Mark Steyn on Rick Perry's insulting illegal immigration shtick:
The debate clip is here. "I don't think you have a heart" comes a bit after the three minute mark.
In an earlier debate, Perry said this:
"The bottom line is it doesn't make any difference what the sound of your last name is. That is the American way," Perry said. "I'm proud that we are having those individuals be contributing members of our society rather than telling them, you go be on the government dole."I think this might bug me even more than Perry's executive overreach on Gardasil. In fairness, he tries to justify the tuition policy with a bit of rational argument. But only after playing the race card. Not only is it offensive for him to imply that anyone who disagrees with him on this is a racist and a meanie who doesn't care about children; it also reveals a surprising degree of cluelessness in a veteran conservative. My fourteen year-old rolls her eyes at this kind of demonization, and she can tell you why. Where has Perry been that he doesn't recognize it as (in Steyn's words) the "cheap Democrat talking point" that it is? Does he really believe his opponents on this issue are racist and/or heartless? Or is it just his normal m. o.? Either way, I don't like it.
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The original quote in French is "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.", from Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764) Literally translated as "The best is the enemy of good.", but is more commonly cited as "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
ReplyDeleteI'll settle for 70%. But even that is hard to come by.
ReplyDeleteSad the Governor of Texas does not understand the difference between how this county treats illegal aliens compared to how his neighboring country to the south treats illegal aliens.
ReplyDeleteJill,
ReplyDeleteI did a post on this at my site. Here's the link
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2011/09/23/rick-perry-and-his-gwb-vision-of-america-yesand-well-no/
The reason I did it is because we have a choice between Romney, who is lying to get votes, and Perry, who may be telling the truth about certain matters, but is getting blowback from people who swear they want to hear the truth.
Odd reaction from those who claim to wish for someone to tell it how it is. From the post:
-Here’s the deal. Outside finding a dead prostitute or a live boy in bed with either Romney or Perry, you are looking at the ticket. Why? Nobody else gets the attention or has the qualifications. The small people; Bachmann, Cain, etc., are what I would use to fill up my cabinet or give positions. None of the Republicans are an embarrassment outside Ron Paul and Huntsman. Paul for being a isolationist in a world filled with bio-weapons and nukes, and Huntsman for being a spoiled son of a rich guy. Jeeezz.. enough already…go home. The thing in common between one of our local armadillos and Huntsman is they both get in the middle of the road, don’t know what to do, and get run over from both directions. Squished is squished. Go find a slope to ski down and call it a day.
Back to Perry. Truth is that people like liars when it comes to politicians. I give you Obama as an example of this. People knew he wasn’t what he said he was, there was plenty of stuff out there to cause doubt, but they WANTED to believe, because people are basically lazy. Perry is actually telling the truth about a number of issues, like Social Security and immigration. Trouble is the people, although aware of the issues, simply don’t want to deal with them, so they look for a guy willing to lie to them and say everything is going to be okay- thus enters Romney. It is a calculation of both men that the people are ready, or unready, to hear what the men are saying.
In Romney’s case, he is a lot like Leslie Nielsen in Police Story “Nothing to see here.” moment.
Perry, like Paul, is a Texan, and Texans tend to tell you whether or not you’re screwed in plain English. Perry’s position on illegal immigration is based on his experiences in Texas (much like Bush’s). Half of his state is Hispanic- that’s the COUNTED half by the way. He has to address, in order to stay governor, the issues that are important to Hispanics. He also has to admit that things like physical walls keeping out determined illegals is a fool’s errand. Yes, you can wall certain segments, and we have successfully, but it drives the traffic to places without walls.
--Point is Jill, Romney cannot carry, and will not carry Hispanic votes, the new "black voting block" in America. His pandering to the desire to secure the borders is foolish. He is a NE liberal Republican. That is HIS stripes. Perry is a reformed, moderate Texan. And that is the key. It is not who is President, but who he appoints in his cabinet that is important. Romney will "cross the aisle" with his guys. Perry will assign Texans to do the EPA,FDA,DEA,FBI,CIA,Dept of Ed., etc.
Given that choice, which would you choose?