It's too bad Bill O'Reilly wasn't hosting his own show last night, since E.D. Hill just wasn't up for generating the type of outrage Bill O himself could've stirred up in Ed Gillespie, the White House counsel behind the the angry letter sent to NBC News. Naturally there was the fingering of MSNBC as a left-y news outlet pushing a liberal agenda while characteristically ignoring its own business model.

Because the non-scandal surrounding Richard Engel's George Bush interview for NBC News doesn't seem to be quieting down anytime soon, let's re-examine the argument that White House counsel Ed Gillespie is making — that NBC edited the interview to push its lefty politics or something.

Notes WaPo's Dan Froomkin: "If Bush had actually explained what he thought Engel got wrong, then the editing might have come in for legitimate criticism. But all Bush did was vaguely and confusingly suggest that what he was calling appeasement was not taking the words [of enemies like Iran -- or Hitler --] seriously.' By no accepted definition does that amount to appeasement. But regardless, Bush's point was dutifully noted in what NBC aired."

So then what the hell was Gillespie complaining about?

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[Update: NBC responds. Below.]

Did NBC News "deceptively" edit an interview with President Bush to make it sound like the commander in chief was fingering Barack Obama when he was talking about negotiating peace with Iran (and how doing so amounted to "appeasement")?

That's what White House counsel Ed Gillespie is alleging in a scathing letter sent to NBC News' Steve Capus, demanding the network air the president's "actual answer" to the question. [The Hill]

"NBC's selective editing of the President's response is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that he agreed with Engel's characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it," reads the letter. "Furthermore, it omitted the references to al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas and ignored the clarifying point in the President's follow-up response that U.S. policy is to require Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program before coming to the table, not that "negotiating with Iran is pointless" and amounts to 'appeasement.' This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President's responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts."

So what type of editing did NBC, allegedly, perform?

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