"...[I]f I hurt the [P]resident’s feelings, well, with all due respect, I love my country and I love future generations more than I care about his feelings."
THIS IS THE KIND OF THING THE GOP HAS NEEDED TO SAY ALL ALONG.
A lot of folks are hinky about Perry, and I don't blame them...but if the guy can actually demonstrate that he's got that kind of spine he might just be better than anyone else the GOP is likely to produce.
Maybe not the best possible choice...but a damn sight better than Romney or Gingrich, that's for sure.
But he's got some serious, serious negatives. These negatives are why I'm not in Perry's camp; the whole "Gardisil" imbroglio alone does not speak well for Perry.
But if it's a choice between Perry and Romney? Or Gingrich? The issue seems a lot less clear-cut when I have to choose between someone who at least talks like he means business, and what we've gotten out of the GOP in the past decade. (The GOP which, it must be said, cannot stand Sarah Palin even though she's an exemplar of what the party claims to stand for.)
George Bush did as well as he did in the wake of 9/11 because he stopped being a liberal Republican long enough to formulate and initiate the Bush Doctrine. People like a strong President. Reagan overcame an avalanche of bad press because of his strength as a leader.
We need a leader, a conservative one, not a squishy "Democrat Lite" like McCain and not a befuddled pseudo-communist "community organizer" like Obama.
Is Perry the right man for the job? Jeeze louise, I don't fuckin' know. Ask me at this time next year what I think. I just know that Gingrich, Romney, and Obama are not.
* * *
...irrespective of how I vote for legislators, I will vote Republican should the GOP offer a candidate who is worth voting for. Another McCain? Romney? Gingrich?
But someone worthwhile, now, that's a whole 'nother story. Perry might be it, and Perry might not be it--but I know that Romney and Gingrich are not.
* * *
The GOP establishment doesn't like Perry, which is a mark in his favor. I don't know if it offsets the bad stuff--the cronyism, the Gardisil thing, etc.
I do know that the GOP has got to stop listening to Karl Rove, though.
But the GOP is no more interested in upsetting the apple cart than is the Democrat party. Neither of them wants to preside over the negative consequences which will ensue should the US federal government embark on a serious program of fiscal responsibility.
First off, that pesky 12% drop in GDP that'll take place the instant the government begins to live within its means. That would be bad for everyone; both sides know it and neither one of them is willing to risk the bad odor that will cling to them like skunk juice.
The GOP ought to know that--regardless--they will get the blame for it. The same way it's now the third quarter of 2011 yet we're still floundering in "the Bush economy" is all the proof you need of that. Barry H. has been stylin' in the Oval Office since January of 2009 but all this bad stuff, well, it's just "bad luck" and George Bush, you know?
Imagine if, in 1991 during that year's brief economic downturn--caused mostly by Gulf War I and the Bush 41 tax increases--Dan Quayle had said, "Well, it's just bad luck!" Imagine the screeches and hoots we'd STILL be hearing from Democrats over that one.
Shit.
Second: the riots in the streets when the takers all stop getting their government money.
The London riots will look like a birthday party when Inner City USA ramps up. Sooner or later it'll happen, because regardless of what the government does there is going to be a collapse of one kind or another. The orderly retrenchment is impossible so long as the GOP and the Democrats are playing hot potato; so it'll be disorderly. It's going to be long, bloody, and bad.
It's coming, one way or another, because we can't keep this up. And when those people stop getting their money from the governemnt--when the pacifier is taken away, the baby will throw a tantrum.
Katrina showed us that these people, born and raised in government dependency, cannot do anything for themselves. It's not their fault; if you raise a bear cub in captivity it's going to have a very hard time surviving if you just kick it out into the forest. These people have never had to support themselves, nor cultivate the skills required to; they're helpless without the government giving them money and telling them what to do. They're entirely dependent on the nanny state; take it away, and all they can do is pillage and loot.
This is exactly what happened in London: threatened with a reduction in cumshaw, they rioted.
(Blame anyone you'd like for this situation. It doesn't matter in the long run; when the money stops flowing--and it will stop flowing; this is inevitable--there will be riots. White, black, red, blue, green with lavender polka dots--it has nothing whatsoever to do with race.)
Third, the reduction in their own power.
The Washington, D.C. insiders have only one measure of their status: power. And the yardstick is "how big is your budget?" That's why the budgets are never smaller year-on-year. If you cut so-and-so's budget, he's going to be butthurt, and you'll have trouble getting him on your side when you need help with something you want to do. And anyway, it's not your money you're spending, right?
If Congress cuts spending, why, it's like cutting off their own dicks! (Even--or, perhaps, especially--for the women congresscritters.)
So of course neither the GOP nor the Democrats really want to cut spending. And those hicks out in the hinterlands don't know any better, anyway.
...hate to break it to you guys, but we're smarter than you think...and we're getting wiser fast.