Arkansas Legislature

Governor Beebe Calls AFP Ad “False, Misleading”

Governor Mike Beebe’s assault on Americans For Prosperity – Arkansas continued this week. This time, Beebe is taking the fight to the airwaves, starring in a new television ad produced by the Democrat Party of Arkansas.  In the ad, Beebe calls AFP a “Virginia group” that is using “secret money” to “trash Arkansas” in a “false and misleading ad.” Watch and take pride in your state’s chief executive:

AFP-Arkansas Director Teresa Oelke addressed some of the governor’s comments directly with an op-ed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this week:

Something about our common-sense, factual suggestions upset Beebe. In a speech before several hundred state business leaders, a “clearly irritated” governor, as one news report put it, accused the ad of “trashing” Arkansas. Beebe even took this line of attack to the airwaves in his weekly radio address.

It reminds me of the old aphorism that “if the facts are on your side, you should pound the facts; if the facts aren’t on your side, pound the table.” Beebe’s overheated response is a clear case of pounding the table to distract from a set of inconvenient facts.

It is quite amazing, when you think about it, that the governor is so offended by a group trying to promote economic freedom. Does he prefer less of it? And holding on to this completely ridiculous “5th in education” claim is just getting embarrassing. As we get closer to the election, the governor seems to be becoming more and more unhinged. Perhaps he should stop taking cues from Joe Biden.

Please follow and like us:

4 thoughts on “Governor Beebe Calls AFP Ad “False, Misleading”

  • mrprincipal03

    You do not have your facts straight. Yes, Arkansas K-12 education system has made monstrous strides and is highly ranked. But, you seem to question the value of factual information. Your general, snide comments show you bought into someone’s stereotype of the state. By the way, whose freedom are we talking about? Citizens of Arkansas or the Koch brothers. If corporations and money are speech, let’s level the playing field.

    Reply
    • Nic Horton

      So, you consider a move from 49th to 45th in education to be “monstrous strides?”

      Reply
    • Ashley Higgins

      Hey, principal, that word “monstrous” doesn’t mean big, as you apparently believe. It means like or as a monster. For example: The monstrous troll babbled standard progressive gibberish at Nic Horton.

      Reply
  • Let’s be fair and go look at statistics from the NEA (they are the governor’s experts, right?) http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/NEA_Rankings_And_Estimates_FINAL_20120209.pdf

    They slice and dice all sorts of data and put Arkansas in the top 10 in… Gross Farm Income Per Capita. Woo Hoo!!! Oh wait, there has to be something else, let’s see… Oh yes, Arkansas was #7 in terms of “State tax revenue in 2008-09 per $1,000 of personal income in 2009” (translation: Arkansans were more heavily taxed as a percentage of their income than most states). Contributing to that was the fact that Arkansas was #6 for “State general sales tax revenue in 2008-09 per $1,000 of personal income in 2009”.

    Of course, those helped bring about a situation where we spent a ton on education and made #11 on the “Public School revenue in 2008-09 per $1,000 of personal income in 2009” which helped Arkansas hit #5 on spending “State government expenditures for all education in 2008-09 per $1,000 of personal income in 2009” and #11 when not worrying about comparing it to personal income.

    Oh wait, the NEA doesn’t seem to care about any metrics other than money. The official NEA Ranking of the States only discusses populations, class sizes, and money. Nothing about curriculum or performance, states are only ranked highly by the NEA because they have high taxes and high government spending. Are there any metrics out there that measure Arkansas public schools against any type of norm or criterion referenced performance metric in which Arkansas schools are not in the bottom 25? Let me know when you learn how to cite a source and/or interpret statistics, Mr. Principal.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Scott Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The Arkansas Project