The cover of Newsweek (4/26/10) proclaims: “Don’t Mess With Texas: What Governor Rick Perry’s Hard-Right Creed Tells Us About America.”
I can’t say I learned much about America, but I guess I learned something about Newsweek: They really like Rick Perry.
The story, by Evan Thomas and Arian Campo-Flores, beginswith the observation, “The myth of the once and future king is as old as Camelot, as ancient as the Bible.”Perry, it seems,is a living example of such a”redeemer”:
In Texas, his name is Rick Perry. Raised in a ranch house with no running water in the West Texas town of Paint Creek, yell leader at Texas A&M, Air Force pilot, longest serving governor in Texas history. Ruggedly handsome in a Marlboro Man sort of way, with a rich mane of brown hair, slightly tinged with silver gray. Perry, 60, stands for less government and more growth, for freedom and against bureaucracy, for Texas and against Washington. It’s a message that has made him a very popular politician in Texas, particularly among conservative white males. As the Tea Party movement gains momentum, as more Americans are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, Perry is their kind of hero.
Newsweek goes on to wonder if Perry might really be “the second coming of Ronald Reagan, the plain-spoken man from the West who presided over a new ‘Morning in America’ by cutting taxes, reducing government (well, promising to) and standing tall against the nation’s enemies?”
Well, gee, maybe they should just skip the election? Would anyone be foolishenough to run against this handsome savior? Yes, it turns out–an uninspiring bald guy:
Perry’s Democratic opponent in November will be Bill White, the popular three-term mayor of Houston. White couldn’t be more different from Perry. He went to Harvard. He speaks fluent Spanish. He’s pasty white, with a bald pate and big ears. He talks in an even, slow monotone and refrains from gunslinging rhetoric. He’s kind of like President Obama without the good looks and charisma–a cerebral man who craves consensus and relishes tackling problems by gathering a roomful of smart people with diverse views to hash things out.
What a bore.
After the story’s fourth paragraph tells us that under Perry, “Texas somehow avoided the worst of the Great Recession,” the second-to-last sentence discloses that the Texas economic miracle might turn sourin a hurry: “Economic experts are predicting a shortfall of at least $15 billion in the coming year.” This after the state got $16 billion in stimulus money from the federal government last year. (Perry, you see, thinks Obama “is hellbent on taking America towards a socialist country.”)
And you wouldn’t know this from reading Newsweek‘s puff piece, but Perry and his pasty, uncharismatic Democratic challenger are in a pretty tight race, with Perry holding a four-point lead. Newsweek doesn’t have time to mess with such nuance.
What a choice – A Dear Leader clone (a Reagan/Bush amalgam – a mad scientist’s dream) or a Dear Misleader clone (Obama without the multiracial hipnosity).
Don’t mess with Texas.
It’s already pretty dadburned messed up.
Just like the rest of the good ol’ US and A.
TUCK FEXAS
I was stationed in Texas twice while in the Air Force: 1965-1968, and 1973-1979. During those years there were plenty of liberals Texans. Now I’m afraid that has changed for the worse. Perry and Craddick and other right wing wackos.
Ann and Mollie are gone,
Texas’s greatest wits,
We’re left with Bush and Cheney,
Texas’s dumbest twits.
— letter to the Editor of Nation magazine obviously written by a Texan
Don’t worry. Nothing Newsweek says will affect a Texas election. Texans don’t read Newsweek. Texans don’t bother to read. Or think. ‘Cept for a few in Austin. They prefer to shoot first…. The ones who can pronounce longer words call them “pre-emptive strikes.” ….And ask questions later? Hell no. They don’t need no STEENKENG questions! They’ve already got all the answers.
Neither Bush nor Cheney are Texans, but there are plenty of political twits to serve who are true Texans, as Mollie would readily avow if she were still around.
I am a landlord in the Dallas area. All my tenants are working blue collar people. Over the last six months and more, they have had a tough life – losing jobs, no social net to help, they can’t pay rents, I have to move them out. My impression of Texas is it is dumb state filled with people who vote in terrible politicians who strip them of any government help while making it easier for the rich.
There are millions of hurting Texans. Yet they support those who have made their life miserable and hate those trying to help because they are “liberal”. These poor don’t really know what “liberal” means, but they know from Fox “News” and other reliable sources like Rush Limbaugh it is something very bad and they need to vote against it at every opportunity.
Don’t mess with Texas because Texas is already a mess.
I read the article. Have to say that while reading it, I thought it was at least as good as most of the fiction I’ve been reading lately and probably as reflective of reality. Having lived in Texas and the parts of Louisiana that border Texas for a number of years, I can only say that the political elite, including the Marlboro Man symbol Governor, do not reflect the needs of the people. Keeping the people undereducated with significant portions of history and science omitted or edited will keep the power folks happy and in their comfortable lifestyle. Much of what I read was reminiscent of the Long Dynasty in Louisiana from years ago and was echoed in the racist sentiments expressed by the Mississippi Governor in that same edition of the magazine.
I agree with all preceding opinions of Texans and am hopeful Rick Perry repeats his “secession” idea. . . and that the Democratic majority agrees to consider same, broadcasting an invitation to ALL the Confederate states they may secede immediately after the period of “resettlement” is finished.
We need a plebescite. All the Teaparty fools can bid for the properties of Texans who prefer to join us “Socialist” types; who want government to consolidate our tax moneys and provide us with opportunities for life liberty and equal right to earn property. The Texas lovers can move there. Or to their sister states-Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, whatever. . . Then we remove all federal agencies, military bases, the space program, Ross Perot’s accounting contracts etc, and seal the borders. We call all US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and increase their numbers sufficient to tightly guard the new borders, to assist resettlement in US areas, to man a better stimulus program. So much can be done Americans once the idiots remove themselves!!
I’m crossing my fingers for the “bore” (while listening to the Texas-Skinner affair on French television). I am legal part-owner of the house in Texas where my daughter lives. She knows I hate that red-neck, red state. I hope she gets a good price for the place when she gets around to selling it. / Texas needs a new Reagan like it needs……!!!!!!. Let’s get the “pasty white” Obama-type and get justice and CHANGE in Texas. // Jean Clelland-Morin
What is the message? All successful politicians have lots of hair. Is there a career path here? Cheerleader, pilot(well sort of in one instance at least) to politician? Texas? What’s next?
Newsweek, which is owned by the wapo, is just following corporate policy, no doubt, i.e., promote the con and neocon agenda at every opportunity. There’s no shame among that bunch.
I’ve lived in Texas for the past 18 years. During that time it has slowly degenerated into a dismal pit of ignorance where the electorate selects those with the least education and qualifications and instead opts for politicos that are at least as ignorant as they themselves. I see no prospect that a FOX loving, generally uninformed state can ever rise above being a laughing stock for much of the rest of the nation and much of the world as well. I wish I could see a way out of this mess. As one of my colleagues puts it, “ignorance, the gift that keeps on giving”
Once I read a few sentences of that article, I wanted to just burn it.
Ugh.
Newsweek should just outright tell its Texas readers to vote for Rick Perry. The article is pretty much a kiss to his…behind.