Here, from an article in the Texas Tribune:
It’s been a long 12 months for Rick Perry. . .He ends the year treading water. . . . Even if he pulls out of this, it’s been embarrassing for him and for his home state.
He took the family name out into the world and made a hash of it. Texas was still recovering, in some quarters, from George W. Bush's presidency . . .
Perry made a spectacle of himself in the debates, is spending millions in an effort to stay out of last place in Iowa and apparently wasn’t organized enough to get on the ballot in Virginia. . . .
If only my favorite Texan, the indominable Molly Ivins, were still here to verbally slay him as she did her former high school classmate, Dubya.
I heard her give the keynote speech for the annual ACLU dinner soon after he was (s)elected by the Supreme Court. She took the podium, surveyed the audience with mock seriousness, then reared back and declared: "My fellow Civil Libertarians. We are in deep shit."
And that was just the beginning. Of course she was right: the Bush tax cuts, two wars, Dick Cheney, torture, Abu Graib, two more conservative Supreme Court appointments, politicization of the Justice Department, economic collapse, and the assault on civil liberties in the name of "fighting terrorism." With Perry, we would only get more of the same . . . and worse.
Sadly, Molly Ivins died from breast cancer, so we'll have to make do with one of her choice observations from a couple of years into the Bush reign.
"People, when I tell you that someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention."
Maybe this time, we are listening, Molly. . . .You'd have to be near stone deaf not to pay attention to the utter disaster Rick Perry is on the national stage, let alone giving him the power of the Oval Office.
He makes Bush look pretty good -- as do all the clowns on the GOP stage right now. Which is a measure of how low the expectations for a Republican candidate have sunk.
Ralph
Another Perry memory gaffe that's irresistable:
ReplyDeleteAsked about the Lawrence vs. Texas Supreme Court decision, Perry drew a blank and just blathered about his opposition to all the federal spending. He admitted he didn't keep up with the names of all the lawsuits brought against Texas.
Well, Lawrence vs. Texas is one of the most important decisions in recent court history on an issue that Perry likes to spout off about: gay rights. The decision declared Texas' anti-sodomy law to be unconstitutional -- and, in the opinion written by Anthony Kennedy, "could only have been motivated by animus toward homosexuals." Thus ending all anti-sodomy laws in the United States.
And Perry was governor at the time ! So either he is very dumb, his mind freezes when questioned in public, or else he has such little regard for civil rights of minorities that he was utterly unconcerned about this historical decision. Then why is he declaring that he will support a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage?
OK, one more hit against Perry before he goes down for the count in Iowa:
ReplyDeleteHis recent statement about gays is that he "loves the sinner but hates the sin."'
Why can't these fundamentalist Christians get it in their heads that this trite statement is deeply insulting? Who are you to declare our love a sin? Of course I know the book you hold sacred makes some ambiguous statements that call "it" an abomination.
The same book permits slavery and calls the eating of shellfish an abomination. So do they have any problem with those pesky details?
We do not ask that you change your beliefs. Just shut up about trying to make us feel you love us by saying you "love the sinner."
We don't call you cannibals for "eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood" when you partake of "holy communion." But those are the words spoken by the godly clerics who pass out the bread and the wine (or grape juice in churches that prohibit alcohol). Come on. If you're going to be literal, at least be consistent.
And, by the way, the good church people I grew up with had an answer for my question why Jesus changed the water into wine at the wedding feast, if drinking is a sin.
The (laughable) answer: It wasn't wine; it was fermented grape juice.