There’s a new viral video making the rounds on the Internet. Have a look so you know what the other 8.5 million people who’ve seen it are talking about, then let me know what you think.
My take: This is riveting. The young man’s message is powerful in its simplicity and directness; as it turns out, he knows a little something about sacrifice.
In my opinion, though, the video itself was weakened by the theatrics that were unnecessarily added in.
Not to take anything away from Lee Greenwood and his signature song, but imagine how much more powerful the video would be if it ended with this disabled veteran delivering that line—“Freedom is always worth the price”—and then turning and walking away in silence, leaving the viewer to consider what the speaker knows about his subject.
You know, it’s been a while since we’ve had an entry in the Incredibly Stupid Statements File. It certainly isn’t because there’s been a dearth of suitable material. I just haven’t posted to it in a while.
Well, sometimes something happens that screams for attention. Such is the case today with Charlie Rangel.
Rangel, you probably know, is the Democratic congressman from Harlem, N.Y. Rangel is one of the three most powerful lawmakers in Congress by virtue of his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee.
SIDEBAR: Quick timeout for civics review: You already know that Ways and Means is Congress-speak for budget. You also remember from studying Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution in Mr. Andrews’ 6th grade class that “All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.“ So Charlie Rangel chairs the committee where the entire federal budget is born. END SIDEBAR
It seems worth mentioning here that Rangel is an embattled congressman. Just yesterday, he escaped an attempt by collegues to remove him from his chairmanship of the budget committee for ethical clouds that have formed above him. From the Washington Post:
Rangel acknowledged last week that he failed to disclose and pay taxes on at least $75,000 in rental income from a villa in the Dominican Republic that he has owned for 20 years—a house financed, in part, with a no-interest loan. He has said he would amend his returns and pay back taxes of more than $10,000.
The ethics panel is investigating the villa deal, as well as Rangel’s rental of several New York apartments at below-market rates and his fundraising entreaties on congressional stationery on behalf of the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York.
In other words, Rangel writes tax bills for us, but he doesn’t pay them himself.
But that’s all background! We’re just now getting to the incredibly stupid statement part.
In an interview with New York’s CBS 2, Rangel was asked about Sarah Palin and the role her vice presidential selection has played in galvanizing the Republican Party for John McCain.
Rangel’s answer ... well, see for yourself:
Now, let me ask you: What was your first thought when Rangel said, “disabled?“
Was it, by any chance, about Palin’s son, Trig?
As you saw, Rangel stood by his characterization of Palin as “disabled” even when a reporter pressed him about it: “There’s no question about it politically,“ Rangel said. “It’s a nightmare to think that a person’s foreign policy is based on their ability to look at Russia from where they live.“
Rangel apparently didn’t realize that the reference to Palin being able to “look at Russia from where they live” was actually written by Saturday Night Live comedians for last week’s skit featuring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
I knew Fey did a great job playing the Alaska governor, but I didn’t realize she would be able to dupe federal lawmakers into confusing her with the real Palin.
Rangel later said backtracked and said that “disadvantaged,“ not “disabled,“ was the word he meant to use. Note that he clarified, but did not apologize for, his “poor choice of words.“ From Newsday:
“Governor Palin is an obviously healthy person who in no way fits the description of disabled. I meant to say then, and I am saying now, that she entered the campaign with a disadvantage in the area of foreign policy,“ Rangel said in a statement.
“Any inference that my words were in any connected to her son, Trig, who was born with Down Syndrome, is a real stretch—and, I would have to think—a way to make political points out of my poor choice of words,“ he added.
Yes, Congressman Rangel. We don’t know WHAT would cause people to connect your comment with the governor’s family.
Actually, now that I think about it, Rangel makes the ISS file twice tonight: Once for the original statement, and once for his clarification.
Barack Obama’s campaign has been all about change. And one of the things that’s changing around the change candidate is his changing slogan about change.
With me so far?
Fox News takes a look at how and why the sign that has graced the podium at hundreds of rallies over the past year and a half has—ahem—changed.
The old version: “Change we can believe in.“
The new version: “Change we need.“
Obama surrogates explain that the change to the change slogan became necessary as John McCain’s polling numbers have changed for the better since he has sought to take over the change label. Obama’s campaign felt compelled to differentiate between “change we need” and regular change.
There’s something else that’s changing around Obama, and that’s his tone.
For more than a year, Obama has talked about how politicians need to change the tone in politics from constant negativity and personal attacks to one of civility and respect for each other.
Well ...
The Associated Press reported this week on Obama’s “feistier, more sarcastic tone:“
Barack Obama sharpened his attacks on John McCain and mocked the Republican’s recent calls for reform in two stops in Nevada on Wednesday after days of listening to nervous supporters fret about the Democrat’s chances of taking the White House.
“Sen. McCain bragged about how as chairman of the Commerce Committee in the Senate, he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, ‘Nice job. Nice job,‘“ Obama said at a rally at a baseball stadium in Las Vegas. “Where is he getting these lines? The lobbyists running his campaign?“
So do we say that Obama has changed his commitment to change the tone? Or do we say that he never changed at all?
Gosh, I’m so tir’d of divisive exchange / And I’ve got one or two things to say about change
Like the change we must change to the change we hold dear
I really like change, have I made myself clear?
The unicorn in the video is a nice touch. (Come on; Obama riding a unicorn? Now that’s funny.)
Anyway, whatever it’s his slogan or his tone, Obama is back on top in the latest round of polls.
Negativity: It works.
Unfortunately, that’s one thing that will never change.
(Sarcasm alert: Watch out. If you don’t speak sarcasm, skip this post.)
The Campaign Disclosure Project has released its annual report on—well, campaign finance disclosure.
Brace yourself for this simply shocking news: Alabama didn’t fare so well.
Actually, we got an F. Alabama was one of only 10 states to actually fail.
But we didn’t earn just any F! No sir-ree.
F-minus, the kind of spectacular failure only reserved for those lawmaking bodies whose members actually spend time figuring out ways to obscure campaign finance information!
But not just any F-minus. Oh, no. We’re talking second-from-the-bottom F-minus. As in, out of all the 50 states, there’s only one that does a worse job of campaign finance disclosure than we do.
SIDEBAR: Note to self: Write post later about new state slogan: “Alabama: At least we’re not Wyoming.“ END SIDEBAR
The Campaign Disclosure Project rated Alabama’s campaign finance law and e-filing capability and the accessibility and usability of that information. Reading Alabama’s ratings is like looking at my 6th grade home economics summary sheet: F. F. F. D-minus. F overall.
Alabama and Mississippi are alone in the South in lacking a searchable database for campaign finance reports.
SIDEBAR: Note to self: Edit previous slogan: “Alabama: At least we’re not Wyoming—or Mississippi.“ END SIDEBAR
This is simply inexcusable, considering the amount of time state officials have had to get it done—and the fact that pretty much everyone else has figured it out already. Who needs “We’re Number 1,“ when you can chant, “We’re one of eight! We’re one of eight!“—as in, states that don’t have e-filing?
Hey, Alabama legislators. There’s this really cool thing now called the Internet. It’s really awesome. You can get “online” and look at all sorts of information. You can even search for certain things with this groundbreaking innovation called “Google.“ And there are actually software programs that will allow your constituents to keep up with what you’re doing in terms of campaign finance.
Oh, wait. You legislators probably already knew all that, so that’s why we don’t have the database.
Readers, at the risk of offending certain state legislators who don’t appreciate hearing how legislators in our neighbor states serve their constituents, it’s hard to understand what you’re missing if you’ve never seen a searchable system in action. So I would like to provide you with this link to Florida’s online searchable database of campaign contributions and expeditures. Note that you can view the campaign finance activity of candidates as well as their committees. Note that you can have the results returned either directly to your screen or downloaded into a tab-delineated file, which you can use with Excel to sort the information.
Want to see how it works? Type in Ray Sansom in the candidate search field. Sansom is the incoming Speaker of the Florida House. He was elected in 2002, which means that in November, Sansom will begin his fourth and final 2-year term (Florida has term limits). But since Florida’s system offers online reports all the way back to the 1996 GENERAL ELECTION, you can view every contribution Sansom has ever collected during his political career—and you can search all the other contributions of each one of his contributors, too!
Pick an election year, hit submit at the bottom of the form (or just press enter) ... and ...
Voilà! Instant accountability!
Incidentally, Florida’s electronic filing program earned an A+ and the top spot in the country; it ranks seventh among the states with an A for disclosure content accessibility.
Not to insinuate that Alabama’s legislators would want us to get As or anything. I just wanted to point out Florida’s marks for the sake of comparison.
There’s just one more thing. Consider Alabama’s five-year trend from the Campaign Disclosure Project from 2003 to now (no ratings were done in 2006):
Law: F, F, F, F, F
E-Filing: F, F, F, F, F
Access: F, F, F, F, F
Usability: F, C-minus, D, F, D-minus
Dadgum usability! Ruined our perfect score!
Seriously, legislators, this is outrageous, and your failure in this area is embarrassing—if not to yourselves, at least to us. Fortunately for you (and unfortunately for us), we’ve grown quite used to you failing and embarrassing us.
Fellow Alabamians, this is just another example of our Legislature’s failure to provide in even the most basic way for the citizens of this state.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Barack Obama has some fans in a surprising place.
They don’t think much of his policies, but officials at the Alabama Republican Party are taking a page right out of the Obama playbook, announcing earlier this week that they are setting up a text message database to send “alerts/updates to all of those who want to keep up with the GOP in Alabama.“
“This feature will enable us to send instant alerts, announcements and important information to all of our supporters,“ ALGOP communications director Philip Bryan said in an e-mail inviting people to sign up.
Obama was the first to harness the power of text messaging as a voter outreach tool, debuting it last month in the hysteria leading up to Obama’s announcement of his vice presidential selection. Of course, the dissemination of the VP pick was the least of the activities for which the Obama campaign will use the database, as I covered here back then:
Not only is Obama continuing his record of taking advantage of modern technology to fuel his campaign and the hype surrounding it; he’s using this information to put together an entirely new database of people who can be contacted on a moment’s notice.
True, the signees will include people who aren’t necessarily supporters. But most of them will be. And that will come in mighty handy as the general election campaign heats up and the attacks between Obama and McCain intensify. Obama can—and will!—use the text message database to reach supporters to spread the campaign’s message of the day, refute anything John McCain says and even remind people to vote on Election Day.
Don’t think it will make a difference?
Ask yourself: How much do you think John Kerry would have given for a database that offered quick-strike, instant rebuttal capability—especially once the Swift Boat Veterans took to the airwaves in 2004?
Apparently, folks at ALGOP see these advantages and don’t want to be left out.
Bryan provided these opt-in instructions for those who are interested:
If you wish to be a part of this program, you can register (opt in) through one of the 2 methods below:
1) Text “ALGOP” to number 79704 on your cell phone (you will then receive a reply with further instructions)
Or
2) On your computer, go to this link - http://www.moptin.com/?ALGOP – and follow the instructions (once complete you will receive a confirmation text)
