With Rick Perry expected to announce he’s running for President today, all I can think about is how much Molly Ivins would have enjoyed this and what she would have had to say about it….
Seems like I’m not the only one thinking along those lines, as this editorial from the Sacramento Bee shows…
Of course, there is still time for Texas to secede, as Gov Perry suggested, and spare us this…
Or we could just sell Texas as I suggested earlier….
Anyway…
Here is a brief excerpt with a link to the entire article- which I encourage you to use….
Editor’s note: Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to announce today that he’s running for the Republican presidential nomination. In anticipation, we offer excerpts of columns from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram by the late, great Molly Ivins. Born in Monterey, Ivins covered the Statehouse in Texas for decades and spread her barbs widely. One frequent target was Perry, whom she called “The Coiffure” and “Gov. Goodhair.”
Oct. 12, 2006
I sacrificed an hour Friday evening to watch the Texas gubernatorial debate on your behalf, since I knew none of you would do it. … The Coiffure was in his usual form. As one opponent after another attacked his record, Gov. Rick Perry stood there proudly behind that rabid following he has so richly earned – hey, a whole 35 percent of Texans want him re-elected – and simply disagreed. The Coiffure seemed to consider blanket denials a fully sufficient and adequate response.
Jan. 12, 2006
The governor of Texas is despicable. Of all the crass pandering, of all the gross political kowtowing to ignorance, we haven’t seen anything this rank from Gov. Goodhair since … gee, last fall.
Then he was trying to draw attention away from his spectacular failure on public schools by convincing Texans that gay marriage was a horrible threat to us all. Now he’s trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in free-fall by proposing that we teach creationism in biology classes.
The funding of the whole school system is so unfair that it has been declared unconstitutional by the Texas Supreme Court. All last year, Rick Perry haplessly called special session after special session, trying to fix the problem, and couldn’t get anywhere – not an iota, not a scintilla, of leadership.
Instead of facing the grave crisis that might yet result in the schools’ being closed, Perry has blithely gone off on creationism – teach the little perishers the Earth is 6,000 or so years old, that people lived at the same time as dinosaurs, and who cares if the school building is falling apart?
Jan. 11, 2004
I have failed to give sufficient recognition to our only governor, Rick “Goodhair” Perry, who is adding to the old je ne sais quoi in truly impressive quantities.
Goodhair gave such an amazing performance at his end-of-the-year news conference that I was forced to call a perfectly reliable reporter for the Dallas Morning News and ask if it was a joke. …
The guv remains convinced that his greatest accomplishment was not raising taxes, even though fees, tuition, fines and everything else that the Leg could find to jack up without calling it a tax was jacked sky-high. …
You may think the guv’s had a rough year – three special sessions on top of the regular session just to pass that misbegotten redistricting bill, not counting the two bolts by Democrats and such minor unpleasantness as having to hack $10 billion out of the state budget.
For some, the budget-cutting, aimed mostly at services for desperately needy people, was a painful and even tragic exercise. Especially knocking 250,000 poor children off health insurance.
Fortunately, Gov. Goodhair has a firm grasp on priorities, and when asked his biggest disappointment of the year, he replied: “Aggie football.”
Lost in the 21st Century 