Alrighty then.
I can honestly say that I did not expect to have to update my Don't Fuck It Up Republican Presidential Candidate Matrix this soon. A lot of thought went into the first version, and so it would take something pretty substantial to make a move on this baby. And then yesterday happened.
Turns out Rick Perry is a Birther.
He has lunch with Donald Trump, and now he's on the Birther train. Get out your tinfoil hat...
Photo by Ben Torres/AP (via NY Daily News)
Of course, he's a politician, so he has to wrap his bullshit in supposition...
Q. Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?
A. I have no reason to think otherwise.
Q. That’s not a definitive, "Yes, I believe he—"
A. Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.
Q. But you’ve seen his.
A. I don’t know. Have I?
Q. You don’t believe what’s been released?
A. I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.
Q. And?
A. That came up.
Q. And he said?
A. He doesn’t think it’s real.
Q. And you said?
A. I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the president of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.
"I don't know. Have I?"
What a fucking idiot.
If somebody... anybody... can offer up ANY ACTUAL EVIDENCE that President Obama's "long form birth certificate," WHICH HE HAD TO ABUSE HIS PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY TO GET RELEASED, is a forgery, then please do tell. But until then, wild speculation (even via dismissal) is not evidence of any conspiracy. So if you're not going to put up, then shut the fuck up.
Nobody can be 100% certain of much... not really... so being cautious in answering with definitives or absolutes is smart. Hell, I was not present at Barack Obama's birth, so even I cannot say with 100% certainty that he was, in fact, born at the time and place that's been claimed. But He has released the required documentation (AND THEN SOME!) to prove his citizenship. So what more is there to be said? Unless you have some compelling evidence to the contrary (which currently only exists in the demented minds of people like Donald Trump and Orly Taitz) you actually do, in fact, "have an idea." Even if it's an extraordinarily noncommittal idea...
"I have seen no evidence invalidating the documentation that's been released and approved so, yes, I believe he was born in the United States. It really doesn't make much sense to believe otherwise unless somebody can substantiate such a claim with actual evidence, not just wild speculation."
But nooooooo... Rick Perry has to be insane.
Which means he gets knocked down with the other crazies like Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum and "Michele Bat-Shit Crazy" Bachmann...
By the way, I'm still looking for evidence that Donald Trump is not a child rapist. I mean, come on, if he's NOT a pedophile sex fiend, where's the proof? Is it all a big cover-up? If he's innocent of sleeping with underage boys, why can't he just prove it once and for all so this speculation can end? It's not fair for the American people to be kept guessing over such important matters involving somebody so active in presidential politics. Child rape is a criminal offense for heaven's sake! Absence of actual facts proving he rapes children doesn't mean anything... we want proof of innocence!
Holy crap. I should have stayed in Australia.
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Damn. When I saw the title I thought you were going to wax poetic about Perry the Platypus, whom I’d vote for before Rick Perry.
If only!
THAT Perry is awesome!
Doofenshmirtz & Perry The Platypus are just so awesome on that show. We usually have the Disney Channel on for the little one and I got totally hooked on Phineas and Ferb about a year ago. Love it.
Let me preface this by saying that I disagree with a whole hell of a lot of what Rick Perry has to say, and I truly hope that he doesn’t become president.
That being said, I interpreted his statements differently. He certainly could have expressed himself in a much, much, much, much smarter fashion, but I think that he was trying to evade what was an inflammatory line of questioning by the reporter interviewing him.
Here’s my interpretation:
This is, as you put it, bullshit wrapped in supposition. But it’s how I feel about President Obama’s American citizenship: since he was vetted to become a presidential candidate for the 2008 elections, I have no reason to think otherwise. Meaning “there is proof out there to support this. If there was not any proof out there to support this, I WOULD have a reason to think otherwise.”
This is just him misspeaking. Very unfortunate. Probably because he’s not very smart.
I think it’s very possible that he hadn’t bought into the hoopla when Barack Obama released his birth certificate (both times — including when he released a copy on the web before the 2008 election). I saw it, but I didn’t scrutinize it. Why? Because I didn’t have to. Because, with the vetting process in place, “I have no reason to think otherwise.”
not my ideal dinner guest. But if Perry picked up the check, he’s pretty fucking stupid.
Bingo. I agree with this. This entire line of questioning from the reporter is a distractive issue. I think Perry is actually one of the folks who does NOT want this to be made into an issue.
I certainly won’t be voting for the man, but I don’t think the intention here was an attack on President Obama’s credentials.
THAT being said, a guy who answers a direct question like “What did you say?” with “I have no idea” is probably not a great candidate…
You can dance around his evading politicking all you want, but at NO point does he state that he believes Barack Obama has proven his citizenship. If he doubts that President Obama has proven his citizenship, then he’s totally giving weight to Donald Trump’s crazy-ass conjectures which are not in any way substantiated by proof. That’s a Birther. Saying that “Barack Obama is the President” is not the same thing as saying “Barack Obama is legally president because he has passed the vetting process.” That’s what YOU said. And when he says he “I don’t have any idea”… you are assuming he’s saying that he doesn’t know what he said, when it sounds to me like he told Donald Trump that he “doesn’t have any idea” whether the birth certificate is real.
You have the right to dismiss this as a “distractive issue” and not care that Perry never clearly states that Birthers like Donald Trump are full of crap because they don’t offer any actual evidence to back up their claims. It’s easy to do when this is an issue that doesn’t matter to YOU, but to ME it is a very relevant, very telling issue that says exactly what kind of person Rick Perry is. He’s the kind of guy perfectly willing to ignore facts in evidence and sit back while some asshole attacks a person’s credibility so he doesn’t have to do it directly.
But what if it WAS an issue that was important to you? What if Donald Trump was a Holocaust denier? Would Rick Perry’s vague dismissive statements be enough to satisfy you? If he said “Duh, I dunno… it doesn’t matter” when asked if the Holocaust was real, would you be willing to write that off as him simply trying to evade an inflammatory question? Would you have gone through so much trouble to interpret what he said into something you could live with? Would you be able to ignore his failing to clearly condemn the lunacy of a Holocaust denier… or just dismiss it as having picked a less than ideal dinner guest?
Or would you want him to just answer the fucking question?
The guy is running for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Stuff like this MATTERS. Because what’s next? He gets into office and decides to nuke the moon because Bill Gates tells him that hostile aliens are hiding under the lunar surface? What other crazy-ass conjecture will he be willing to entertain? Will he ever require any proof of anything in order to make a decision? Or is the word of wealthy and influential people enough to make him declare war on Canada? Who knows? Rick Perry doesn’t even seem to be clear on the matter. Not when he dances around valid questions about wacky conspiracy theories with bullshit wrapped in supposition.
One thing we can agree on, however, he’s not very smart. And I also truly hope this dumbass whack-job doesn’t become president.
But you haven’t said why it’s so important to you. You were never going to vote for the guy anyway.
Well… I was going to try to do this without straying into another area for debate, but the reason is because I can’t see this as anything but racist.
If it were white President Bruce Thurston Worthington III, would anybody ask to see his birth certificate? Perhaps, though I’d argue all this would eventually end.
But because we have black President Barack Hussein Obama, it just keeps going as an issue. He’s African-American with a “funny foreign name” so he gets to keep being an object of conjecture and suspicion. And people like Donald Trump and Rick Perry keep it going because it scares voters into not electing the man they’ve branded a scary socialist/terrorist/foreigner again.
Yes the Birther movement denies any racist leanings, but I honestly do have a problem seeing it any other way.
And that is a huge problem for me.
The President of the United States is supposed to represent the entire country… inclusive of all its peoples. So any time we’ve got a presidential candidate promoting (or at least passively allowing) this kind of behavior, I lose my shit. When you are President of the Unites States of America, you are president of white people. Of black people. Of red people and yellow people. Of poor people. Of gay people. Of Muslim people. Of Jewish people. Etc. Etc. Etc. You can’t just be the president of wealthy, white, straight, Christian (or, in this case, Mormon?) people and forget everybody else.
Whether he actually feels that way or not, this is the impression Rick Perry gives me when he dances around this stupid cagey Birther bullshit like this.
Rick Perry is dumb as nine chickens!
Fuck.
NINE chickens? That’s a lot of chickens. Maybe if they were DEAD chickens…
🙂
You really didn’t have to go to so much effort to capitulate to my expectation of your relative ranking of Perry and Paul. Thanks, though. 🙂
You know what’s funny? The first thing… FIRST THING… I thought of after I read about Rick Perry’s insane dialogue was “Holy crap, Ren is never going to let me live this down!”
Thanks for living up to MY expectations. 🙂
At first, I thought Perry seemed like an okay dude. Then I saw some of the ways he’s trampled personal liberties in TX. No thanks.
Your replies to the above person who is making an argument in favor of Perry’s comments were spot on. If Perry does not believe it, then he needs to say so and stop mentioning the fact that he met with Trump, who is obviously a birther/attention whore. I never remember no one asking for Bill Clinton’s birth certificate and he had a lot of Crzies hating on him.
Perry’s answer keeps him in good with the tin foil crazies. If he woud have said anything else, they would abandon him in a heartbeat.