Once upon a time, I twitted Condoleezza Rice a little. This was in 1999, when she was advising Gov. George W. Bush on foreign policy. Establishing his foreign-policy bona fides, she noted that he was “the governor of a border state.” I smiled, “So is Jesse Ventura” (the former pro wrestler who was governor of Minnesota). She smiled back, “No, a big border state — and the last president we had who had been governor of a big border state was Ronald Reagan.”
I thought of this long-ago exchange when reading a grisly news story this morning. It began, “The search for an American tourist reportedly shot dead on a border lake has led Texas Gov. Rick Perry to tangle with the Mexican government over the investigation and efforts to recover the body.”