It’s been unseasonably cool here in Washington the last few days, and I can’t complain. The finches and hummingbirds have ceased visiting their bird feeders, so I suppose it bothers them, though. On the other hand, the brisk weather seems to have had a stimulating effect on the appetites of cardinals, jays, robins, and in particular, doves, a flock of which, in excess of two dozen, was mobbing the large bird feeder as I watched from my backyard deck this afternoon, enjoying my home in Great Falls, Virginia on a rare day off from work. It was in this situation that I found myself when my land line rang. Caller ID was blocked, but as soon as I said hello, I recognized the voice of my brother-in-law, Hank.
Tom: Hello?
Hank: Tom, I’ve got two words for you – Rick Perry.
Tom: Yeah? What about him?
Hank: I suppose you noticed that Caller ID is blocked.
Tom: Yes, I did.
Hank: That’s because I’m calling from his Virginia campaign organization.
Tom: On a Sunday? Does Rose know where you are?
Hank: No, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her, okay? She thinks I’m spending this afternoon volunteering on a suicide prevention hot line.
Tom: Right – so instead of talking people out of destroying themselves, you’re raising money and planning rallies for somebody who’s going to destroy their federal government instead.
Hank: The way I look at it, if he destroys the federal government, there will be jobs again. And if the people who I would be talking to on the suicide hot line this afternoon had jobs, they wouldn’t have any motive to commit suicide, would they?
Tom: If nothing else, I’d say your reasoning is worthy of Governor Perry.
Hank: Thanks. They say great minds think alike, you know.
Tom: So they do. Mind telling me why you called?
Hank: I need to come up with a strategy here, Tom. I’ve got my foot in the door, see…
Tom: And because, after a couple of years of trying, you still can’t find a job as a business executive, like you had back before the recession bankrupted the corporation you worked for, you’re convinced that if you join the campaign of the politician who defeats Barack Obama, when that person, whoever they are, comes to Washington, you will be rewarded with a cushy position in their new administration.
Hank: Uh… yeah, I guess you could put it like that.
Tom: And your latest choice for a coat-tail ride to a big money job inside the Beltway is Governor Rick Perry.
Hank: Who else? He’s handsome…
Tom: In a Gomer Pyle sort of way.
Hank: He’s charismatic…
Tom: In a Huey Long sort of way.
Hank: He’s intelligent…
Tom: In a George W. Bush sort of way.
Hank: And he’s got integrity…
Tom: In a Heidi Fleiss sort of way.
Hank: Hey, now wait a minute there! How do you get Heidi Fleiss?
Tom: Well, didn’t Perry tell Michele Bachmann that he found her suggestion he would sell out to Merck Pharmaceuticals for a mere five thousand dollars to be offensive?
Hank: Yeah.
Tom: Which implies that there is some price – albeit a much, much higher one – at which he would, like Heidi Fleiss, do whatever the customer wants.
Hank: I think Governor Perry didn’t mean it to sound like that.
Tom: And I think he inadvertently blurted out something that revealed his true nature.
Hank: Okay, let’s agree to disagree about that. He’s got all the right positions on law and order issues.
Tom: You mean, he’s executed a record number of convicts in Texas.
Hank: Exactly! Can you think of a better way to demonstrate that he’s for law and order?
Tom: How about some programs to address poverty, ignorance, hopelessness, unemployment, substance abuse and ethnic enmity?
Hank: What the hell do those things have to do with obeying the law?
Tom: Never mind, I forgot who I was talking to for a second.
Hank: No problem; I accept your apology. Just don’t let it happen again. Anyway, Perry’s a good Christian, and we need that.
Tom: We need somebody who, in his official capacity as Governor of Texas, declared a day of prayer for rain?
Hank: As Catholics, Tom, we both know that prayer can work miracles.
Tom: My understanding of the Vatican’s position concerning prayer is that it’s very presumptuous – to the point of sin, in fact – to ask God Almighty to solve your economic problems, such as those arising from drought pertaining to cotton crop irrigation, cattle ranch productivity and freshwater-based tourism. And, I might note, despite the many millions of Texans who followed Rick Perry’s orders, the drought continued unabated.
Hank: Well, maybe they didn’t pray hard enough.
Tom: That’s one possible explanation. Another might be anthropogenic global warming.
Hank: Global warming a big hoax put on by the United Nations and Rick Perry knows it!
Tom: And so is the theory of evolution, I suppose?
Hank: You said it yourself, right there – it’s just a theory!
Tom: In science, the word “theory” has a different definition than it does in philosophy, politics, law or everyday life, and when you say, “Evolution is just a theory,” you’re confusing the scientific definition with one or more of those others.
Hank: No, you’re just trying to confuse me, that’s all. Look, Tom, I know what a theory is, okay? So don’t try to mix me up with a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo, because you know I suck at science, and math, too; but that doesn’t mean I can’t be a successful business executive, a good father or a really first-rate political appointee in the Perry administration, for that matter. My vote counts just as much as some nerd with a head full equations or dinosaur bones, and if I don’t want to believe in evolution, that’s my right under the Constitution, just like states’ rights and stuff.
Tom: Speaking of which, how about Perry’s suggestion that Texas secede from the Union? You okay with that?
Hank: He what?
Tom: In April, 2009, shortly after Obama signed the first economic stimulus bill, Rick Perry publicly announced that he believes that when Texas entered the union in 1845 it was under the condition that Texas could leave the Union at any time.
Hank: You’re making that up!
Tom: No, I’m not. He said it during a speech at Austin City Hall on April 15, 2009.
Hank: Oh, well… it was tax day. That explains it. I’m sure he was just upset.
Tom: Really? You think so?
Hank: That has to be it. He’d never seriously suggest secession – that’s treason, after all.
Tom: Okay, then, would it be treason if he called for the murder of a federal official?
Hank: Yeah, sure, but he…
Tom: Just last month, when speaking publicly about Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke, Rick 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.”
Hank: Well, it’s not like he said, “Kill Ben Bernanke,” now is it? I mean, who knows what “ugly treatment” is, anyhow?
Tom: If the FBI waited around for members of the Mafia to explicitly say “kill this person” on one of their wire taps, they would never hear it, and if the courts required that, the FBI would never get an indictment, either. Are you suggesting that Governor Perry meant something else besides murdering Mr. Bernanke? Beating him up, maybe? Throwing brickbats at him? Stripping him naked and covering him with boiling hot tar and chicken feathers, perhaps?
Hank: I’m going to have to check up on that stuff, because if there’s one thing I know, you have a lot a facts at your disposal, but you only talk about the ones that you want to talk about that justify your view of the world.
Tom: Unlike Governor Perry, for example.
Hank: Exactly.
Tom: Sure. So what else do you like about him?
Hank: I like his stance on Social Security. It’s about time somebody called it a Ponzi scheme.
Tom: Social Security, a Ponzi scheme? Do you even know what a Ponzi scheme is?
Hank: It’s… something bad… concerning taking money from people. Just like Social Security.
Tom: If that’s your concept, you might as well say taxes are a Ponzi scheme, too.
Hank: Okay, fine by me – taxes are a Ponzi scheme. I’m pretty sure Governor Perry would agree with that.
Tom: So you think it would be a good idea to get rid of Social Security?
Hank: Yeah, because… it’s… unsustainable, yeah that’s it, Social Security is unsustainable. People ought to be allowed to keep that money and put it away for their own retirement.
Tom: What, in a bank? Earning interest so low, it can’t keep up with inflation?
Hank: No, no, of course not. People need to use the money that Social Security is stealing from them to invest in things…
Tom: Things like stocks, bonds and real estate, right?
Hank: Yeah, sure, and then…
Tom: And then watch all of their retirement money disappear when the bankers, brokers, hedge fund managers and other so-called “financial professionals” rip everybody off and flush the economy down the toilet like they did a few years ago?
Hank: Tom, don’t you understand? If we get government out of the markets, stuff like that will never happen again!
Tom: Oh, you mean, like in 1816, 1825, 1832, 1837, 1857, 1869, 1873, 1893, 1901, 1907 and 1929 – when there was no Social Security, no unemployment insurance, and practically no government involvement in financial markets? Don’t you know that those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it?
Hank: What I know is, you’re not supposed to say,“Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it,” because it’s been said a whole lot of times already and doesn’t need to be said anymore. So I’m kind of disappointed, Tom, that you would resort to saying something like that. We shouldn’t be reciting nineteenth and twentieth century solutions for today’s problems, Tom. We should be saying bold, innovative things suitable to the new circumstances and conditions of the twenty-first century.
Tom: Oh, okay, I’ll bite – what bold, innovative solutions suitable to the new circumstances and conditions of the twenty-first century has Governor Rick Perry proclaimed?
Hank: Um… ah… er… hey, look, Tom, no matter what else you say about the man, you have to admit, he knows how to create jobs.
Tom: You mean, as Governor of Texas he demonstrated that he knows how to steal minimum wage jobs from other states.
Hank: Hey, wait a minute! They weren’t all minimum wage jobs!
Tom: That’s right – some of them were Texas state government jobs.
Hank: Hey, jobs are jobs, right? So tell me why Rick Perry’s job creation methods won’t work for America!
Tom: Because America can’t steal jobs from other countries, like Texas stole jobs from California and Arizona. And because, at the moment, Perry is running against the concept of government jobs. He wants to reduce the federal work force and he’s opposed to government-funded public works projects – like infrastructure repair, for example – to provide employment for millions of unemployed in the construction sector. So if he doesn’t suddenly turn into a Socialist the day after he’s inaugurated, that’s not going to happen, either. Bottom line, neither of the two major strategies he used to create jobs in Texas are going to create jobs for America as whole.
Hank: I donno, maybe you’re right, but look, Tom, it really doesn’t matter to you who’s in the White House, does it?
Tom: No, not really.
Hank: You’re going to make money dispensing advice, no matter if the Democrats or the Republicans control Congress and the White House, right?
Tom: True.
Hank: And it would be a really, really good thing if your sister’s husband had a high-paying job again, wouldn’t it?
Tom: I must admit, I can’t argue with that proposition.
Hank: So work with me here. There are lots of people on the Perry campaign, and he won’t be able to hand out nice jobs to all of them when he’s President. So I want to stand out, get noticed. I need some ideas.
Tom: Ideas?
Hank: Yeah, ideas – clever stuff I can do to get Big Rick’s attention. Like, for instance, what can Perry do to deal with Ron Paul?
Tom: First, he should avoid talking about the things they both agree on, like having lots of powerful firearms around the house, getting rid of the Internal Revenue Service, shutting down the Federal Reserve system, and going back to the gold standard.
Hank: Why?
Tom: Because Ron Paul has several decades more experience thinking about that insane crap than Rick Perry does.
Hank: Okay, so what?
Tom: Look, Ron Paul may be nuts, but he’s also about twice as smart as Rick Perry. Ron Paul is a master of logic, and any time Perry tries to debate him about things that are even halfway sensible, Ron Paul is going to make Perry look like a complete fool. Consequently, Perry should only argue with Ron Paul about subjects where, as a result of Ron Paul’s strict application of logic to Libertarian thought, Ron Paul has derived political doctrines which dramatically demonstrate the absurd lunacies inherent in consistently following Libertarian philosophy to its logical conclusions.
Hank: Such as what?
Tom: Legalized recreational drug use; legalized prostitution; gay marriage; and, of course, withdrawing America from its role as the world’s policeman. All Perry should ever talk to Ron Paul about is Ron Paul’s commitment to letting gay, junkie prostitutes get married…
Hank: “… letting gay, junkie prostitutes…” hold on, I want to make sure I get all of this… “…get married.”
Tom: … and pulling out of South Korea so the North Koreans can invade it.”
Hank: “… so the North Koreans can invade it…”
Tom: .. and letting gasoline go up to twenty dollars a gallon when the Arabs get ticked off about Israel.”
Hank: “… ticked off about Israel.” Okay, got it. How about Mitt Romney?
Tom: Once, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a politician who drove off a bridge in a car with his secretary. He was married, she was not. She died, he did not. That bridge was in a place called Chappaquiddick Island. In a subsequent election, another politician completely vitiated that first politician’s campaign merely by stating, over and over again, that he, that second politician, was not going to make Chappaquiddick an issue.
Hank: Okay, yeah, and?
Tom: Mitt Romney is a Mormon. The Mormon religion is a polygamous cult invented in 1833 by a schizophrenic megalomaniac sex fiend named Joseph Smith. Even today, the media are full of lurid stories concerning the Mormons – there’s Warren Jeffs, a middle-aged Mormon cult leader who was recently found guilty of child molestation, and the Kingston Clan, an organized crime family currently under investigation by numerous law enforcement organizations. Everybody knows about these stories, and many, many, more, just as everybody knew about the Chappaquiddick incident. So, all Rick Perry ever has to do concerning Mitt Romney is to say, over and over again, that he’s not going to make Mormonism an issue.
Hank: That’s all?
Tom: As with Ron Paul, Rick Perry does not want to get into any extended debates with Mitt Romney. Romney’s a master debater and Perry will come out of any such encounter sorely beaten.
Hank: ”… master debater… sorely beaten…” Okay. What about Bachmann?
Tom: She’s a woman; Perry’s a man. She’s shrill, short and grating; Perry’s tall and has a nice, pleasant Texas drawl. Ergo, Perry should simply ignore her.
Hank: What about whatshisname, the black guy from Godfather’s Pizza?
Tom: You mean, Herman Cain.
Hank: Yeah, okay, what about him?
Tom: I think you just answered your own question.
Hank: Oh… yeah, I guess I did. How about John Huntsman?
Tom: Double whammy – not only is he a Mormon, too, he also worked for Obama. All Perry needs to do is say, over and over again, that he isn’t going to make affiliation with the Obama administration an issue, either. Of course, Huntsman also plays classical music and speaks Chinese, both of which conclusively prove he’s too much of an elitist to be President. If he really wants to stomp on Huntsman, Perry can always allude to that.
Hank: Newt Gingrich?
Tom: Look up “yesterday’s news” in the dictionary, and there’s a picture of Newt Gingrich – he hasn’t had anything original to say since about 1996. So, Perry needs to have someone on his staff – you for instance – research what Gingrich said, back when what he said mattered, and document it thoroughly. Then, whenever Perry confronts him, whoever’s prompting Perry through his earpiece – you for instance – should respond, “That’s the same thing you said in 1993 (or whatever). Haven’t things changed any for you since then?” All you really need to do is rephrase that same rejoinder in several different ways, and Perry will be playing the old “There you go again” game with Gingrich, just like Ronald Reagan debating Jimmy Carter.
Hank: Got it. Fine, then. How about… about… uh.. um…
Tom: Gary Johnson, Fred Karger, Andy Martin, Thad McCotter, Jimmy McMillan, Tom Miller, Buddy Roemer, Rick Santorum and Vern Wuensche?
Hank: Who?
Tom: Exactly. With respect to those candidates, I would advise Perry do precisely the same thing that politician from planet Chappaquiddick did so long, long ago, in that galaxy so far, far away.
Hank: Which is what?
Tom: Drive off that bridge when he comes to it.
Hank: Oops, got a call coming in, and it looks like it’s from Big Rick himself!
Tom: I’ll let you go then, good luck.
Hank: Thanks! ‘Bye!