TEXAS GOVERNOR UTTERLY DESTROYS OWN PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS

Once again I'm delaying my weekly college football report. This time on purpose because something wonderful has happened.

From the Washington Post:

At Rick Perry’s Texas hunting spot, camp’s old racially charged name lingered

Paint Creek, Tex. — In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance.

“Niggerhead,” it read.

And

But the name of this particular parcel did not change for years after it became associated with Rick Perry, first as a private citizen, then as a state official and finally as Texas governor. Some locals still call it that. As recently as this summer, the slablike rock — lying flat, the name still faintly visible beneath a coat of white paint — remained by the gated entrance to the camp.

When asked last week, Perry said the word on the rock is an “offensive name that has no place in the modern world.”

But how, when or whether he dealt with it when he was using the property is less clear and adds a dimension to the emerging biography of Perry, who quickly moved into the top tier of Republican presidential candidates when he entered the race in August.

More here.

"Ni$$erhead?" Really? Really?!?

This is amazing. I mean, in some ways, it's not surprising at all, but it is amazing. Republicans have done a very nice job since the late 60s of walking the very fine line between the mainstream and Southern racism. That is, when the Democrats, as a party, decided to back the Civil Rights Movement, the opportunistic GOP developed its "Southern Strategy," aimed at picking up the then alienated millions of racist Southern white Democrats, by using coded language understood by asshole rednecks from Virginia to Texas, but not by anybody else. Republicans started to speak about "state's rights," a phrase dating back to the Confederacy, and well remembered by Southern whites, and "law and order," which sounds benign enough, but was perceived in the South as pertaining to civil rights marches and demonstrations. And it sure did the trick. The once solidly Democratic South is now solidly Republican, very much thanks to the Party's decision to swim in the sewers.

That's why Perry's ranch is so amazing. Republicans have been playing this game for years: walk the racist walk, enacting policy and legislation that fucks African Americans in very unpleasant ways, but never talk the racist talk, unless it's couched in arcane phraseology only understood by racist Southerners. I mean, the GOP is good at this; they've had decades of practice. But dumbfuck Perry just performed the political equivalent of fumbling the snap and turning the ball over to the other team. Nudge and wink Republican racism is utterly routine at this point, and Perry botches it like a total amateur.

Typical Aggie.

Well, his total flameout is America's gain. Perry, for a week or two there, really looked like he had a shot at beating Obama. But not now. I mean, can't you just imagine it? The white good old boy from Texas with a ranch called "Ni$$erhead" versus this nation's first African American President. No fucking way in hell can Perry win now. I don't even think he can get the nomination, if only because the Republicans know he's toast.

I love the irony. GOP racism ruled out Sarah Palin only two weeks ago, and now Perry's own racism disqualifies him today. Evil does some good. We live in strange times.

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