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"We thought we were poking fun at ourselves, but clearly the execution was off and the joke didn?t come through."

"I personally take responsibility; although we worked with a professional ad agency, in the end, it was my decision to run the ads."

Groupon founder Andrew Mason takes responsibility for America's lack of a sense of humor and Christopher Guest can go search for a better place to ply his comic genius.

The Chicago Tribune, Groupon's hometown paper, quoted a New Yorker who said he felt like he'd been "punched in the face" when he saw the Tibet ad.

Ah! The power of comedy! How horrible to actually feel punched by a punchline.

AND: Here's the Tibet ad. Watch it before it disappears:



AND: I know I'm being played. Mason's statement is a well-done strategy to make the video viral in a new way. Notice that he doesn't really apologize. There's a sop to the people who were offended, but a cue to people who want to think we have a sense of humor to give it a cult following. We're the special people who get it and who respect Christopher Guest and laugh at the oversensitive twits, etc. etc. I know!

ALSO: At the Althouse Super Bowl party, we got the joke in real time.

Full post as published by Althouse on February 12, 2011 (boomark / email).