Tale of the Tape Trips Up Burton

WASHINGTON: It was an ugly scene. House Government Reform Committee staffers tossing out unedited tapes containing 43 of Webster Hubbell's private prison conversations like so much animal feed, and hordes of reporters hungrily grabbing them. Even uglier: The tale the tapes told about Chairman Dan Burton's earlier, partial transcripts. "I believe this will once and for all put the lie to any accusations of editing, doctoring or out-of-context quotation," the Indiana Congressman wrote of the release earlier Monday.

Which was a vain hope, for what emerged was one of the most gratuitous cases of selective tape editing since Watergate. Example: Burton's orginal transcript quotes Hubbell as saying "We have to be very careful about this... editorials are all talking about how this is designed to keep me and Susan quiet. We have to make sure that it's our personal friends that are helping." That turns out to be a composite of words from a larger statement, from which the following was deleted by Burton: "Most of the articles are presupposing that I, my silence is being bought. We know that's not true. We're dead solid broke and getting broker."

Even more egregious: Where Hubbell says the word "reality", Burton substitutes "Riady." A Freudian slip, no doubt. Burton's explanation? "When you've got 150 hours of tape and you've got to condense it down to an hour," he told reporters, "obviously you're going to do some things that some people are concerned about." Whether that will quell the demands for his resignation from the chairmanship remains to be seen.