Mike Leach Defends Tweeting Barack Obama Conspiracy Video From 2014
Washington State coach Mike Leach decided to get a little political on Twitter on Sunday and tweeted out a video clip of a 2014 Barack Obama speech to the European Union in Belgium.
There's just one problem. The clip is actually a deceptive edit that splices together Obama's sentences to change their meaning. The video isolates a clause in which Obama says “ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs” but leaves out the rest of the paragraph, in which Obama describes how that “alternative vision” has threatened the system of ideals that govern the United States and many countries in Europe.
Leach deleted his original tweet on Monday, but not before taking a ton of flak for it.
Here's a screenshot of the now deleted tweet:
Screenshot/Twitter
And a link to the fake video:
Here is the actual speech:
People on Twitter did not hold back on letting Leach know that he tweeted out a fake video. Leach defended the video and got into it with some people on Sunday night over the course of about four hours and dozens of tweets.
Leach ended up tweeting out the complete text of the speech on Monday, but he did not necessarily apologize for the way he initially presented the misleading video: “I agree that the video was incomplete. However, I believe discussion on how much or how little power that our Gov should have is important......”
USA Today’s Dan Wolken obtained a statement from the school after Leach’s first tweet came down:
