There's America and then there's Texas Perry

Will Texas Gov. Rick Perry gallop into the GOP candidate field as the Republican Savior? God I hope so. Even better, I hope he sweeps to the nomination. Who is Perry? Hendrik Hertzberg (The New Yorker): "Yes, Perry wears more cowboy gear than a six-year-old boy on Halloween. Yes, he straps on his laser-sighted, hollow-point-bullet-loaded pistol whenever he goes jogging. Yes, he blew away a coyote that was supposedly “menacing his puppy” and left the bloody carcass for other joggers to trip over." Okay, how about his politics? Perry "loves the Constitution ... but he wants to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment. That is, he wants to outlaw the Federal income tax—a step which, given that he also wants to eliminate the capital-gains tax, the corporate-income tax, and the inheritance tax, would put Uncle Sam in a bit of a hole. He also wants to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. That is, he wants to take the power to elect senators away from the people and give it to back to state legislators." Oh, and "he thinks Texas has a right to secede from the Union." Oh, and when asked by Fox News today why he isn't popular in Texas, Perry said, "I say that a prophet is generally not loved in their hometown. That's both Biblical and practical." Um, a prophet? The swaggering Texan governor makes George W. Bush look like a nebbish New England college professor. Yah-hoo! Bring it on, pilgrim. Make Obama's day.