Transcript of Clinton and Edwards Plotting Against Democrats Who Aren't "Serious" [View All]

[DemBones DemBones]

If you've only seen this on tv, you may not have been able to understand much. My inquiring mind wanted to know what was said.

YouTube has a video tape of the post-debate conversation in which the audio is much clearer than the tapes I've seen on CNN. I have listened to it all the way through at least 15 times. I finally figured out how to advance it "frame" by "frame" and then listened 5 or 6 times to each thing Clinton said and each thing Edwards said.

At Beyond the News, subtitles have been added to the tape and I was unable to find any instance in which the subtitles don't match what they're saying, word for word, so I copied the subtitles, with their puncuation. There are lots of ellipses (. . .) used to represent slight pauses. I've bolded the words so you can read it as it's heard, without the descriptions of their actions.

I support Dennis Kucinich, but do not want to be unfair to other candidates; that's why I watched this over and over and over and over and over and over, etc. Then I watched it at ABC and heard the same words. Read this and then go watch the tapes for yourself.

Edwards, speaking into Clinton's ear at her podium, says "At some point. . . (unintelligible). . . maybe the Fall, we should try to have a more serious and smaller group."

(This is when there is the most noise and there may have been a word lost here but I doubt it could change the meaning at all, especially when considered in light of the rest of their dialogue.)

Clinton, speaking into Edwards's ear, says "Well. . .we . . .we've got to cut the number . . . because they are just being trivialized." (Sen. Clinton, the proper word is marginalized.)

Edwards, walking away, responds "And they're. . .they're not serious. They're not serious."

Hillary approaches John's podium, says: "No, you know. . .I. . .I. . .I think there was an effort by our campaign to do that. It got. . . it got somehow. . . detoured."

Next Barack and Dennis approached Hillary as she was saying to John "We've got to get back to it. . .because that's all we're going to do between now and then. . . Thanks, Barack. (shaking his hand). We. . .us. . .Thanks, Dennis(shaking his hand). . .Our people should talk."


Watch the video with subtitles at:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BeyondTheNews

Watch it without subtitles at:

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3371185