I have to agree with you on the “al-Qaeda *and* Iran” issue. When scrutinized, Lieberman does say *in.* *and*. It seems to me, if one is in a “normal” listening mode, and not closely focused on each word and syllable, it is easy to hear *and.* *in*.

Maybe my attention span, or even worse, a propensity to hear what I wanted to hear, was the salient factor. I certainly hope I didn’t allow the latter to creep in, but…

Regardless of how or why, I got it wrong and so did the original transcriber.

Thanks for pointing out the error and I will make a retraction.

Well, it was hard to guess from your links just what your source was for the transcript.

In any case, the Fox transcript has been corrected to read “Al Qaeda *and* Iran”.

When I roll the tape, to my untrained ear there is a very distinctive “d” sound between “Qaeda” and “Iran” that would be utterly stray unless he said “and”; obviously, views differ.

However, a mere paragraph later Lieberman does suggest his familiarity with the controversy with when he is asked about McCain\’s mis-speaks on that very point:

“LIEBERMAN: Well, just ridiculous. I mean John McCain knows that the Iranians are supporting Shia extremists, and that’s different from Al- Qaeda. He misspoke. Every one of the other candidates for president at one time or another has misspoken. I have, too.

When I heard him do that, I leaned forward and I said, “I know what you meant to say, but here’s what you said.” But you know, what is really important about that exchange, if I may quote from the Bible, that wonderful challenge, “How is it that you can see the speck in your brother’s eye but you don’t see the log in your own?”

They made a big deal out of John McCain misspeaking. But what senator McCain was saying is Iran is training Iraqis who are killing American soldiers and that’s what we should be angry about.\”

Maybe Lieberman deliberately said “AL Qaeda in Iran” but forgot about that group thirty seconds later.

Obviously, it would be a tad difficult to post the video without watching and listening to at least the first several seconds, which is where Lieberman’s gaffe happens to be.

I’m not sure what little nugget you are alluding to, but, I got the “100 troop” misstatement and more importantly the al-Qaeda in Iran part. That was the precise point of my statement, “How revealing. Al-Qaeda in Iran is the real problem…” Moreover, that’s why I emphasized “the Iranians are supporting Shia extremists, and that’s different from Al- Qaeda” in the transcript.

If you’ll notice, the title of the post says “Lieberman confused…”

There may be an error in the abbreviated transcript with respect to Kelly vs. Megan, but that would be FOX News Entertainment’s error, not mine. I copied the transcript from the FOX website. Since I do not watch FOX (intentionally), I don’t know, or really care for that matter, what the woman’s name is. I assumed it was her last name, and it is not unreasonable to assume FOX could at least get the name of their anchor actress correct. But then again, I probably had my expectations too high given the source.

So, be my guest — spoil the surprise.

If you are going to link to the video you really ought to watch it. And listen.

I won’t spoil the surprise.