Botched soundbite watch: Gary Ackerman

Gary Ackerman probably didn't intend this statement to come out the way it did:

"The reason our flag is different is because it stands for burning the flag," Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, said in a speech on the House floor, wearing a flag-print necktie. "The Constitution this week is being nibbled to death by small men with press secretaries."

Congressman, the flag doesn't stand for burning the flag. It stands for the right to free expression. There's a difference.

Comments

[ben]

and included in the right to free expression is the right to burn the flag, which is obviously what he meant. forgetting that word seems to hardly make him the one worthy of criticism in this whole stupid debate

[rone]

Well, it would've been nice if Ackerman had just prefaced the whole thing with "One of".

Then again, i can't understand people who think the flag is acceptable as clothing.