Comments

1
uh, were does he say the fed chief should be lynched?
2
@ 1, I think Dan's interpreting the meaning of being "treated harshly in Texas." Compared to some other words he has put in other people's mouths, this one's not really all that unfair.
3
Whoops. Perry's actual quote was that he'd be treated "pretty ugly." Got his words mixed up with Dan's....
4
“If this guy prints more money between now and the election,” Perry said, “I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we -- we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous in my opinion.”
5
Assuming Perry becomes the nominee, we'll have a lot of this "don't mess with Texas" rhetorical bullshit to deal with. Yeah, looking forward to more of that...
6
@1&2, the Lynching comment isn't Dan's, it's Sullivan's. Personally I think it's a bit of a stretch based on Perry's actual comments but we all know what the punishment is for treason so only a little bit of a stretch.
7
Wow. Our next president, ladies and gentlemen.
8
Bernanke's given every GOP contender so much material, though - misstep after misstep. Ironically, most of his mistakes have been pointed out by those whose economic theories are far, far different from any Republican's, viz., Krugman. It's not that he doesn't know the right thing to do to boost the economy, it's that he's too busy trying to be popular to carry them out. Sound familiar?
9
I'm looking forward to him defending his secessionist comments as a presidential candidate.
10
Actually, even more than that, I'm looking forward to him defending his choice to accept millions of dollars of stimulus funds and federal assistance for the wildfires.
11
Man the Republicans have a tough choice this election cycle: an establishment troll or 5 kinds of crazy.
12
Ironically, Perry himself is coming under attack from the anti-Muslim branch of extreme kookdom, with Pamela Geller going ballistic over his friendship and cooperative work with the Aga Khan, spiritual head of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam, of whom there are perhaps 30,000 in Texas. Geller thinks that even talking to these people amounts to a step on the road towards Sharia law replacing the Constitution in the US, and wants all Muslims of any stripe to be deported if not actually gassed and buried in shallow graves.

The more we see of the extremism of the right the more it resembles the extremism of the left in the late sixties, early seventies, being consumed from within by ludicrous battles over ideological purity, for which the only possible punishment is death. You're with us or against us. Perry's a master at this kind of rhetoric too, though in a form more palatable to rank and file Texans, who can always be roused to cheers by a little executin', establishment (or even likelihood) of guilt not required. See Charles Willingham and Hank Skinner, the latter of whom even got the support of frigging Antonin Scalia in his recent case trying to get Perry to stop blocking DNA testing his case. Perry gets off on executing innocent men, and so do his followers.
13
Thanks for the read @12, very interesting.
14
"Texans are just like North Koreans. They live in a horrible hell-hole, but they think it's the greatest place on Earth."

An old joke, but a true one.
15

Well, Dan, this comes down to...do you support the actions of the Fed during the Bernanke administration?
16
Wow, I go away for a month and come back to actual ideological diversity in these comments.

What's happened?
17
@1: When it comes to Republicans, Dan and the rest of the staffers make up lies out of thin air. It's their "journalistic discretion" to do so, as they see it.
18
@15: do you support the actions of the Fed during ANY Fed chairman's adminstration? Greenspan's, for instance? Volker's the only one I remotely trust.

Bill Burroughs:
"The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident. Inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push."

19
@15 - actually, it doesn't come down to that at all. Sane people don't have to support Bernanke's specific decisions to keep from calling him treasonous and for saying he'd be "treated harshly" down in Texas. Perry is a radical, but apparently well within the Republican mainstream.
20
@18, that's an apt quotation, but in Perry we have a fellow who says "fuck this shit, I don't need me no goddamn experts to tell me how to fly this here plane". The damning element isn't his Texas braggadocio about "gettin' ugly", it's his total ignorance of what the Fed actually does. "Printin' money" does not begin to describe it.

And the policies that he's threatening to lynch Bernanke for are Republican policies too. He's not going up against the gol-durn commies here; he's going up against Milton Friedman, for starters, and the patron saint of Ronald Reagan. Bernanke is a Bush appointee.

What this tells us is that Perry has no intellectual lineage at all, not even a fake one like GWB. He's a parody of the Lone Gunman, acting tough against the wide skies of Texas, because he saw it in a movie once. Mentally, emotionally, philosophically, he's a complete and utter zero. He's certainly not a Republican -- oh, wait, yes he is; he's the very definition of a modern Republican. He believes in himself, even though he doesn't exist.
21
I don't think his outrageous words should disqualify him from the race. I want him to keep talking the Republicans into a hole in the ground.
22
Perry then fired both of his six shooters into the ground which rootin' tootin' lifted him right into the air dagnammit.
23
@5 "Don't Mess with Texas" was an anti-littering campaign, lol.
24
I missed the colon the first time I read the header, which resulted in it looking like Rick Perry fed the Chief a traitor and should be lynched.
My only other comment on this article is that it is clear that Rick Perry has his head up his ass. I'll leave it to the more eloquent Sloggers to hash it out about just how far. I will say though that his quotes were mischaracterized somewhat in that he didn't say the fed chief is _already_ a traitor.
25
The sad thing is that this is the ammunition the real Republican Party -- the non-Tea Party one -- needs to kill Perry's campaign. They're out in force -- Rove is nailing him. The party knows that Romney is the only candidate they have with a chance in hell of winning, and they're going to get him.

Too bad. It would have been much better if Perry started shooting his fool mouth off after the nomination was his.
26
But RepubliKKKans are the sole arbiters of the "center" of AmeriKKKan politics, so by this time next year we can fully expect Obamar to be calling for Bernanke's death and the repeal of all laws and regulations as well.

Anyone who doesn't accept this is clearly an idiot, an Unserious Person, or--worst of all--a hellbound LIBRUL!
27
Perry was a perfect governor for Texas (I'm Texan, well, from Austin anyway). He doesn't actually do anything or hold any power (by design) except letting people be executed and pissing off his own party by vetoing their legislation just to show off that he can. Fnarf is correct in that he's a zero, but tons of connected Republicans and officeholders don't like him. I think the long knives (aided by Rove) will come out for him.

Also, @14, painting the whole state with such a brush is just limp, willful ignorance. Leaving aside the geographic wrongitude (huge swaths of gorgeousness, and not all dry and flat), it's not even a political hellhole. Obama won every large city in 2008, like elsewhere the political problem is the suburbs, rural areas, and insane redistricting. Nobody beats up my little brother but me.
28
Rick Perry is an evil sumbitch, but that doesn't justify the FoxNewsian distortion in the headline here and on Sullivan's blog post. Perry never said "lynch" and it's rather ludicrous to assume that's what he meant, and shockingly slanderous to attribute that word to him as if he used it. Don't stoop to such tactics.
29
@1,2,6

This is what Dan Savage (and Constant and Goldy and Golob, really the Stranger staff) considers political reporting- Read only sources of left wing propaganda obsessively. Write misleading headlines to his posts making the bias further left yet, real fringe nutjob territory. Now the fun bit, lie in the body of the post about what the original biased article said.

It's kind of like a one man version of the game they make you play in management classes at 'enlightened' companies. One guy at the head of a line of your long suffering co-workers is whispered a line by the trainer. He whispers it to the next victim. By the time the end of the line is reached the original line bears little connection to what it's become.

The only thing I can't make out is if Savage is so stupid that he doesn't know he's doing this, or if he's doing it intentionally. Or both?

But everyone should treat him as a serious journalist because he's a victimized gay man(with seeming financial security and a nice house in Seattle and time to fly first class all over the country irritating people, but still VICTIMIZED dammit!) and because he's leftist and....

Hang on, why should he be treated as though his ill informed political opinions matter to sane people?
30
@28

Slander is the other technique of the Stranger. (See Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum etc etc etc.) But only with those they know can't sue for it, like elected officials.

Real sleazebags, if you think about it...
31
To be fair you could say the same things about Glen Beck, Limbaugh and a few other far right entertainers pretending to be pundits by saying outrageous things to boost ratings and raise revenue.

But you folks call them on their nonsense, and let your dear leader and his little puppets off the hook. Intellectual dishonesty much?
32
I'll say it again, Obama is hoping it's Perry he faces in 2012. It would be a cake walk for him.
33
@28 No, Perry wouldn't "lynch" Bernanke, he'd lethally inject him.
34
@14, totally true. It is the same chauvinism that 'merkins generally display, only more so. No matter what the stats say, they know in their hearts that their little patch of limestone and dust is the envy of all.
35
@ Seattleblues,

Why you gotta go and be such a KKKunt?

Can't you just pretend that your last john tipped you $20 for taking out your dentures this time and be in a good mood for once?
36
@27, Yep, written like a texan.
37
@35

Actually, my dog is going to have puppies and I'm excited about that. (I know, I shouldn't have any RIGHT to own an unaltered dog. Deal with it.) The day is exceptionally clement and for a wonder I'm ahead of my work schedule. I just got back from a sailing trip to the Queen Charlottes. I don't actually wear dentures nor frequent johns (unless you include the guy at the hardware store whose name happens to be John.)

So all in all, I am in a good mood. I just have little patience for liars, those who think themselves victimized because 'no-one understands the problems of the wealthy gay man,' or those who, like Ophian and the Stranger staff, dislike their country but won't shut up about it or move away from it.
38
@11-- It's about the same choice they usually have, they'll manage.
39
Even Michelle Bachmann isn't a Traitor like Rick Perry, who sold US military technology to the Red Chinese Red Army.
41
The "sin" is not that we elected a Democrat. It's that we elected a black biracial man. No one talks about racism towards Obama nearly as much as racism is applied to him. Watupwidat.
42
@6, yeah, maybe he was only talking about tarring and feathering:)
43
What fun watching the joyride of America's gnarliest fruitcakes self-destructing one after another as America's epigonous gnomicons look on aghast and ask "has it come to this?"

Yes it has - thanks to you.
44
Epigonous gnomicons. I like it. But I challenge you to say it 10 times quickly.

But you're mistaken. The Democrat(ic? not ic? I never can remember but somehow you guys see the wrong form as insulting intended or not) convention isn't for months yet. That's when the full orchard quantity fruitcakes come out. Sometimes in more ways than one.
45
Given his ongoing flirtation with secessionist talk, I think Perry really should avoid the Treason word.
46
@ 37, the idea of America has always been remarkable; the reality has always fallen short. I was--@34--actually criticising chauvinism and the egotism that is american exceptionalism. The US could better itself by learning from others. It is the very belief that this is "the greatest country on earth" that keeps this country from being the greatest.

That being said, I'm jumping to Canuckistan--my other country--at the first chance I get, thankyouverymuch.
47
@46: American exceptionalism should mean that we hold ourselves to higher standards, not that we can rest on our laurels.
48
Hhm, that sounds an awful lot like Canadian exceptionalism.

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