His transcripts were made public a few weeks ago. Among other things he got a C in PE.
If Molly Ivins knew the material she was missing out on she’d die.
I can’t prove that Perry and Rove had her killed. But if I could make him deny it, she would be proud of me.
Got bit by the Google bug about Perry’s veteran status. Lots of hits, all say almost exactly the same thing. Served four years, flew C-130 cargo planes, retired as a Captain. And that’s it.
Innuendo follows, based on a solid foundation of dark suspicion and mistrust, with a few scatterings of fact and second-hand observations. Be warned.
A bit odd. Politicians love to exploit their military records, if remotely possible. Its like catnip cocaine, they love it, love it, love it. He enters the Air Force from Texas A&M, having garnered a modest record of mediocrity. Clearly, he did not enter as an Airman and work his way up to pilot’s school. In like, what, six months?
So, he goes in as a second Lt and is on the fast track for pilot’s school? Based on what, he was an Eagle Scout who got a D in Trig? No evidence of powerful friends or relations, like GeeDub. So howcum?
And out after only four-five years? Don’t you pretty much have to declare yourself a career man to get that sort of treatment? Takes a long time and a lot of money to train a pilot, I’m thinking he wasn’t expecting to leave after only four years. So why? When was he promoted? He one of those guys who made the next rank as they showed him the door? “You can retire as Captain but you will only be a Major if you go to Heaven.”
Just as I said, dark suspicions. No proof. Yet. Four years at A&M, pages of material. Four years in the Air Force, two sentences. On a subject most of these guys love to talk about.
I take it as a positive sign for that Perry that he’s already starting to drive y’all nuts in the same way “dark suspicions” about Vince Foster, Arkansas State Troopers and various bimbo eruptions had conservatives foaming at the mouth about Clinton in the early 90s.
Don’t you need to be fairly smart to be an Af pilot?
How do you define “smart”?
To be a pilot you have to physically qualify, be able to learn the instructions and be able to execute those lessons. You don’t have to have a moral compass, empathy, know anything about foreign policy, know Constitutional law, know macro-economics or know that you are being used by people that only have their own best interests in mind. To be a pilot you have to be able to fly a plane. That’s not an easy task but it says very little about someone’s overall intelligence. I know of a very reputable heart surgeon who is a first class bigot, paranoid and has the economic sense of a 5 year old. Is he “smart”? You tell me.
I have no idea what Perry’s record was in the AF. John McCain cracked up 5 planes. I think the Navy told the NVA tp keep the guy because they couldn’t afford him. GWB, for whatever reason, just didn’t show up for duty and that was good for the DOD budget.
Being a pilot doesn’t qualify anybody for anything other than flying a plane.
Here it is. a C in PE. This guy was serious fuckup or really stupid.
Principles of Economics: D
I know people who got a D in economics. They were uniformly lazy and/or stupid. Usually “and”.
I don’t dispute that Rick Perry is a doofus. However, in the interest of being fair (and boasting about my wife), I would like to point out that when I told my wife “Rick Perry got a C in gym!” she replied, sweetly, “I got a C in gym.” Oh. After somehow managing to get a C in undergrad PE, my wife went on to graduate, then kept right on going and graduated from a prestigous med school, completed a residency and a fellowship at highly regarded institutions, went into academic practice, and got pretty widely published in her field. In a few months, she will get her name in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. So… it is at least possible to get a C in PE and still be a pretty sharp cookie.
Just to be fair.
Rick Perry is not one of those people, but I thought I should mention this.
ETA: I have no particular interest in being fair about all those other Cs and Ds. The guy is a boob.
This needs re-iterating (though nobody in this thread seems to be falling into this trap).
Perry, while not anybody’s idea of an effective administrator or governor, knows his Texas politics and how to maintain his power.
Some of it is savvy (like not daring to debate Bill White). A lot of it is just plain luck. He’s had opponents basically implode on him. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s gubernatorial campaign is the latest example. Her campaign was remarkably inept for a politician of her experience.
I’m of the opinion he’s gotten overconfident from a couple years of speaking to receptive Texas and Tea Party crowds and is going to learn he’s not always going to get favorable crowds and softball questions when he’s on the real national circuit.
Like the twit he is, he’s already called a Bush appointee a traitor and has already been called out for the blatantly political move of announcing his candidacy in South Carolina after the Iowa straw poll. He (or at least his team) is already learning things aren’t so easy outside of Texas.
When Carl Rove starts to worry about this guy you know you are neck deep in shit. Dr. Frankenstein (Rove) has created monsters, now he is seeing the fruit of his labors. It ain’t pretty.
I can’t tell if y’all are so worked up because you really hate Rick Perry, or that deep down in your blue hearts you are genuinely scared. Because, perhaps better than any other Repub candidate in the field, he can hit Obama over the head on the issues of the economy and government spending, which are pretty much the hottest topics du jour from where I’m sitting, and likely still will be 14 months from now.
Ron Paul supporter asks Rick Perry: “Considering state debt has nearly tripled and spending has increased by two thirds since you were governor, and also that ACORN considered your help their ‘proudest moment,’ what were the differences between him and the current liberal president?” Rick told the guy that he didn’t know what he was talking about, which was factually dubious: An intimate moment with Rick Perry The 27 second You-tube clip is a compelling presentation of ignorance and arrogance.
Per capita debt increased in Texas by an average of 15.6% annually when he was Governor, according to the charts posted by the Economist and originally created by Sarah Palin’s team. Caveat emptor.
In other news, a young boy asks Perry how old the earth is:
The earth is 4.5 billion years old.[1] Texas does not teach creationism in its public schools.
Quote of the Day: How Old is the Earth? – Mother Jones
Perry is a flashy guy. But he’s a leader of a squirrelly state: Republican primaries have a turnout ranging from 1-8% of the voting age population in Texas. GWBush had helped his father campaign in 1988, so he had a little practice with a variety of crowds. I suspect that Perry’s theatrical breadth might prove a little lacking.
[1] …which is not something I generally remember.
From the Dallas Morning News:
The article goes on to explain that 3,000 is not a “mega-church” by Dallas standards & that Lake Hills is actually Southern Baptist. (Back when Bush was starting the Iraq War, some Methodist clergy pointed out that their church was against That Sort Of Thing. And not all of SMU is happy about hosting the Second Bush Presidential Library, Bush The Smarter’s being at A&M.)
Concerning Perry’s AF commission–isn’t being in the Corps at A&M the same as ROTC? So, it was no big stretch. Between his short USAF career & his election to the state legislature (as a Democrat), Wikipedia says he helped his father farm cotton. Yup, quite the job creator!
The Perry thread in the Election forum is a fine place to discuss the serious issues. Several sites exist with arguments & references that show how he’s been a disaster for Texas & would be a disaster for the USA. I’ve supplied discussion & links there & will continue to do so.
This is The Pit.
Are you kidding me? It’s clear from the thread that many of us are FROM TEXAS and have more than a passing familiarity with his governance.
Even most Republicans in Texas can only work up a half-hearted grudging acceptance of the blithering idiot that presided over a minor collapse of state budget, education, children’s health care, and a slew of other issues. The Goodhair isn’t even all that popular in his own state but manages to win because we’d rather have that (R) than anything else in our governors. My own pet peeve with the man is the Trans Texas Corridor. I’d see him ridden out of the state on a rail just for that travesty alone. But he seems to have taken almost no political damage from that complete boondoggle.
Despite his complete ineptness at actually governing, we’ve seen somehow that he manages to win elections, even when he can only drum up 39% of the vote.
So, yes, I’m afraid. Because the man has been so lucky this far into his political career that he might actually extend his legacy of economic damage outside Texas. Don’t believe that “Texas job miracle” BS. Perry would have us believe he got businesses to come and start hiring. He’s got cause and effect mixed up. People moved here and businesses had to follow the population shift.
So, people are elsewhere, and then decide to move to Texas? From somewhere else. To Texas. Like, its hot as a bitch where you are, damp as a dishrag, and you say to yourself “Fuck this shit, I’m moving to Houston!” Or you’re on the beach in California, breeze coming in off the ocean, and you say to yourself “In just forty eight hours, I could be a hundred yards downwind of an oil refinery!”
I don’t get it.
Land is dirt cheap. Going outside in summer is like stepping into a blast furnace, but winter’s are pretty mild, and everybody has AC. No state income taxes (though high paying jobs are also not that common). If you managed to get a college degree and don’t mind working for “the man”, the oil business pays really, really well.
Also, a lot of them are immigrants.
“If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell.” – Maj. Gen Philip H. Sheridan, Reconstruction-era military governor of Texas.
(Now, if that quote makes you proud in an oddly twisted way, yup, you’re a Texan.)
This made me wonder what would happen if it were possible to cross Goodhair Perry with What-the-hair Blagojevich.
Maybe we’d get a cure for That’s-Not-Hair Trump?