Did He Really Say That?

Interesting.

My wife was forwarded an e-mail from her sister, purporting to be a transcript of an Andy Rooney segment on 60 Minutes. A rough excerpt of that e-mail follows:

"I believe that if you are selling me a milk shake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you must do it in English! As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen you should have to speak English!

My father and grandfather shouldn't have to die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours. I think the police should have every right to shoot your sorry behind if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can't understand the word 'freeze' or 'stop' in English, see the above lines."

Well, my first reaction was, "if this was truly something he said on '60 Minutes,' why would he say 'see the above lines'?!?" It sounded like something someone crafted specifically for a "textual" representation: e-mail, Web, etc.

So I told her, "check Snopes.com." Sure enough, it was false, (Urban Legends Reference Pages: Andy Rooney). Apparently, it's been an urban legend for a couple/few years. Anyway, it's kinda too bad, because some of his "sentiments" might have been a refreshing change from what the usual political correctness allows us to hear, (or not hear).

Additional observation: the e-mail my wife received was slightly different than what is posted at Snopes. Obviously some changes had been made to make it seem more believable, like removing some of the more offensive remarks, ("crack addicts...squirting out babies"?), and changing "sorry ass" to "sorry behind."