Conservatives this morning are harping on a note from Mother Jones that there is an approximately 2-minute gap in their 49-minute video of Romney's now-infamous 47 percent bungle. That, of course, has set off a race to figure out, what could possibly be missing that would change the video's meaning. The official update from Mother Jones's DC editor David Corn reads, "According to the source, the recording device was inadvertently turned off between these two segments. The source noticed quickly and began to re-record, resulting in an estimated a one-to-two minute loss of tape." Some conservatives have used the admission to call into question the tape's authenticity. Barbs like this one from RB, a contributor at the late Andrew Breitbart's conservative-leaning Big Journalism: 

Let’s imagine @davidcorndc’s reaction had Breitbart claimed to release full tapes and then admitted he didn’t have it. #tcot

— RB (@RBPundit) September 19, 2012

What he and others are trying to insinuate is that the tape's been selectively edited. And insinuating that something's been doctored is of course an attempt convince people to ignore or doubt Mitt Romney's painful 47 percent quip (hey, the clamoring about the two minutes was enough to earn an update). Of course, as we noted, MoJo and Corn have the speech in full context--the question that prompted the speech, Mitt Romney's answer, etc. And the cut out didn't interrupt or alter the now-famous "victims, who believe the government..." line. Of course the smoking gun here is that Mitt Romney and his team haven't even come out and said, "You know everything on the tape was just me joking" or you know, in a more professional manner, called the tapes false--which you think they'd be doing if there was anything pertinent or 47 percent-altering in those two minutes. Instead, they've been busy digging themselves into a hole with CNN's Soledad O'Brien.

Inevitably, the hashtag #missing2min has become a joke on Twitter:

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Alexander Abad-Santos