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The Spectacle Blog
As we all know, this is a big week for GOP contenders. Thursday night's debate and Saturday's straw poll are important indicators for the media and Republican establishment as a sneak preview of their future candidate through the prism of perception. Of course, the straw poll is rigged through a stilted system of participatory imbursement -- don't forget Mitt Romney's hollow victory in the 2007 Ames ballot -- but a win's a win and one's performance can fundamentally make or break a candidate's media image.
Of course, one big name is conspicuously absent from the grand old party held this week in the Hawkeye State. With a campaign rollout planned for South Carolina, New Hampshire and Texas, Rick Perry threatens to overshadow the traditional kickstart to the Republican nomination. It's rumored that the longtime Texas governor may augur up his presidential intentions in South Carolina on Saturday, before formally declaring next week in his home state. Needless to say, whoever comes out on top in the straw poll is bound to share headlines with Governor Perry.
With Perry's candidacy looming, some of us international relations wonks have begun to take note of his foreign policy positions. As governor, Perry has been quite the internationalist, taking his traveling sales-pitch to China, Mexico, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Qatar, France and Sweden to support free-market, free trade investment in the great state of Texas. In a 2009 debate against primary opponent Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Perry plainly stated that his faith required him to support Israel. This latter statement was bolstered by his trip to the Holy Land where he accepted the Defender of Jerusalem Award before breaking bread with then-President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He put his medal where his mouth is on June 28, 2011, when he wrote Attorney General Eric Holder encouraging him to prosecute Americans who would participate in the "unacceptable provocation" of a Gaza Flotilla against Israel.
Now, Foreign Policy is reporting that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has introduced Perry to a cabal of would-be national security strategists including former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, former NSC expert William Luti, former Assistant U.S. Attorney and National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy, the Heritage Foundation's Asia expert Peter Brookes, and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalizad. Rumsfeld's office confirmed the group gathered last week in Austin to provide Perry with his first national security briefing as a potential presidential candidate.
So what do these names tell us? Well, within the galaxy of foreign policy analysts and experts these folks trend much closer to the neoconservatism of the Bush administration than the non-interventionist approach of Tea Party types like Michele Bachmann and Rand Paul, or the wishy-washiness we've gotten from Mitt Romney on the future of American troops in Afghanistan. As governor, Perry has suggested the deployment of American troops to Mexico to control drug violence and proceeded with the execution of a Mexican citizen, despite impassioned requests from their government, President Obama, the International Court of Justice and former President George W. Bush to stay the sentence.
Understood in context of the hard-line stance he's taken on matters south of the Rio Grande, his national security team suggests Perry's shaping up as the traditional defense hawk many conservative have been clamoring for in an age of Obama.
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WJ| 8.11.11 @ 1:56PM
The idiot neocons selling us down the road to hell. Perry can love illegal aliens and want more of them, he can push for the injection of Guardisil in your 12 year old daughters so they can have safer sex, he impose the Trans Texas corridor and nullify America's sovereign status but as long as he wants to kill mooslims then he is gold.
Occam's Tool| 8.11.11 @ 2:00PM
I like this guy. Without us, the world will be dramatically unsafe. We are surrounded, with very few exceptions (Israel being among them) with vermin and scum. It is best to blow things up over there than have a 9/11. It is better that tens of millions of Iranians die than a single American civilian have an ingrown toenail due to Iranian action.
Occam's Tool| 8.11.11 @ 2:04PM
Bachmann is not an isolationist. She just thinks our intervention in Libya is wacky---which it is. If we went in with nukes to get rid of Daffy Duck, that might be one thing---but what we're doing now is worthless, and she is correct on that.
Incidentally, no one at this site would call ME a non-interventionalist or isolationist. I believe in bringing the Arab countries all the nuclear power they crave---out in the open and in microseconds.
By the way, we need a fence on our border with Mexico patrolled heavily by men with quad 50s and the right to shoot.
Solo| 8.11.11 @ 2:15PM
Razor sharp is Occam, as usual!
I agree. Projecting power abroad in order to protect our interests here at home is a policy choice as old as the Republic itself. It is an even more important choice today; a technological age whereby an enemy's approach is measured in minutes instead of months.
Occam's Tool| 8.11.11 @ 4:26PM
Thank you, sir. High praise.
Zbigniew Mazurak| 8.11.11 @ 2:42PM
Ah, so Perry is another neocon?
Next!
(BTW, regardless of whether Perry is a neocon, I will not support him for any office, not even dog catcher, not even against B. Hussein Obama.)
Occam's Tool| 8.11.11 @ 4:27PM
ZM--please elaborate why Obama would be better than Perry. Interested in your reasoning.
soljerblue| 8.11.11 @ 9:49PM
I take it as an honor, Sir, to have the privilege of canceling out your -- ahem -- vote.
PattyMor| 8.11.11 @ 3:21PM
Since the Bilderberg's favorite GOP CandidateMitt Romney is faltering under the weight of Romenycare, they are debuting their second choice, Rick Perry. Apparently Rick met with them at a meeting in Turkey. And, he just LOVEs the TransTexas Corridor and MexCanUSA. The Perfect Candidate for the One World Gov'ment types.
Clint| 8.11.11 @ 3:21PM
" Perry supported Lance Armstrong’s 3 billion dollar Texas taxpayer funded medical research center. That’s not free market.
Rick Perry, secured a 300 million dollar business handout slush fund for him and just the two leaders of the legislature to dole out to whomever he felt like being friendly to. That’s corporate welfare, a recipe for corruption, and as bad as the TARP bailouts that caused the Tea Parties to explode all across America. In fact, he gave 20 million dollars to Countrywide Financial which later went bankrupt.
Perry supported a new state business tax. He set up toll road tax collection booths all over Texas highways. The Austin Tea Party and the Austin Toll Party booed Perry on the steps of the state Capitol for that.
Perry, signed an executive order forcing young Texas schoolgirls to get the HPV vaccine even if it was against their will — even if it was against their parents’ will — while his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Merck. Perry's judgment was so bad the Texas legislature revolted against him and overturned his decision."
The Tea Party Rebellion Ramps Up For The 2012 Elections.
Rise Up.
Solo| 8.11.11 @ 3:41PM
Yeah....preach it, Clint!
I hear he put little girls in FEMA camps, too. Probably on orders from his globalist NWO puppet masters at the Bildeberg Group, huh?
Get your facts straight.
RuPaul is never going to be President.
Get over it.
Clint| 8.11.11 @ 4:20PM
Uh Oh !
The Crippled Russkie's In The Building
Occam's Tool| 8.11.11 @ 4:27PM
Better a Crippled Russkie than an Airhead (Clint Air), roundworm.
Clint| 8.11.11 @ 4:33PM
I
Better An American Patriot Than Nut Bag Neo-Chickenhawk Coward Traitor Bastard,Tool Job.
The Tea Party Steps On Tool Job's Face.
Wipe Your Feet.
C Bowen| 8.11.11 @ 4:34PM
LOL--the gang that thought Iraq was a threat?
David T| 8.11.11 @ 4:52PM
Rick & Rudy 2012
Unbeatable
TLS| 8.11.11 @ 5:03PM
Rudy? I don't think so.
Perry/Bachmann 2012, now that's unbeatable.
Occam's Tool| 8.11.11 @ 4:57PM
Again, the HPV vaccine prevents the development of cervical cancer, which is important if girls are raped. It is obvious Clint has no children.
C Bowen| 8.11.11 @ 5:11PM
So what you are saying is that there isn't a genital wart epidemic but a rape epidemic with 11 year olds?
LOL--Texas sounds like the Third World.
Clint| 8.11.11 @ 5:05PM
Again, Screwball Bottom Of The Barrel, Sorry-Ass Government Shrink, Tool Job Wants Big Government To Usurp The Rights of Parents.
The Tea Party Rebellion Steps On Tool Job's Face.
Wipe Your Feet.
soljerblue| 8.11.11 @ 9:55PM
Clint, why don't you just shut your dam mouth and leave. No one, especially not the Tea Party needs your foul tongue and even nastier name calling.
Come to think of it, you sound more like some moron from the HufPo.
Nite| 8.11.11 @ 8:43PM
I think Democrats are trashing Perry again. They seem to be hitting all the conservative sites and saying the same things. HPV vaccine is a public health issue. You give the vaccine prior to someone becoming sexually active. In Texas, parents can ALWAYS opt out of immunizations. Immunizations for numerous diseases always start at a young age, this was no different. Perry is a conservative, Christian, strong on states rights, a Defense Hawk, has a good resume (unlike Obama), and doesn't need a teleprompter. I would like to see a Perry and Col. Alan West ticket. Col. West is from Florida. Another good ticket would be a pairing with a strong Hispanic conservative. I imagine that Perry would seek a strong minority running mate. He can beat Obama, and best of all he does not need a teleprompter.
soljerblue| 8.11.11 @ 9:56PM
we really need a "flag" button on the site to get rid of offal like this jerk.
Luke Weyland| 8.12.11 @ 7:57PM
The flotilla had no intention of travelling to Israel.
They were going to Gaza. An area not regarded as part of Israel by the UN. They were bringing food, medicines, educational and building materials. But most of all, hope. There were no weapons. On the boats were a number of Human rights activists, including octogenerian Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.