Personally, I don’t think Rick Perry’s gaffe in last night’s debate was as major as people are making it out to be. Anyone can draw a blank under the spotlight. What he and others actually remembered to say was more embarrassing. I am not trying to defend Rick Perry’s intelligence, grasp of policy, or his debating skills. But what he was trying to say is that we should eliminate the Departments of Energy, Education, and Commerce. Maybe you could make an argument for eliminating the Energy and Commerce departments and rolling some of their responsibilities into other agencies, but what about Education?
Yes, it was cringe-worthy to watch Perry fumble around trying to recall some idiotic talking point his handlers had tried to imprint in his brain. But the talking point was the bigger sin. The only reason it didn’t seem like that is because the other candidates were all saying things that are just as idiotic.
As far as I am concerned, Republican debates are little more than 90-minute gaffes. Does anyone think anyone in the Republican field is capable of preventing Europe from bringing down our banking system again if it comes to that? If they can’t stand up to their base or challenge the myths they tell each other every day, how can they possibly avoid crashing this country back into the ditch where Bush and Cheney left it?
To listen to the Republicans talk, they would have let the U.S. auto industry just disappear, they would have let the financial sector collapse completely causing a global depression, and they wouldn’t have done one damn thing to help anyone who suffered as a result or one rational thing to fix the damage they’d caused. They talk such nonsense on such a consistent basis that there is no point in even debating them.
As we can see in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida, when they actually try to implement their ideas they don’t work and people hate them. How could they work? They’re based on fantasies.
