October 20, 2011 8:02 AM

This just in: Barack Obama to blame for global climate change. And bunions.

(Also published at Firedoglake)

Pendleton, South Carolina (CNN) - Rick Perry’s wife Anita said Friday that she could sympathize with the plight of the unemployed because her son was forced to resign his job to take a more active role on his father’s presidential campaign. Anita Perry blamed the Obama administration for her son having to resign his position…. “My son had to resign his job because of federal regulations that Washington has put on us,” Mrs. Perry said while campaigning for her husband in South Carolina, after a voter shared the story of losing his job…. “He resigned his job two weeks ago because he can’t go out and campaign with his father because of SEC regulations,” she continued, referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission. “He has a wife… he’s trying to start a business. So I can empathize.”

If you listen to the Far Right, especially those of the Tea Party persuasion, you’d be left thinking that they believe Barack Obama is responsible for everything from the recession to higher gas prices to ingrown toenails. I didn’t know this, but evidently we lived in a veritable Paradise on Earth prior to Obama being sworn in on 1.20.09. Once he- GASP!!!…a black man and HORRORS!!…a Liberal- took possession of the Oval Office, America has suffered everything short of famine and a plague of locusts. The latest silliness came from Gov. Goodhair’s wife, Anita Perry. Mrs. Perry is blaming the Obama Administration for her son having to quit his job in order to work for his father’s Presidential campaign.

I don’t know what Perry fils does for a living other than the story says he’s an investment advisor. If SEC regulations limit political activities by people with an influence over other people’s money, then those are the rules of the game. Anyone who gets into that line of work knows the rules and understands that you can do one- manage other people’s money- or the the other- work for a political campaign- but not both. You don’t get to become an investment advisor and then whine about the rules when they become inconvenient. No doubt there’s a perfectly good reason for the SEC proscription on the sort of duplicity Anita Perry is whining about. A career that involves a significant fiduciary responsibility AND politics sounds like a recipe for disaster, if not corruption at the very least.

I might be inclined to give Mrs. Perry the benefit of the doubt, but she’s also the same person who’s being whining about how her husband’s being persecuted for his ultra-Conservative Christianity. Evidently, to her way of thinking, questioning a candidate’s inflexible and occasionally insensitive religious beliefs is de facto oppression…unless that candidate’s a Mormon. Given that Gov. Goodhair’s Christianity influences and impacts more of his policy positions, it’s difficult to see how his beliefs wouldn’t be fair game and open to question.

Being a Christian doesn’t confer upon a believer immunity from examination and questioning. If a candidate’s beliefs influence his or her politics, those beliefs should be examined, because they’re absolutely germane to discovering the type of leader a candidate would be. It’s interesting that neither Mrs. Perry nor her husband seem to have any problem with the whisper campaign that they’re, if not orchestrating, then at least condoning against Mitt Romney’s Mormon beliefs. So…closely examining one candidate’s Mormonism is fair and reasonable, but questioning another’s Christianity is beyond the pale? Yeah, right. Christianity may not be hypocritical, but Christians certainly can be, no?

Mrs. Perry, you may think yourself oppressed, but “oppressed” and “majority” generally don’t go together very well. By the way, your hypocrisy is showing again.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on October 20, 2011 8:02 AM.

How to defeat "The Man" was the previous entry in this blog.

Tea Party: brave American patriots. Occupy Wall Street: unwashed America-hating hippie freaks is the next entry in this blog.

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