Another "Oops" Moment For Perry

All Texas progressives can do is shake their heads and hold their breath when Rick Perry opens his mouth. After watching him for years, we know he's going to say something really dumb -- it's just a question of how dumb will it be. There's no doubt that "Chia Rick" pictured above (from FireDogLake) has to be smarter than the real Rick Perry. He just keeps having these cringe-inducing "oops" moments.

Although we here in Texas are used to hearing Perry work his mouth without engaging his brain (although considering his lack of intellectual ability, that might not make any difference), but it has to be both shocking and entertaining for the rest of America. And they have to be wondering about most Texas voters, since they actually elected him as governor more than once -- once could be forgiven, but they should have known better the second time.

I think his first nationwide "oops" moment was when he said Texas might have to consider seceding from the Union, if the national government insisted on returning to economic sanity by overturning the failed Republican "trickle-down" economic policies and reformed health care by covering more citizens with insurance (even though Texas leads the nation with 27% of its population without health insurance). He doubled the stupidity then by saying Texas has the legal right to secede (it doesn't, and the Civil War conclusively proved that).

Those secession statements should have disqualified him for ever running for president, but many Republicans are as thick-headed as Perry, and some of them talked him into jumping in the presidential race. I think they began to see the truth about Perry though when he had his second "oops" moment -- in a nationally televised debate. He said if he was elected president he would eliminate three federal agencies -- but then couldn't remember the three agencies. After a seemingly endless stretch, he finally gave up trying to remember the third agency and just said "oops". It's a moment that will be replayed for decades -- both for laughs and as an example of how to blow a debate.

Now he should have quit and slithered back home to his $10,000 a month faux governor's mansion after that -- either that or his handlers should have made sure he said nothing that wasn't written down on the note cards they gave him before appearing in public again. But Perry doesn't learn from his own mistakes (or anyone else's), so he continued on his merry way shooting from the hip.

The third "oops" moment came when he was addressing a crowd of young college-aged voters. He asked those who would be 21 on the November 12th election day to consider voting for him. Perry probably thought he had said something clever when the crowd laughed. But they knew they could vote at age 18 and the election was going to be on November 6th (not November 12th), and found it humorous that he did not know.

Perry's campaign handlers have to cringe now every time he opens his mouth in public -- and sure enough, he's done it again. This time it was in an interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board. When discussing the Supreme Court, he couldn't remember the name of Justice Sonia Sotomayor (and considering the fuss Republicans made over her confirmation, I'm amazed any Republican could forget her name). A reporter finally had to provide Perry with her name. That would have been embarrassing enough, but Perry wasn't through. He went on to attack the "eight" justices on the court. I think any fifth or sixth grader could have told him the court has nine justices.

I'm starting to think Perry's candidacy is not really a campaign for the presidency at all, but an effort by a fellow Texas Republican to rehabilitate the image of George W. Bush. After all, Perry's idiocy almost makes Bush look intelligent.