Perry happens. Again.




Jim Hightower's Lowdown show

Summary: My job as a free-range commentator and political yackety-yacker requires very little heavy lifting. But – as a Texan – I do have the occasional burden of having to explain Rick Perry's periodic eruptions of volcanic inanity ¬– or, is it insanity? Perry – the now-famous "Governor Oops" – went off again in a recent conference call to promote a right-wing politico-religio electioneering stunt dubbed "40 Days to Save America." The 40 days terminate on November 6 – Election Day – and the whole silly thing is nothing but a – "Come-to-the-GOP-Jesus" alter call, orchestrated by the partisan pulpit-pounder Rick Scarborough. Of course, it's a call to "save America" from Barack Obama. Los dos Ricks were trying to gin-up turnout among evangelicals, who're less than enthused by a Republican nominee who's a multimillionaire Mormon from the Cayman Islands, so Perry laid it on thick. He declared that America is in the midst of "spiritual warfare" forced upon purist Christians by Obama's "effort to remove any trace of religion from American life." Really, Rick? When did he say that? Never mind facts, the governor claimed that, "We truly are Christian warriors, Christian Soldiers," battling "this separation of church and state, which has been driven by the secularists." Yeah, satanic secularists like Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in 1802 about the Founders' determination to build that "wall of separation" to forestall an American Taliban. Oh, pay no attention to history, cried the Right Reverend Rick, it's onward Christian soldiers to take "the decisive action we need to spread God's grace throughout the United States." Geez ­ Mitt Romney is the spreader of God's grace? That's one vicious god! So, how to explain this burning flow of political magma from Preacher Perry? It is what it is: He's insane.