Detroit — The Obama White House has hardly concealed its preference for Mitt Romney as an opponent, given his Northeast base, his suitability as a class-warfare foil, and especially Romneycare. Rick Perry, by contrast, is a Democrat’s worst nightmare — a conservative southerner from hard-scrabble beginnings with a populist touch.
So it’s no surprise that the Democrats’ allies at the Washington Post this weekend ran a story that is the most vile, noxious story since Democrats spoon-fed NPR the Clarence Thomas coke-can fable in 1991.
Never mind that the story is shakily sourced, that it’s about a rock, that it obscures the fact that the Perrys merely leased the land for hunting (giving them hunting rights only — if the Perrys painted over the rock, it would have been an act of disobedience). The Left will stop at nothing to destroy him. Really, the story is itself bigoted, an attempt by an east-coast establishment paper to caricature southerners as racists. (Check the Post’s library — I bet they have a copy of Huckleberry Finn with the N-word in it. And how about their repeated use of the term “Redskins” in their sports section?)
Based on what we already know about Perry, the story’s implication of racism seems unfounded. Perry repeatedly promoted black Texas judge Wallace Jefferson (Texas’s first black supreme-court justice), and he is being hit from the right for his stance on another issue involving people of color (immigration).
Still, this heinous Democratic tactic is getting ample help from the Stupid Party.
“For him to leave [the N-word] there as long as he did before I hear that they finally painted over it is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country,” GOP candidate Herman Cain told Fox News, picking up the Democrats’ race card.
The rest of the GOP has been pretending that this election is about immigration and making Perry their poster-boy piñata. Meanwhile, in Detroit, unemployment rages at 50 percent and drive-by shootings are a daily occurrence.
The Post’s mainstream-media brethren are already calling N-gate a threat to Perry’s candidacy. Certainly it will be a test of Perry’s forcefulness. (In 1991, Thomas passed the test with his famous “high-tech lynching” comment, which rocked Democrats back on their heels.) But this isn’t about Perry. This is about a mainstream media that is more determined to carry water for Democratic smear campaigns than to inform its readers of the real problems facing this nation.
The left-wing media have realized they can't defend a president who takes a sledgehammer to the economy every day. So, to protect him, they have to attack his opponents. While Obama's tax and regulate policies devastate the economy, the media goes into hysterics because somebody booed a soldier at a debate or Perry leased a piece of land that had a rock with a naughty word on it thirty years ago.
And the MFM wonders why they are considered out of touch.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThanks for writing this. The tacit cooperation of Democrats/liberal media and second tier Republican candidates in taking down Perry is incredible.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseActually the real question is: who wrote 'the N word' on the rock: If a white person, the writing is just more evidence of how white people are evil forever; if a black person, the rock is a beautiful piece of art and defacing the rock by painting it over is a piece of cultural vandalism.
If the 'word' was painted by someone with a spanish last name, I'll get back to you because the details are still being worked out.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYeah; well, Cain just lost me on this one. If you read the reports, and listen to what Perry says his family took what action they could, when they knew about it.
That Cain cannot seem to understand the timeline demonstrates that either a) he's not too bright or b) he would prefer to score a knock out on Perry.
I really don't believe it's a.
So now, Mr. Cain is using a half-baked racial meme in order to eliminate a competitor.
Yeah, like I said - Just lost me for good.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCain's comments on the rock story were disappointing to me. I guess I'd taken it for granted that he's a guy who would respond to a story like that by saying something like "Wasn't Rick's rock, and anyhow that's a word folks in the black community use and hear every day so maybe y'all ought to thicken up your skins a bit and let's focus on things many orders of magnitude more consequential, okay?"
But, alas, we don't seem to be there yet.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Post is just pointing out that they do a much better job of whitewashing and the Perrys should have outsourced the work to them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseZing!!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThey're just getting warmed up for the main event. Perry ought to start referring to this as "Dan Rather" fake reporting, and thank the WaPost for its early endorsement of Obama for President. In fact, from a primary point of view, he should use this as an opportunity to reconnect with the GOP voters he lost with his "heartless" comment.
Remind GOP voters that the WaPost would not be taking early orders from the Obama Administration unless Obama was really frightened Perry might win.
Romney will get it just as bad for his Mormonism and being too "white". You watch. But they have to kill Perry first.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseProposed statement from the Perry campaign: "I'd like to thank the Washington Post for their endorsement today. Usually, it takes until the general election for the Washington Post and other media outlets to publish fake reports of Republican racism. This week's WaPost endorsement certifies that I am the Conservative candidate for President which the Obama Administration and DC establishment fear the most. And so, it is with great honor that I accept the Washington Post's back handed endorsement...and look forward to reading more fake reports in their pages in the future. In fact, in a show of mutual goodwill, I hereby call for Dan Rather to be named Editor of the Washington Post."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAny Republican candidate who gets the GOP nomination is going to get slammed by the liberal media. Even Huntsman.
But Payne's suggestion that this is some liberal plot to defeat Perry because he can win is just absurd. You can't keep a plot like that secret when you've got a zillion liberal blogs today, unless you're paranoid enough to believe that all those bloggers got together to conceal the truth.
I've been reading what they've been saying. It's not a conspiracy to defeat Perry because they think he can win. They've already conceded that Obama is in trouble and may well lose to any Republican.
It's a belief that if they have to live with a Republican president for 4 years, Romney is someone they can tolerate--and maybe even work with.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, let's see. Do we want to consider the relative merits of five or six excellent conservatives who want to rein in an out-of-control and increasingly authoritarian federal government, or do we want to talk about painted rocks, Sarah Palin's children, Michelle Bachmann's religion and husband's job, Ron Paul's age, Newt Gingrich's fund-raising etc?
It's the "Whack-a-Mole" strategy. The media and the establishment use it against any GOP conservative Presidential candidate who shows signs of strength; and if they get their way (Huntsman or Romney, who get entirely different coverage), they will then turn on Romney.
Probably claim he wears Mormon underwear, or something equally crucial to the Republic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you Henry,
The silence at the corner about this shameless attempt at a smear has been deafening. Well done.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI didn't make it past this part of the post: "Rick Perry, by contrast, is a Democrat’s worst nightmare..."
Boy, if the Democrats worst nightmare is a guy who was so left that he headed up Al Gore's Texas campaign, we are in trouble.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn 1988, Gore was the most conservative Democrat running, in a Democratic party that was much more conservative than is the party today.
This "he headed up Gore's campaign" has got to be the weakest attack ever invented.
Just shows the depseration of some.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry, dude. You can't rationalize ManBearPig.
It's not a deal breaker, but it is not a "So what?" thing, either.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusein 1988, Perry was a prominent Democrat. Which Democrat candidate should he have been involved with?
It's nothing but a big so what.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI can think of few things worse than a Republican who, in the past, was simultaneously an adult and a Democrat.
That leaves some serious atoning and bashing to do. I'm talking Reagan-style atoning and bashing. Every time he attacks anybody or anything from the left side (i.e. tuition breaks for criminals), that has the opposite effect.
Trust is important. I don't trust Romney, at all - and for the things about him that I do trust (you can trust in his "compassionate conservatism"), he is wrong, wrong, wrong.
For Perry to have ever seen anything in Gore is a mighty big "WHAT?!", not "So?".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWest Texas used to be all Conservative Democrat. In the last thirty years as the Democrats moved to the left, West Texas moved into the Republican column. Rick Perry is and has always been a Conservative. His change in party in 1988 reflects the changing Democrat party.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOk. So it's no different than when Reagan, as a Democrat, endorsed Adlai Stevenson in '52 and '56 and Kennedy in '60, but became a Republican, later.
Al. Gore. We're talking Al Gore.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Gore of today bears no relationship to the Gore of 1988. It's almost like they are two different people.
Losing to Bush drove Gore off the deep end, he's been nutso ever since.
As I said before, Gore was the most conservative Democrat, in a Democrat party that was much more conservative than it is today.
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