Oh, boy, here we go again.
David Weigel has spotted the National Republican Senatorial Committee posting a new Web video to scare viewers about Al Franken — using video of Franken paying tribute to his late friend, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), and taking it out of context:
During the 2008 campaign, the NRSC ran an ad that featured a seemingly angry Franken yelling out, “You can take this guy!” The Franken campaign responded by running a minute-long TV ad showing what was really happening: He was reminiscing about Paul Wellstone, by doing a funny impression of how Wellstone would act at his son’s track meets — as an overly eager parent cheering on his son, and running alongside him on the whole cross-country run.
Doing a bit of lip-reading of this new video, you can tell that Franken is saying, “You can take this guy!” or, “You can take him!” in all these video segments. Thus, this is all footage of Franken firing up his supporters by doing a goofy impression of his departed friend and political role model.
Late Update: In a comment to Greg Sargent, NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh offered to use a different image of Franken, instead — which, as we know, is the infamous doctored photo of Franken wearing a diaper, which was first distributed by the Ohio Republican Party in 2006.
I asked Walsh why he was “offering” to use a doctored photo — and he appeared to defend its authenticity, or at least shift the question over to someone else. “Eric -you’ll note the link is to the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest newspapers in the country – if there’s a question about the authenticity of the photo, you should direct your question to the LA Times,” said Walsh. “That being said, we continue to be both amused and grateful that the Democrats are devoting so much time to ensuring widespread publicity of our web video today.”
