Via Hot Air.
The Michael Kinsley definition of politcal gaffe is the accidental telling of an embarrassing truth — and if that’s the case, Jerry Brown committed the ultimate gaffe. Only Brown didn’t commit the gaffe in this campaign; he committed it fifteen years ago in an interview with CNN. Brown told the network that politicians in his experience don’t really have plans for governing, or at least specifically in his own experience. He admitted that he lied in order to win election in 1974, and Meg Whitman pounces on it in this eleventh-hour ad:
Transcript:
Interviewer: You said something a moment ago that I have to follow up on and I have to draw you out on. You said you don’t have to lie anymore now that you’re not a politician. What did you lie about when you were governor?
Jerry Brown: It’s all a lie. You’re pretending there’s a plan…
Interviewer: What did you lie about?
Jerry Brown: You run for office and the assumption is “Oh, I know what to do”. You don’t. I didn’t have a plan for California. Clinton doesn’t have a plan. Bush doesn’t have a plan.
Interviewer: You said you had a plan for California and you lied because you didn’t have a plan?
Jerry Brown: You say you’re going to lower taxes, you’re going to put people to work, you’re gonna improve the schools, you’re going to stop crime… crime is up, schools are worse, taxes are higher. I mean be real!
the hardest hitting ad to date because Whitman is using Brown's own words, his own confession about telling whatever lies he has to in order to win an election.
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