19 thoughts on “Does It Really Matter That Much?”

  3. When Krugman’s aliens finally arrive to stimulate the economy, President Perry can fight them just like in Independence Day.

  4. I haven’t seen Barack Obama pilot anything except a bicycle.

    There’s a picture somewhere of the God-King in a bumper car.

  6. Yeah, when do we get the dramatic confrontation between an ex-military POTUS and a hapless terrorist and the line “Get . . . off . . . of . . . my . . . plane!”

  7. A candidate, however, should be a bit more careful.

    The root word “treason” and the “Federal Reserve Chairman” are used in the same sentence and the next thing you know it the airwaves are bouncing with him having called Ben Bernanke a traitor and by implication the President of the United States a traitor.

    And then you have folks (including Mr. Perry) all explaining that he never called Mr. Bernanke a traitor, the campaign utterance was all conditional and grammatically subjunctive in that Mr. Bernanke would be a traitor were he to take some imprudent action in the near future.

    To which most non-Right Blogosphere people are going, “Oh, c’mon, people!” Yeah, yeah, First Amendment and people on the right calling the President a Socialist and worse, but the words “traitor” and “treason” have a very specific historical, Constitutional, and criminal law code meaning, of a citizen of the United States betraying their country in some specific manner that aids and abets an enemy. Inflating the money supply for crass political political purposes, even for corrupt political purposes doesn’t meet that definition.

    And then the defense “I didn’t say he was a traitor, I only said his actions would be treasonous were he to . . .” There is a word for that kind of response — I think it is “coy.” Being coy is “cute” in certain circumstances and “stupid” in others.

    With respect to “flying jets in the Air Force”, if the man’s Air Force mission was to fly the C-130, forget all of the talk about flying bus and only a cargo plane, flying the C-130 constitutes honorable service in the United States Armed Forces. The C-130 is called upon to fly all manners of missions, many of them — flying into unimproved fields, air drops — involving danger.

    But John McCain “flew jets for the Navy” — he flew the A-4 attack jet into the heart of North Vietnam, and he commanded an entire squadron of A-7 attack jets. G W Bush “flew jets in the Texas ANG” — he flew the F-102 Interceptor, the mission of which was to attack a Doomsday flight of Russian bombers over Canada with a tactical nuclear anti-aircraft missile. For Mr. Perry or anyone speaking on his behalf to talk about “flying jets for the Air Force” for having had training sessions in the T-38, that is being coy.

    And being coy once too often will be interpreted justifiably as evidence of being stupid. There is no dishonor is flying the C-130 and simply say what you did.

  8. I’m reminded of the comments about US Major General Margaret Woodward who commanded the air war over Libya intervention before it was handed off to NATO. It was notable that she is a woman, but critical comments were directed at her not because she is female, but because before she was a general, she flew refueling missions and cargo planes rather than fighters.

    I can’t find the quote, but she said something about knowing logistics is more important than knowing dog fighting if you want to run a war. I would imagine the same is true for being a US President. And that’s the only nice thing I expect to say about Perry! 🙂

  9. “And that’s the only nice thing I expect to say about Perry!”

    Now that you got that out of the way, what are the other things you expect to say about Governor Perry. C’mon, lay it on me!

  11. Paul, I don’t have what you’re looking for (yet) but I read this piece with interest:
    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62214.html

    “There were some guys we always thought were the brainiacs, the ones who got into the minutiae of legislation,” recalled Cliff Johnson, an Austin lobbyist and close Perry friend and former roommate from their days serving together as Democratic legislators. “We sought information from trusted folks.”
    For Perry and Johnson, their go-to egghead was Ric Williamson, another Democrat from the class of ’84 who was a force in the Legislature and went on to become chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission before dying of a heart attack in 2007.

    “He smoked a pipe and stayed up late reading everything,” Johnson recalled of Williamson.

    —

    Except for the heart attack part, I’d rather have a “brainiac” like Williamson for President. I understand that many here disagree.

  12. I can’t find the quote, but she said something about knowing logistics is more important than knowing dog fighting if you want to run a war.

    “Losers study tactics, winners study logistics.”

    This is not a new quote.

  13. Here is my concern.

    If Mr. Perry was truly a slow learner, maybe he came from a humble background where there were not a lot of books in the house, maybe he had some personal setbacks, maybe he had bad college prep the high school he was able to attend, maybe he is not that intellectually gifted, and through grit and perserverance he stumbled through C’s and D’s at Texas A&M, by dint of determination got some B’s and the odd A to graduate, I would say more power too him. And perhaps as an adult he has advanced in wisdom and knowledge beyond what he was able to achieve in college, I would say the same.

    Let’s say his ambition was to become a great inventor and he stumbled through Electrical Engineering with those grades, undeterred by weak grades to achieve his life’s ambition, more power to him.

    Looking at the transcript, however, I see parallels to the young Mr. Obama, grinding a cigarette into the carpet in the dorm hallway because he had ‘tude. Something tells me from his success that Mr. Perry is not dumb, but his college performance is something worse in someone aspiring to the highest office — he just didn’t care about his grades in college, and to me, that is the real problem.

  14. Something tells me from his success that Mr. Perry is not dumb, but his college performance is something worse in someone aspiring to the highest office — he just didn’t care about his grades in college, and to me, that is the real problem.

    Well, we differ in our opinions, then. I don’t really give a damn.

    But then, my own transcripts are nothing to write home about.

    I still wonder why we don’t see Obama’s?

  15. I don’t care about a candidate’s youth. The article made me concerned about Perry’s current intellectual abilities and attitudes.

  16. You’re concerned about Perry’s ability to run a multi-billion economy that actually is creating jobs during a nationwide depression? What do you base that concern on, if not his grades from his youth? Or does economic growth offend you, Bob?

  17. The amount of effort it takes to get a 4.0 over a 3.5 is a lot but you really don’t learn anything additional. You have to ask yourself if your time is better spent jumping through hoops or doing other things with your time like working, fishing, reading, sleeping, drinking, playing with women, ect.

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