Kanye West, ABC News, and Obama collectively wish for an erase button

Kanye West sets off another presidential incident.

There is no erase button in life. Kanye West can’t undo his leap onto the stage at the MTV music awards ceremony and undo his ruining of 19-year-old Taylor Swift’s big moment. It’s all over YouTube. Did you miss it?  Check it out here.

The presence of an “delete” button on the Web publishing platforms seems to fool people into thinking there is an erase button in virtual life. Sorry. No. Especially if you’re a world-renowned music artist, or a Nightline co-anchor, or the president of the United States.

ABC Nightline journalist Terry Moran is a master of Twitter, with over one million followers. He doesn’t tweet diplomatically. In June, he wrote “Obama tries again on the Gates arrest–this time admits his words fueled the controversy. Wonder why he did not admit that to me yesterday?” Snap!

He got a revenge of sorts during an interview with President Barack Obama yesterday. After the interview, he tweeted, “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a “jackass” for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.” His tweet was retweeted by many of his million followers and posted by Patrick Gavin at Politico.

Moran quickly erased the tweet and ABC News tells Politico that Obama made the jackass comment off the record.  Sigh. The best stuff is always off the record. Unfortunately for ABC and the White House, that tweet is very much on the record and is steadily spreading through media outlets like swine flu on college campuses.

There is no erase button here. Just own it. Obama, invite Kanye over for a beer or something. Don’t try to pretend like this never happened. Obama and ABC News are not the only ones trying to undo electronic communications. West has been having apologetic misadventures on his blog as well.

After the Swift incident, Kanye West posted an all-caps apology to his blog, posted before the show even ended:

I’M SOOOOO SORRY TO TAYLOR SWIFT AND HER FANS AND HER MOM. I SPOKE TO HER MOTHER RIGHT AFTER AND SHE SAID THE SAME THING MY MOTHER WOULD’VE SAID. SHE IS VERY TALENTED! I LIKE THE LYRICS ABOUT BEING A CHEERLEADER AND SHE’S IN THE BLEACHERS! …………………… I’M IN THE WRONG FOR GOING ON STAGE AND TAKING AWAY FROM HER MOMENT!…………….. BEYONCE’S VIDEO WAS THE BEST OF THIS DECADE!!!! I’M SORRY TO MY FANS IF I LET YOU GUYS DOWN!!!! I’M SORRY TO MY FRIENDS AT MTV. I WILL APOLOGIZE TO TAYLOR 2MRW. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!!!! EVERYBODY WANNA BOOOOO ME BUT I’M A FAN OF REAL POP CULTURE!!! NO DISRESPECT BUT WE WATCHIN’ THE SHOW AT THE CRIB RIGHT NOW CAUSE … WELL YOU KNOW!!!! I’M STILL HAPPY FOR TAYLOR!!!! BOOOYAAAWWWW!!!! YOU ARE VERY VERY TALENTED!!! I GAVE MY AWARDS TO OUTKAST WHEN THEY DESERVED IT OVER ME… THAT’S WHAT IT IS!!!!!!! I’M NOT CRAZY YALL, I’M JUST REAL. SORRY FOR THAT!!! I REALLY FEEL BAD FOR TAYLOR AND I’M SINCERELY SORRY!!! MUCH RESPECT!!!!!

His blog got massive traffic in response to that. West rethought his phrasing. He decided to take down that apology and replace with this one (with normal capitalization):

I feel like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents when he messed up everything and Robert DeNiro asked him to leave…,” Kanye writes. “That was Taylor’s moment and I had no right in any way to take it from her. I am truly sorry.

But both apologies appear in all the reporting about this. See Rolling Stone for example.

There is no undoing what we put online. For diplomatic reasons, it might be best to remove certain messages, but virtual shadows will remain.