“Collin Watcher,” a reader, posted a comment to the article, “Let them eat chili,” about the video of Rick Perry speaking to a Houston business group, in which Perry refers to a report that Texas will be the first state to come out of the recession, and then jokes, Are we in one? Collin Watcher says, “This video (mysteriously provided to Burka by the KBH campaign, I feel certain) is not really that insightful. Sure Texas is doing better than the rest of the nation, but of course there are people who are hurting — that is the case in any economy.” First, and unequivocally: The Hutchison campaign did NOT provide me with the video. The video was provided to me by my wife, who forwarded it to me from the Statesman blog. However, I have subsequently had a conversation with, let’s call it an emissary from the Perry camp, who believes that the video was made by a Hutchison operative, and further, that it was deliberately edited to leave out Perry’s subsequent remarks, in which Perry acknowledged that these are difficult times and people are hurting. The video does end abruptly, but I didn’t think anything about it, as many videos, particularly those on YouTube (as this one is), are edited to present the most interesting material. It is my hope that another video exists that will clear this up. I said some pretty harsh things about Perry, and if there is a tape that indeed shows him expressing appropriate concern about the recession following his joke, then I will rephrase my comments accordingly. As I said in the original post, I was surprised, because Perry is a very skillful and disciplined campaigner, and this was not a typical performance. I hope that the truth comes out.