Texas creationist Rick Perry and God's plan for America

Can we agree that Texas Governor Rick Perry's presidential run is an unfolding three ring disaster disaster for the GOP?

Perry barely graduated from a minor Texas state college with a degree in animal husbandry, he has no graduate or professional school degree, and now he has serious ambitions to rewrite the United States Constitution and lead this nation?

If you're comfortable with that thought then you're comfortable with hastening the decline of the American century. You have reached the point where your reason has utterly capitulated to your ideology. You've become so used to extremists running the GOP show you can no longer see them.

You've gone nuts, in other words. Pardon me if I don't join you.

A five minute Google search will confirm what Karl Rove has been shouting about Rick Perry all week: if George W.Bush and Rick Perry were brothers then people would refer to Bush as 'the smart one.'

This is a man who last week hosted a high profile prayer rally featuring some of the most bigoted pastors in America prior to announcing his candidacy. If you're not aware Perry's 'prayer rally' was funded and co-sponsored by the American Family Association, whose spokesman Bryan Fischer claimed last week that the Nazi Party was founded by homosexuals in a Munich gay bar.

I'm not kidding, I couldn't make this stuff up, click this link and see for yourself.

Tidy isn't it: first the gays created the most evil far right fascist organization in human history, then they targeted themselves for extermination. Or something. Who the hell knows. I haven't been having seizures or talking in tongues so I have no idea where Fischer is getting his information from.

Giving a big public endorsement to these unhinged God botherers was not wise. Because in announcing their candidacy most politicians want to create a welcoming platform to illustrate they're part of the mainstream - but not Rick Perry. He chose instead to exclusively court his white, mostly southern evangelical base. Everyone outside the circle could take a hike.

Like Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, for example. Last week Perry described him as 'treacherous' and 'treasonous' - and then he startled his hearers and the watching press corps by adding - 'I don't know what you all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas.'

A treacherous, treasonous Jewish man who would come to harm if he ever visited Texas? Oh boy. Could we have that in the original German, Herr Perry? That's not colorful speaking, that's a despicable threat. It's also a measure of how far to the right the GOP has lunged in recent years that Perry's words were only middy challenged.

But it was Perry's ardent creationism that really made the headlines last week. During a campaign stop in South Carolina on Friday he told a young supporter: 'God is how we got here.'

'In Texas' he added, 'we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools — because I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right.'

In fact Texas public schools do not teach creationism. Texas science standards do not call for teaching creationism in the classroom at all. How does the Governor of Texas not know the curriculum of the state's schools? Oh, right.

Another Perryesque eye-opener last week involved Bank of America Director of Public Policy James Mahoney. It was gratifying to see a beneficiary of bailout money assure Perry of his organizations financial support. Meanwhile Perry likes to talk up his job creation in Texas, which is largely due to stimulus money he said he wouldn't accept but did anyway.

But Texas actually leads the country in low-wage jobs. Texas has the highest percentage of people without health insurance. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured workers in the country at 27.4 percent. Texas leads America in dropouts.

Given these shocking findings, apparently Texas is doing a standup job messing with with itself. For all his recent talk of secession from the Union,  his state has done well by it.

But I think America can do without another Texas Governor in the White House for the time being. We've had one recently anyway and we all know how that worked out.