Like everyone else, I’m still laughing at Rick Perry’s debate blunder. Like fine wine, it gets better with age. But, in truth, it tells us little about the man, as it’s something that could happen to anyone. Well, maybe that’s not quite true, in that it was so obvious that he was parroting a poorly memorized talking point about which he truly cared not a whit. Truth be told, there probably would have been five agencies on the list if his handlers thought he could be trusted to remember them. Their mistake was to trust him to remember three.
What’s more instructive about this episode is the damage control methodology. It would be naive to think that anything Perry said the next day was not doped out in advance. Here is a sample of what we got: “This ain’t a day for quitting nothing“
So, we have come to the point that Perry’s strategists have decided that the best way to deal with his gaffe is to double down on the stupid. Maybe in Texas stupidity sells. It sure looks that way from this vantage point and after all, Perry had his memory lapse in the middle of making a statement that, even had he completed it, would have been a monument to simplistic mentation (calling it “thinking” would dignify it too much). But I’m not sure that most of the country is looking for a president who talks like this guy:
Apparently the Republicans disagree, witness Karl Rove’s attacks on “Professor” Warren, the implication being that Massachusetts people share the Southern cracker dislike for learning.
Of course maybe I’m overthinking this. Perry began his classic brain fart by saying “It’s three agencies…”, rather than saying “There are three agencies” like a pointy headed liberals would have done. Maybe he’s not revealing his utter contempt of the American people by trying to appeal to anti-intellectualism. Maybe he’s just stupid.
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