” are the same, continuous clip (notice the “6:54” on the bottom left of those clips?). Fox & Friends switched from a full shot of Sammon (“clip two”) to a split screen of Sammon with b-roll footage (“clip three”). But Stranahan thinks that Fox News' switch was Media Matters doing an “edit to a third clip.” That's a pretty embarrassing error and a good indication of how seriously his work should be taken.

But let's move on to his accusation that we're guilty of deceptive editing in switching between those two (not three) clips.

Stranahan believes that by going from this clip:

SAMMON: But I do think that when you start talking about, “spread the wealth around,” which is what Barack Obama said to Joe the Plumber --

To this clip on a previous day:

SAMMON: -- the red flag went up. I mean, that's just code - and I knew that conservatives would say, 'That is exactly code for income redistribution which is tantamount to socialism.'

We're guilty of “making Sammon say something he never said.” Stranahan says that it's “obvious that Sammon is not stating his own opinion. ... Sammon is saying he knew that's what conservatives would think.”

But that's not deceptive editing. Media Matters included Sammon's statement that “I knew that's what conservatives would say.” In other words, Stranahan accuses us of deceptive editing in our video by pointing to a line from our own video. Stranahan's criticism makes little, if any, sense.

Furthermore, remember that Sammon himself said he personally participated in “mischievous speculation” about Obama and socialism. Here's the original quote again:

SAMMON: You know, speaking of mischief, last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to quote, “spread the wealth around.” At that time, I have to admit, that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.

Sammon didn't say he “went on TV” to discuss what “others” were thinking at the time. He uses the first person, and says he personally engaged in the speculation. And numerous clips from October 2008 -- in both the YouTube clip and our original article -- show that he did just that even though he privately found the premise “rather far-fetched.”

If you need even further examples of Sammon's personal “speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism,” here's more from the original article on Sammon:

On October 14, 2008, Sammon said that Obama's “spread the wealth around” remark “is red meat when you're talking to conservatives and you start talking about 'spread the wealth around.' That is tantamount to socialism.”

Sammon repeated the “tantamount to socialism” line later that day, stating: “That's anathema to conservatives. That's the same as saying, 'Spread the misery around.' That's basically tantamount to socialism. And that bothers a lot of people. So I think if McCain is going to have any chance of moving ahead, he's got to turn this economic discussion from something that's been hurting him for the last couple weeks to something that can help him by focusing on what to do about the economy in the future.”

And here's Sammon connecting Obama's past writings and remarks to speculate if Obama believes in socialism:

During an October 28, 2008, appearance on Fox & Friends, Sammon again said Obama “was drawn to Marxist and socialists as a young man” before adding, “Now, let's be clear. I mean people had political ideologies in college that they don't necessarily have later in life, but I do think it indicates that he may be a little bit more liberal than he presents himself.”

Later in the interview, Sammon said that “there certainly is a consistency there when you look at the people he was drawn to going to socialist conferences, hanging out with Marxist professors, going to see Stokely Carmichael, even after he got out of college, for inspiration. The former Black Panther. And then you look later at life, where his association with Bill Ayers, the radical. You look at his association with the Reverend Wright. It does make you wonder whether indeed some of his leanings in his college days still carry through today, only are a little bit more fuzzed up because he's a politician who's running for high office. And I think it's worth examining.”

Furthermore, Media Matters released an internal email that Sammon sent to staffers highlighting what he described as “Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists” in his 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father. Shortly after sending the email, Sammon appeared on two Fox News programs to discuss his research and also wrote a FoxNews.com piece about Obama's “affinity to Marxists.”

Stranahan has a very a strange definition of “deceptive editing.”