All right in a sort of a limited way

Laura Ingraham today on her radio show:

Rick Perry should drop out of this race. . . . And I like Rick Perry, I thought he was pretty cool in the last debate, except for that little problem with calling Turkey an Islamic terrorist regime. I mean, God bless him but he’s not put in the time to kind of know anything about foreign policy and you can’t be president if you don’t know anything about foreign policy.

The “Romney Book”, page 9:

Romney has no foreign policy experience.

Page 66:

Romney’s foreigh affairs resume is extremely thin, leading to credibility problems.

Romney “Lacks Any Background In The Military or Foreign Policy.” Though Romney has devoted considerable time during the campaign to national security – including a major speech on Thursday in New York City on the threat of nuclear terrorism – the one term governor lacks any background in the military or foreign policy. (Jonathan Martin, “McCain hits Romney on Bin Laden comment.” Politico.com 4/28/07)

The Romney Book is going to be the gift that keeps on giving for months and months….

Talibangelicals Anoint Santorum

No,no, we’re talking about the theological usage of Crisco, you Godless secularists. Per Andre Tartar at NYMag‘s Daily Intel:

A group of 150 of the country’s leading social conservative and evangelical leaders met yesterday on a ranch outside Houston and, after three rounds of balloting, decided who they wanted as their official anyone-but-Romney alternative: Rick Santorum. Though the meeting was described by some as ‘too little, too late,’ it was still seen as the last great hope for a real challenge to Mitt Romney who, after his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, has already begun to give off that “inevitable nominee” glow. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, who described the meeting as “not a ‘bash Mitt Romney’” one, told the Washington Post: “I will have to admit that what I did not think was possible appears to be possible. There is clearly a unified group here.” While much of the recent media focus has been on the Romney Bain-baiting in South Carolina coming from Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, this endorsement may be enough to boost Santorum in South Carolina, a heavily evangelical state…

From my perspective as a lifelong cynic and Democrat (but I repeat myself), this is all Good News for Our Side. First off, Erick Erickson and his Redstate fellows are going to be sobbing into their gated-community megachurch banana mochacchinos Sunday morning, for the insult against Erick’s manly Christianist mancrush Rick Perry, and also because Rick ‘Blah People’ Santorum is both unelectable and a God-damned statist. Second, it’s going to further inflame the ever-sensitive amore prope of Newton Leroy Gingrich, than whom no other self-professed historian is better prepared to go medieval on every one of his many opponents’ arses. Third, presenting Richard Santorum, the candidate most dedicated to the idea that if you don’t want him rummaging through your underwear drawer then there must be something wrong with you, as the Select alternative is going to inspire a lot of those much-courted “independent” voters to… well, if we can’t inspire them to vote for President Obama’s re-election, at least we can discourage them into staying home rather than adding their mite to the ( R ) tally.

Guess Nobody Dared Tell Gov. Goodhair About the “Closet” Rumors…

… or else the Letterman audience would’ve witnessed Perry read a Top Nine list:

10. Actually, there were three reasons I messed up last night. One was the nerves, and two was the headache and three … um … uh … oops.
9. I don’t know what you’re talking about – I think things went well.
8. I was up late last night watching Dancing with the Stars.
7. I thought the debate was tonight.
6. You try concentrating with Mitt Romney smiling at you. That is one handsome dude!
5. Uh, El Niño?
4. I had a 5-hour Energy Drink six hours before the debate.
3. I really hoped it would get me on my favorite talk show, but instead, I ended up here.
2. I wanted to help take the heat off my buddy Herman Cain.
1. I just learned Justin Bieber is my father.

Then again, maybe Perry really is the guy Matt Taibbi calls “The Best Little Whore In Texas“:

… [T]his is America, remember, where one should never underestimate shallow. And Rick Perry brings shallow to a new level. He is very gifted in that regard. He could be the Adolf Hitler of shallow.
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Perry’s campaign is still struggling to recover from the kind of spectacular, submarine-at-crush-depth collapse seldom seen before in the history of presidential politics. The governor went from presumptive front-runner to stammering talk-show punch line seemingly in the speed of a single tweet, rightly blasted for being too incompetent even to hold his own in televised debates with a half-bright pizza salesman like Herman Cain and a goggle-eyed megachurch Joan of Arc like Michele Bachmann. But such superficial criticisms of his weirdly erratic campaign demeanor don’t even begin to get at the root of why we should all be terrified of Perry and what he represents. After all, you have to go pretty far to stand out as a whore and a sellout when you come from a state that has produced such luminaries in the history of political corruption as LBJ, Karl Rove and George W. Bush. But Rick Perry has managed to set a scary new low in the annals of opportunism, turning Texas into a swamp of political incest and backroom dealing on a scale not often seen this side of the Congo or Sierra Leone.
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Beating Three Nines With A Hand Full Of Jokers

Not to be outdone by Herman Cain’s awful 9-9-9 plan, Rick Perry shuffles the deck and draws an even more regressive mess of a tax scheme to transfer wealth to the top.  K-Drum takes a look at Perry’s cards.

The plan starts with giving Americans a choice between a new, flat tax rate of 20% or their current income tax rate. The new flat tax preserves mortgage interest, charitable and state and local tax exemptions for families earning less than $500,000 annually, and it increases the standard deduction to $12,500 for individuals and dependents….My plan also abolishes the death tax once and for all, providing needed certainty to American family farms and small businesses….To help older Americans, we will eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits….We will eliminate the tax on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains to free up the billions of dollars Americans are sitting on to avoid taxes on the gain.

It’s a “flat tax” that keeps many of the same deductions that the flat tax is supposed to get rid of.  Perry can’t even get that part right, it seems.  The choice of the old tax code or the new one is of course a terrible idea, assuring massive tax breaks for the rich and nothing for the poor.  It’s a propaganda tool.

What can you even say about this? It sounds less like a tax plan than a big ol’ stew pot of right-wing applause lines, all the way up to the inane insistence that eliminating the estate tax has nothing to do with rich people and is only designed to provide “needed certainty to American family farms and small businesses.” Should we laugh or cry? Perry has actually managed to combine two separate conservative memes (the estate tax is all about family farms, uncertainty is hobbling the economy) into one single sentence that makes even less sense than either of them separately. It’s hard not to be impressed.

Although the choice part will assure that if “you dumb broke liberals want to raise taxes dur hurr” why we can take Perry’s Hobson’s choice and pay more!  It gets Perry back in the game for a few more weeks heading into the end of the year and of course assures Romney will have his own awful “flat tax plan” soon, which is the real point of the measure.

Either way, the 1% wins by stacking the deck.

Open Thread: Now We’re Just Haggling

(Ted Rall’s blog)

In the case of Perry’s lofty claim that Merck couldn’t buy his gubernatorial mandate, looks like the answer would be ‘lying’. Kevin Drum at Mother Jones wraps up the details:

… Now we know what it takes to get in the door and persuade Perry to do something that violates his most deeply held principles and enrages his most zealous supporters. Five grand is indeed far too little. But 30 grand plus 350 grand plus some arm twisting from a pal with deep pockets apparently does the trick. That makes Perry a pretty expensive date. On the other hand, if it were something that didn’t violate his most deeply held principles, I imagine his price would go down.

Late Night Open Thread: Pain in the… Back

Tonight, all three local news networks had slightly different short clips of Rick Perry in Boston as “the keynote speaker at the Pioneer Institute’s awards dinner” (the link goes to a fourth clip, because that’s the only one I can find right now). And on all three networks, Perry looked terrible — 1980s-Katherine-Hepburn terrible, with a quaver in his voice, an unnaturally stiff posture, and a slight trembling in his hands. I wondered if he was still fighting some kind of epic hangover, after Monday night’s debate/pig-pile. But a commentor on an earlier thread linked to a Texas-based blog that raises a different possibility in my mind. From Paul Burka, senior executive editor at the Texas Monthly:

Perry was clearly off his game during the tea party debate. He looked uncomfortable, his face was strained, his combativeness was muted. He looked to me like a man with back pain. I wondered if he were wearing a brace. I’ve had back surgery, and it hurt to watch him…
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He just wasn’t presidential. He was low-energy and the feistiness wasn’t there. That’s why I’m wondering whether the back operation didn’t go well… He just didn’t seem presidential, and I think the reason was that he was hurting…
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The big question mark for me is Perry’s health. Tonight was one of those rare moments when the camera didn’t love him. He has plenty of time to get back on his game, assuming that his physical condition holds up. But I am beginning to wonder whether he will have the stamina to hold up to the demands of a grueling campaign if his back is injured. For now, that’s just as big a threat as Romney is.

More details on Perry’s surgery, which “included experimental stem-cell therapy“, here.

Shot a man in Reno just to watch him die

It looks like Rick Perry put an innocent man to death and then quashed an investigation on the matter. The awful truth is that this probably helps him in the Republican primary and makes no difference for the general election.

Open Thread: Lonestar Blowback

(Nick Anderson via GoComics.com)

In today’s roundup of buyer’s remorse from the Media Village, the LA Times has a nice succinct editorial summing up “The Problem with Perry“:

Given the depth of his loathing for the federal government, it’s a little surprising that Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants to preside over it. Indeed, in the preface to his book “Fed Up!”, Perry writes: “Now, cynics will say that I decided to write this book because I seek higher office. They are wrong: I already have the greatest job in America.”
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Apparently not…

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The Washington Post investigates why it’s important that “Perry’s travel, security costs will stay secret until after 2012“:

Since Rick Perry joined the presidential race this month, his campaign entourage has included not just the standard array of political advisers and aides, but a squad of Texas law enforcement agents.
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The security forces scout and secure locations days in advance. Well before the governor’s visit to Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville, S.C., the weekend of Aug. 20, more than a half-dozen suited and armed agents were giving orders to the crowd of more than 400.
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How much is this ever-present phalanx of state policemen costing the taxpayers of Texas? They won’t know at least until after next year’s presidential election, thanks to a provision, tucked into a school finance bill in July, that will keep the governor’s travel records sealed for 18 months.
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The shape of things to come

Another poll out showing Perry with a big lead nationally in the Republican primary. Recently, Perry signed one of those nutty anti-marriage equality pledges. Perry is a big fan of Glenn Beck favorite Cleon Skousen.

One way or another, this is the year Millerism/Anglism/O’Donnellism goes national. If Perry implodes, some other kook will crank it up. If Romney holds off the challenge, it will be by taking flat earth stances himself. There’s no off-position on the Republican party’s teahad switch anymore.

The only question is how long the media will pretend this isn’t happening.

I Like This Version Better

This is Jamison Foser’s edit of the Perry/Obama comparison picture (click to embiggen). I like it better than the one Libby Spencer made. It would be perfect if the title was something like “Let’s Not Get Fooled Again”. I realize that it’s less high-minded and more backward-looking, but it encapsulates the extremely simple, winning message that will beat Perry: he’s just another Bush. Sometimes politics is very simple, and this is one of those times.

Update: Reader Chris sends his own version.

Brooks & Dumb: Serious As A Case of Shingles

(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
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… which won’t kill you, but might make you wish you were dead. For purposes of relief via moxicautery, a couple counter-irritants. Jonathan Chait at TNR wonders “Will No One Rid Me of This Meddlesome Candidate?”:

… Yes, it’s really time for somebody to start persuading moderate or mainstream Republicans that Rick Perry is dangerously unsuited to the presidency. If only Brooks knew of anybody who would be good at making a case like that…
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Wait. Maybe this is a job for conservatives who don’t have to put themselves before the voters. Like perhaps some kind of public intellectual. If only there was some kind of moderate conservative columnist, perhaps with a national reach at a newspaper like the New York Times.
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Hey — I’ve got it. Brooks surely knows Ross Douthat. Maybe he can ask him to write that column!

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And the invaluable Doghouse Riley, if only for the brillance of “With Luck, The Capitalists Will Innovate A New Knot To Hang Themselves With“:

IF there was anything to American Exceptionalism–other than the fact that we dominate a hemisphere, and came out of two European global wars physically unscathed and economically better off than when we went in–wouldn’t it show up in our politics? Wouldn’t we have the wisest counsel, the fullest debate, the most trenchant commentary?
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Would we have David Brooks at the New York Times?…
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I’d just like to point out, yet again, how the “moderation” in Brooks’ “moderate conservatism” works.
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Brooks is going to say essentially what I said the other day about Mitt Romney: that he now finds himself unable to jab his leading rival because the same clinical insanity that infects the public persona of Rick Perry infects 80% of the Republican electorate. Brooks, of course, substitutes “small government conservative” for “certifiably batshit”. It is the Times…
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[T]he thing I find curious is how “moderates” like Brooks, and “fiscal ‘conservatives’” like Mitch Daniels, act like the moderate conservative Reaganite in the White House is wearing an OSU sweatshirt in Ann Arbor. Look at what Brooks finally (in the last two paragraphs) gets around to saying about Perry: he’s slimy, he’s a panderer, if he’s a borderline crook we need to redefine our borders. He leaves out (despite his economist credentials) the massive sucking sound at the center of the Texas Miracle. What th’ hell’s so bad about Obama by comparison? Health care?
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Is he gonna say that? (Is Daniels?) Not and risk the franchise; you can’t be The Moderate Republican Liberals Love if they’ve thrown you out of the Republican party. Brooks “watches” (the polls) as “moderate ‘conservatism’” “disappears” from the Republican electorate. We hear barely a peep. That is, barely a third-hand sideswipe at Rush Limbaugh, or Sarah Palin, or the Teabaggers both he and Douthat had kinda sorta identified as the problem with the Party, circa 2007. Go back and read ‘em in early 2009, as they start looking for a door to hide behind, realize it’s no good, and so proclaim that the Teabaggers are really themselves. Just less refined.
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Th’ fuck’s wrong with these people?
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There may be more damning indictments of Republican “intellectualism” than the fact that these guys have spent the last thirty years inventing excuses for utter crackpotism, first with the idea of eternally harvesting its votes, now in the hopes that the ‘conservative’ welfare spigot will stay on, but you have to google “William F. Buckley” and “Civil Rights Movement” to find ‘em.

Leper messiah

As I’ve said many times, I look forward to hearing Serious Conservative Pundits tell us what a serious, Burkean, Churchillian, Hayekian character Rick Perry is. Reading this (from Kathleen Parker) scared me a bit:

Perry knows he has to make clear that God is his wingman. And this conviction seems not only to be sincere, but also to be relatively noncontroversial in the GOP’s church — and perhaps beyond. He understands that his base cares more that the president is clear on his ranking in the planetary order than whether he can schmooze with European leaders or, heaven forbid, the media. And this is why Perry could easily steal the nomination from Romney.

And also why he probably can’t win a national election, in which large swaths of the electorate would prefer that their president keep his religion close and be respectful of knowledge that has evolved from thousands of years of human struggle against superstition and the kind of literal-mindedness that leads straight to the dark ages.

If Bobo et al. decide Perry can’t win anyway, they could go all on in principled opposition to him and burnish their centrist credentials, they way they’ve done with Palin, only on a larger scale. That would suck, as it would make them look good and “prove” that the media has teh librul bias.

I think a lot of the media will eventually come around to fluffing Perry simply to piss off liberals the interlocking oligarchy of politicians, academics, journalists, consultants and financiers who live along the Acela corridor. You almost have to admire Jonah Goldberg for admitting that’s how his own mind works:

it’s impossible for me not to love Bush, Perry, Palin, et al. for their enemies.

Straight to your heart like a hippie punch

There are those who say that it is simplistic to assume that Perry will beat Romney because Perry pisses off liberals more than Romney does. Let’s review the events of the past few weeks: Perry accused Ben Bernanke of treason, denied that global warming was happening, spoke out in favor of creationism, and look what happened (warning: Newsmax link, via Steve M.):

A new poll shows Texas Gov. Rick Perry with a double-digit lead nationally over the current 2012 frontrunner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The poll, which will be released Wednesday by Public Policy Polling (PPP), is not being detailed in advance, the New York Post reported. But PPP’s Director Tom Jensen confirmed Perry’s double-digit advantage to the Post.

Rick perry takes lead over romneyIt will be the second poll of Republican primary voters by the Democratically-aligned polling company to show Perry with a lead nationally since the three-term Texas governor entered the contest.

A Rasmussen Reports national poll out Aug. 16 showed Perry leading Romney by 11 points, 29 percent to 18 percent.

Six months til Iowa, Giuliani led at this point too, blah blah blah. I don’t see how Romney survives without going native, and I don’t see how an awkward mild-mannered investment banker can go native in this environment.

Get pissed, destroy

Here’s your storyline for 2012.

From the media’s perspective, Mitt is now so 2000 and late. I do think there is an essential truth underneath the Rickmentum, and that’s that Perry pisses liberals off in a way that Mitt never could.

Look at vouchercare, other than pissing off liberals, what did it have going for it? Look at Bachmann and Trump, other than pissing off liberals, what did they have going for them? The trouble, of course, is that Bachmann, Trump, and vouchercare also piss off many, or even most, non-liberals.

Never lose sight of the fact that conservatives are mostly motivated by the desire to piss off liberals. It explains almost everything they do. Maybe, just maybe, in some strange way, it gives us the power to control and undo them.

Cleek’s definition of modern conservatism was the smartest political observation I’ve seen in a while:

today’s conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today: updated daily.

Maybe I’ve gone totally insane and my methods are unsound, but I now think that Romney can’t win the Republican nomination because he just doesn’t piss liberals off enough.

Boys say when is he gonna give us some room

The beer primary has begun in earnest at Kaplan. Kathleen Parker:

Upon meeting Perry, you can’t help thinking that he’s just like Dubya. They share not only the same speech patterns, but they also have that same je ne sais quoi that corresponds to the way a confident Southern male asks a girl to take a spin around the dance floor: “Wanna dance?”

[....]

It’s that certitude mixed with bravado. It is also, dare I say, their certain brand of manliness. Weathered, creased and comfortable in jeans, they convey a regular guyness that everyday Americans relate to. Take it or leave it, it happens to be true.

Richard Cohen:

He retailed a GOP dinner, going from table to table, while Bachmann made a Lady Gaga entrance — rock music, lights, phalanx of security — and just perfunctorily met with the ordinary people she claims both to be and to represent. Perry, who actually looks like a president (also the late Rory Calhoun), will raise far more money and breeze by her. Au revoir, Michele.

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He occupies the cultural and intellectually empty heartland of the Republican Party.

I’ll take millionaires making condescending generalizations about flyover country for $500, Alex.