Rick Perry
When Rick Perry accuses Obama of “appeasement”
Is the Texas governor too ignorant to know the term is associated with placating and not fighting Adolf Hitler?
Wow, the right-wing is angry because MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and I reminded people of the history behind the term “appeasement” on “Hardball” today, after Rick Perry’s accused President Obama of appeasing Israel’s enemies. Of course “appeasement” most famously refers to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of placating Adolf Hitler as long as possible rather than fighting him, even conceding part of Czechoslovakia to Germany in order to buy peace. As we know, it didn’t work.
Perry held a press conference with right-wing Orthodox Jews to accuse Obama of appeasing Israel’s enemies in his dealings with the Palestinians – in the very city and on the very day Obama promised to do something quite unpopular in the Arab world, and veto any U.N. resolution acknowledging a Palestinian state. Perry also out-Israeli’d the Israelis, suggesting he’d cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority – which would rock their security forces since they rely on our funding. He also came out in favor of expanded Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories, breaking with every American president since Richard Nixon. Benjamin Netanyahu made Perry irrelevant by warmly and publicly thanking Obama for his veto threat Wednesday afternoon.
Of course Perry is pandering to Jews who will almost certainly never vote for him, but more importantly, to his evangelical Christian base, which wants to see the Jewish people return to the Holy Land so that Jesus can return – at which time the fate of Jews who don’t accept Jesus as messiah is kind of grim. Newsbusters thinks it’s a shonda that Matthews and I brought up the Chamberlain-Hitler reference in connection with Perry’s use of the term “appeasement.” Maybe they’re saying Perry is too stupid to have known that history, so it’s unfair for us to assume he was referencing it?
Here’s our conversation with the Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman:
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Joan Walsh is Salon's editor at large. More Joan Walsh.
Romney rivals all become socialists, to horror of conservatives
GOP candidates trash capitalism, and good on them
Mitt Romney and Rick Perry (Credit: AP) Mitt Romney accidentally said he likes firing people the other day, sort of. A fair reading of his statement, in context, is much less damning. He was talking about insurance companies, and he was saying he likes the idea that a consumer can “fire” someone providing them a service and choose someone else to provide that service, which is well and good.
(I happen to think the “fire people” gaffe did reveal something essential about Romney’s character: Not that he’s a heartless capitalist robber baron, but that the man is incapable of speaking off-the-cuff without saying something bizarre and tone-deaf. “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me” is just a really weird phrase, and an odd way of expressing a perfectly reasonable sentiment.)
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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
Today’s GOP makes Mississippi look liberal
Most 2012 contenders back a personhood amendment too extreme for a red, red state, while Rick Perry hits a new low VIDEO
Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman (Credit: AP) The flailing Rick Perry is trying to revive his sinking campaign by histrionically announcing he’s changed his views on abortion and now opposes it even in cases of rape and incest. Apparently Perry met a young woman who’d been conceived as a result of rape, and that changed his mind.
“Looking in her eyes, I couldn’t come up with an answer to defend the exemptions for rape and incest,” he said at a “tele-town hall” sponsored by far-right Iowa radio host Steve Deace. “And over the course of the last few weeks, the Christmas holidays and reflecting on that … all I can say is that God was working on my heart.”
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“Rick Perry is just like my dad”
A conservative endorsement
Rick Perry (Credit: AP/Eric Gay) Ten contributors to the conservative blog RedState have collaborated on a post endorsing Rick Perry for the presidency. Yes, that Rick Perry. The one who hasn’t led a national poll of Republicans since late September. The one who only makes headlines when he says something amusingly stupid. “Don’t settle,” their headline urges. Don’t settle for someone who doesn’t routinely humiliate himself every single time he attempts to speak extemporaneously.
The post lays out Perry’s oft-told history of being a true conservative tax-cuttin’ god-fearin’ job-creator, says every other candidate is vulnerable and insists that Perry can win. But what about the fact that the guy appears to be the dumbest person in the room every time he’s in front of a camera? Oh, that’s a minor problem, really.
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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
Rick Perry: More disliked than Rebecca Black
As his ad goes viral -- and divides his campaign -- the Texas governor proves again to be a world-class punch line VIDEO
Rick Perry (Credit: rickperry.org) Which FTD Thank You bouquet do you think John Pike sent Rick Perry this week? Did he go for the “Sweet Splendor” or the “Because You’re Special”? Maybe he opted for the Hickory Farms sausage and cheese box? He must have done something grand, because who else but Rick Perry could have provided the Internet with the most funny-horrible thing since Pepper Spray Cop?
You’ve seen the “Strong” video by now. Your friends have posted it all over Facebook, usually with a string of LOLs underneath. In a campaign ad that, unfortunately for Perry, strongly evokes both Heath Ledger’s tormented performance and his sartorial leanings in “Brokeback Mountain,” the man who uproariously still believes he has a shot at the White House says, “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.” He goes on to promise, “As president, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.” (Perry staffers are already distancing themselves from responsibility, with his top pollster calling the ad “nuts.”)
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Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.
Debate advice for Rick Perry – slam Newt!
The Texas governor needs a win, and he can get it by tying Gingrich to Mitt Romney. They're flip and flop VIDEO
Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney (Credit: Reuters/Scott Audette) This is Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s moment. The GOP primary campaign has always been an effort to winnow the many candidates down to two: Mitt Romney and Not Mitt Romney. It’s got to be killing Perry (assuming he feels any pain at all) to watch Gingrich emerge as the latest Not Mitt.
Gingrich is still surging in the polls – the latest to find him in first place is CNN – and while I think his history of selling himself to corporate America will ultimately turn off Tea Partyers, what do I know about Tea Partyers, anyway? I try to give them credit for ideological consistency – they supposedly hate crony capitalism, and Newt is its poster boy – but I may be politically naive in that.
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