Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Perry Fed Up With His Book "Fed Up?"

Texas Governor-turned-Presidential candidate Rick Perry is already fed up with his controversial political book "Fed Up " published just last November. Fed Up is a 240-page argument for ten amendment states' rights, which argues that everything from child labor laws to the Clean Air Act to Medicare violates the Constitution and states' rights. As it turns out, the many outlandish ideas Perry argues in his book are unpopular with a large portion of voters — so Perry’s campaign is trying to say Perry doesn't really believe the augments he wrote in his book.

MySanAntonio.com: Few phenomena are more depressing than watching the national media ramp up to speed on a subject with which you are somewhat familiar. The shotgun vetting of Texas Gov. Rick Perry fits that bill.

We've seen commentators discuss his manliness in depth (Kathleen Parker), compare him to former President George W. Bush in part because both pronounce “nuclear” the same way (CNN's Jeanne Moos) and tout him as the anti-intellectual Aggie candidate who drives the liberals crazy (Rich Lowry).

The good news is that it has taken less than a week for Perry's extreme views on a range of subjects to take hold in the public consciousness, even with Republican voters — helped in no small part by Perry himself.

His campaign strategy, as best I understand it, is to open up roughly one can of crazy per day.

Among other gems, the governor has suggested that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, a Bush appointee, would be committing treason if he attempted to jump-start the economy again by infusing it with more paper money. He also breezily dismissed the science behind global warming. And he told a little kid in New Hampshire that we teach creationism in Texas public schools, even though it's unconstitutional to do so.

The fear now is that Perry may soon run out of topics on which to sound crazy. But if I were on the campaign trail, I'd ask him to expound on where he thinks President Barack Obama was born. If he expressed any doubt, I'd ask the obvious follow-up — whether he thinks Americans should bury canned goods and ammunition in their backyards.

If he keeps going at the current pace, Perry will save reporters at the national level the trouble of reading his book, “Fed Up!” which contains more outlandish ideas. But there remains enough infatuation with Perry's superficial charms to make reading the book necessary.

Read the full story @ MySanAntonio.com

Perry's communications director, Ray Sullivan told the Wall Street Journal that Fed Up "is a look back, not a path forward." Rather Perry wrote the book, "as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto."

Sullivan, said that he [personally with his own ears] never heard the governor suggest Social Security was unconstitutional. Not only that, Mr. Sullivan said, but “Fed Up!” is not meant to reflect the governor’s current views on how to fix the program. [...]

Mr. Sullivan acknowledged that many passages in Mr. Perry’s “Fed Up!” could dog his presidential campaign. The book, Mr. Sullivan said, “is a look back, not a path forward.” It was written “as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto,” Mr. Sullivan said.

The campaign’s disavowal of “Fed Up!” is itself very new. At Mr. Perry’s first campaign stop in Iowa just a short time ago, a questioner asked the governor to talk about how he would fix the country’s rickety entitlement programs. Mr. Perry shot back: “Have you read my book, ‘Fed Up!’ Get a copy and read it.”

Most of Perry's book criticizes the New Deal, Great Society, and Obama administration policies, among others. But there are plenty of shoulds, coulds, and ought tos -- both explicit or implicit -- scattered throughout the book, which are forward looking statements for action.

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