Overview: In support of liberal candidate for Congress Kirsten Gillibrand, David Strathairn did a rare political campaign ad for the running senator of New York's 20th district. The ad, shot and performed in the manner of David's Oscar-nominated performance as Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, first aired on the internet in early September 2006. Written by Jimmy Siegel, the video will, subsequently, be shown on television stations throughout the Hudson Valley area during Gillibrand's race against Republican Congressman John Sweeney. The translation of the full ad is as follows:

When a politician rides roughshod over common decency, when he is able to character assassinate others with lies and smears, it is not enough for us to shake our heads and bemoan our baser instincts.

When good men and woman stand by and do nothing, they are tacitly agreeing to anything, to government by bullies, to lies as the coin of the realm.

John Sweeney has spent 6 months smearing Kirsten Gillibrand with the kind of personal attacks that should have been forever relegated to the long condemned past. Not content to simply smear her, he has stooped to attacking her family as well. Her father. Her brother. We can only imagine that her Aunt Pam is next.

Maybe at a time when this administration has desperately resorted to leaks and bullying to get its way, with Congressman Sweeney, as a loyal rubber-stamper; Maybe when the candidate he's trying to destroy has presented the first positive vision for change in her district--standing up to big oil, to the failed political leadership on Iraq, for better health care and tax relief for the middle class who desperately need it--things Sweeney has stood stolidly against.

Maybe then it's not surprising he's resorted to the basest form of political bludgeoning.

This is, after all, a man who's trod on democratic principle before--personally going down to Florida to help shut down the recount in 2000.

Once upon a time, someone had the guts to stand up to the biggest bully America has ever known and ask "Have you no decency, sir?" It's time for this county and this country to stand up and ask much of the same of Mr. Sweeney. Because this is still America, and in America someone always gets the last word. And it's always the people.

• [on Rep. John Sweeney's accusations that Gillibrand is profiting from the Iraq war] "If it's in her financial interest to support the war, why would she want to stop it? Sweeney has accepted donations from military contractors. I find this kind of fractious campaigning distracts from the issues." -David Strathairn, 2006

• "As far as I know, it's the only political ad he's ever done, and to my knowledge it's the only one he will be doing." -Jimmy Siegel, Speech Writer

Related Links:
http:// Kirsten Gillibrand For Congress 2006