Perry campaign cites Deer Park paper’s story
This is an excerpt from a newspaper story about Governor Perry’s appearance before the combined chambers of commerce of Deer Park, Pasadena, and South Belt/Ellington. The e-mail from the Perry campaign says that it appeared in the Deer Park Broadcaster and the Pasadena Citizen:
Perry acknowledged that Texas is not without its issues.
“We’ve got our challenges,” he said. “When you’re the number one exporting state in the country – which we have been for the last seven years – and you have that kind of national and international contraction of the economy, sure you’re going to affected by it.”
“But we’re still substantially better than any other state.”
Perry pointed to the fact that Texas’ unemployment rate is 1.8 percent less than the national average.
The question is how to keep unemployment low and keep working toward more growth.
“The answer is to create a climate where the jobs get created in this state,” he said. “I unabashedly tell people, I said, ‘You want to send a message to Washington, D.C., that there is a blueprint to get this country out of the recession that we’re in, look at Texas. You want an answer? It’s in the state of Texas.”
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I don’t want to nitpick this, but it is impossible to tell when these remarks were made in relation to the Perry’s videotaped joke about the recession. Readers can link to the article to see that there is no indication that the language followed the joke. Nor does the language indicate any empathy with people who have lost their jobs, as some commenters have claimed he did. So I don’t think we have made much headway in solving The Case of the [Allegedly] Doctored Videotape. I do appreciate the opportunity to provide the governor’s remarks, as reported, to readers.
Anonymous says:
If he made an inappropriate joke, don’t you think the reporter would have reported it???? Of course. The fact is the tape was doctored, which is obvious by the way it abruptly cuts off.
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paulburka Reply:
September 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
There is no issue about whether Perry made an inappropriate joke. We have seen that on the videotape. The issue is whether he made exculpatory comments. The story does not indicate that he did.
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Ben Quick Reply:
September 21st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
hey Paul – can I make a crude racial joke then cure it with an appropriate “exculpatroy” comment
//my how we bend over to help those we want to serve
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paulburka Reply:
September 21st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
You can’t compare race and economics. As someone pointed out in an earlier comment, George Allen couldn’t say, after his macaca remark, that some of his best friends are black people. But Rick Perry could have said, “I understand that many people are having hard times.” It was the combination of joking about the recession and a lack of empathy that was so damaging.
Anonymous says:
Not to nitpick, but if you had nitpicked before you ran with the Hutchison camp’s version of the tape, you wouldn’t have to worry about nitpicking right now.
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paulburka says:
Not to nitpick, but you don’t know, nor do I, that the version of the tape was Hutchison’s.
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Anonymous Reply:
September 21st, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Hahahahahahaha! Great joke, Paul. Because I know you’re not that naive.
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cyrus says:
When you have to resort to whining that a video was edited, you’ve already lost the cycle, dude.
All video is edited. Nobody cares that the video was edited. He said it, it was stupid, and nothing he said afterward can change that, or the way he said it.
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Rog says:
I don’t know if Perry made an inappropriate joke, but I do know he is a joke.
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slick says:
Paul, the burden is on the Perry/Patrick folks to prove up that the video was doctored in some way — not the other way around. The ‘case’ is closed until they can produce something, anything that shows the video is not what it appears to be, namely our governor in a friendly audience of business types joking about “what recession?” and enjoying a very hearty laugh.
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Anonymous says:
Not to pick the nits of the nitpickers, but I’m atypically unconcerned about context on this one. Is it EVER appropriate for an elected official to make light of the fact that thousands of people have lost their jobs? What comes before or after won’t mitigate the fact that the joke was callous at best, clueless at worst.
That said, it’s the shiny cuff links that voters are most likely to remember and be turned off by(after this is aired 1000 times during our finest reality television programs).
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Jamie says:
PAUL… Be a journalist, call the Hutchison campaign and ask them.
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idea says:
If KBH campaign misleadingly edited a video like they did with the ‘wall nonsense’ stuff, I think the Perry folks should take off the gloves and sink to her level. I’d bet they would produce some better stuff than her
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Anonymous says:
It is real simple…find at least three people who were at the event and ask them what they heard…I am sure the people in that room know the truth and in time they will let it be known. If I were anyone trying to defend this, I would go to those folks and find out first what was said before I worried about doctored up video tape.
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Anonymous says:
There is real suffering in this state and I shouldn’t have to wonder whether our elected officials are aware of it.
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Anonymous says:
Thought this would be interesting to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLDmixnDLGQ
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Cow Droppings says:
well, now it is getting quite interesting. What do we know:
1) Rick Perry made a joking reference to the recession, which he would be wise not to do.
2) the KBH campaign obviously thought the full context of what Perry said wasn’t strong enough, so they cut out the remaining context to make the comments sound worse than if people heard the rest of his thoughts on the subject.
3) now, instead of the narrative being about Rick Perry joking about the recession, it is now about the KBH campaign editing a videotape in such a way to make his comments look worse by removing the greater context.
4) This dirty trick — removing the very next words that obviously show he knows we are in the midst of a recession — is one of many by the KBH campaign, which was kicked off of google search because they were trying to leverage “Rick Perry gay” as a search phrase, and which many years ago had a campaign worker call into the Mark Davis show as Charlie from Flower Mound, pretending to be a normal Texan dissatisfied with Rick Perry’s record.
Paul, if you think this video was produced by anyone but the KBH campaign, you have to know that strains all credibility. Even if they don’t confirm it on the record, this isn’t rocket science. Only a campaign would give in to the temptation of cutting out the very next sentence. If taped by the media, they would have played up the joe, but also included Perry’s next sentence.
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Briscoe Democrat Reply:
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Cow Droppings, maybe KBH will accuse Perry of sleeping with GAY MEN.
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