Televised Statements Are Hard to Revise

People say things then in retrospect when called upon to face up to what was said, say it wasn't so and that what you thought you heard is not what you heard as they rearrange and restate whatever had been said in a new and different way. In most cases this works and the listener is said to have been mistaken or to have misunderstood. The revising of a thing said if it was recorded is not so easily changed at a later time. This is the case for Rosie O'Donnell as well as with Mrs. Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey.

I happened to be at home and watching television flipping through the channels and came across The View at the very moment of what became a controversial incident. Apparently Rosie was discussing the war on a previous occasion in an interview and was later quoted to have said sarcastically, when referring to the two who were fighting, emphasizing the word who, "who are the terrorists"? The statement seemed to imply that the Americans were the terrorists. No matter how this was repeated afterwards, it was clearly a sarcastic remark. On The View however, Rosie tried to clean up the statement because it was derogatory toward the troops who were the people on the front line fighting for this country, getting killed and injured, going missing and who were in harms way.

Rosie tried to get her co host Elisabeth Hasselbeck to say that she believed that what was sad by Rosie was not what Rosie had meant or said. It clearly could not be interpreted in any other way however and the co host stated that it came out in one way and could not be reinterpreted to have meant anything else. Rosie then called Elisabeth a coward for not standing up for what she believed, when in fact she was statng and was standing up for her true opinion, it just wasn't what Rosie wanted to hear. It wasn't what Rosie wanted the audience to hear either. Rosies' premise was wrong and could not be redefined. My mouth hung open as an argument ensued. Then I changed the channel. The incident was childish, like being a child and calling your friend over to back you up in a lie.

If you say this, you can't change it to that to fit popular opinion and to make yourself appear differently. This too is how it is with Christie Whitman. Shortly after 911 she spoke on television and said that the air was safe to breathe several times. She did at that time say her conclusion was based on expert opinion. My mouth dropped open then too. It was all said on television and I happen to have recorded it. I taped television news for over a year and a half after 911 as a reaction to the event. Here is what I had to say about the air then which they are saying now in 2007 that at that time, air as far as a mile away was unsafe to breathe.

The toxic soup in the air after 911 was confirmed for long term workers at the site who developed respiratory problems. I had first hand experience because I was working in that area. I was criticized by a coworker a few years later, who said there was nothing wrong with the air then. The first month after 911, I would exit the train at Bleeker Street and had to cover my face to breathe through my scarf as a filter, while others walked around breathing normally. The odors for many weeks smelled like burning pot handles and worse. The stench would float into the building where I worked several times a day and I asked to be transferred out of the area because of the foul air. I worked about 10 blocks away and from where the buildings had been visible when they stood and where we watched all morning before they fell.

The windows appeared to be crying when I arrived a few minutes late and saw people standing on the corner looking up wondering what they wee looking at as I approached. Later, I watched people stampede past my work place coming from the direction of the World Trade Center, heading uptown that day. I walked alongside numerous people who were well dressed in suits and ties, carrying brief cases but who were covered from head to toe with every inch of their clothing and bodies, covered in the light brown dust of the debris. I did not need any expert opinion.

Common sense told me that the air was bad. Any thing you can smell is being taken into your body and lungs in the form of small particles. Anyone who thought the air was clean enough to breath filled with the tiny particles of the dead, the building, its contents, the planes and their contents lacked common sense. I could not understand how those who continued to live and work in the area and specially those who worked at ground zero could do so safely. Now over the passage of time it is not so easy to change what was said, it was all recorded somewhere and was broadcasted. Marjorie, who overheard my conversation with someone else, and who butt into with your two cents opinion when I was discussing the 911 air a few years later with your smug opinion, saying to me with disdain, that there was nothing wrong with the air All I can say now is I told you so!