Not surprisingly, Perry has been the brunt of jokes on the morning radio shows, the blogs, talk radio, the liberal media for just over 36 hours now. What is so lovely [sarcasm] about this is that no one can remember anything else that happened in the debate. It’s great. The guy forgets what he was going to say and we all forget everything else he said and everything else the other debaters said. (Now how do we decide who’s the idiot?) People who know me well know that I have a thing for Perry. But this isn’t about that. I’m not defending my man, per se. Not in the “my man” sense. But I am a little defensive.
Here’s the first problem- there are entirely too many dadgum debates. I knew this was a bad idea from the start. Every single candidate is shooting him/herself in the foot by doing this. With many words comes much folly, right? Shut up and look pretty, y’all.
Second problem- We put too much weight on the debates. I realize this is the process we use to vet our candidates and sift the chaff, but are we really THAT concerned with how well our candidates can debate? They’re not trying out for the debate team. We’re trying to find someone to run our country, which I would hope would not primarily consist of smiling at the camera and politely arguing with everyone in sight.
Third problem- We watch these debates to see people screw up. It is way easier to discern a mistake than a “winning” answer. We do this in real life, too. For example, a couple weeks ago I was eavesdropping on a guy walking from a pub. He was saying that they had gone to have a few drinks at the… uhhh… what’s it called… uhhh… I came really close to turning around and saying, “Bar?” I mean, how hard is it to remember a three-letter word? Maybe the guy had a few too many drinks, I don’t know. But then again, how often do I lose my train of thought without any drinks? People get distracted, they forget words. But we can’t deny that we have fun pointing out others’ flaws. Who better to do it to than a politician who will never hear us directly?
Rick Perry had an “oops” moment. Hrmm… You mean governors say that too? Wow! Get over it, people. If the media were following me to catch every oops moment in my life nothing else would ever make news.
