Fact checking Rick Perry Announcement Speech

Well, goodbye Tim Pawlenty, hello Rick Perry. The Texas governor announced that he is running for president on Saturday, just hours before the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa that ended Pawlenty’s presidential aspirations. As has been our custom, we will take a look at some of the assertions made in Perry’s announcement speech and then render a blended Pinocchio rating.

“Since June of 2009, Texas is responsible for more than 40 percent of all of the new jobs created in America. Now think about that. We’re home to less than 10 percent of the population in America, but 40 percent of all the new jobs were created in that state.” This is a great-sounding statistic, and likely will form the core of Perry’s campaign against a presidency that thus far has negative job creation. But, as always, there needs to be some context.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has especially promoted this figure, and even it acknowledges that the number comes out differently depending on whether one compares Texas to all states or just to states that are adding jobs.

Since Texas is adding jobs, and many other states are losing jobs, Texas’s gains become out-sized in a general national survey. Texas, as a state rich in oil and national gas, has also benefited from increases in energy prices that have slowed the economy elsewhere in the country. Higher energy prices have meant more jobs in Texas. Though Perry proudly claims the job growth is the result of a low-tax, anti-regulatory environment, others have pointed to a big investment in education in the 1980s that, yes, was the result of a tax increase.

Yes, all the other garbage being put out there is nothing more than a smoke screen, however...

Speaking of Sharia Law...let me post a snippet from Jack Wheeler's article he did on Rick Perry Friday.

OK...let's give the right interpretation of this by Dr. Jack Wheeler...:

Now we get to talk bout Rick Perry. He's running, his announcement tomorrow in South Carolina timed to blow all the other candidates scrambling for votes in Iowa's meaningless straw poll out of the water. He doesn't take prisoners. He's also the next president.

Actually, though, this isn't about him, but rather the profound mendacious stupidity of his Dem critics.

That libsite linked above begging the PIAPS to run, Salon, put up this hilarious hit-piece Wednesday (8/09), Rick Perry: The Pro-Sharia Candidate? The kid who wrote it, Justin Elliott, is wonderfully ignorant of what he's blathering about.

His accusation is that Perry is buds with the Aga Khan. Somehow, that means he will promote the imposition of radical Moslem sharia law upon America if president. The Aga Khan is indeed, as Elliott says, the spiritual leader of a form of Islam called Ismailism, and is revered by the some 20 million Ismailis round the world.

We talked about the Ismailis in The Pamir Knot (September 2010). We learned that they "believe in a mystical, peaceful form of Islam that is the antithesis of hate, violence, and Sharia imperialism that infuses mainstream Sunni or Shia Islam."

Further:

"There are no mosques in the Pamirs, because Ismailis have no mosques. They pray privately - men and women together. Ismaili men are extremely respectful of women. The thought of treating women as an inferior form of humanity as does mainstream Islam is as disgusting to Ismaili men as it is to us. No Ismaili man would even think of demanding his wife wear a veil or cover her face in public...

"Up in these lost mountains on the roof of the world, there is a form of Islam that should be a model for Moslems all over the world, a moral contrast to the medieval evil of Wahhabi Islam of the Saudis, the Deobandi Islam of the Taliban, or the Khomeini Islam of the Mullahs of Iran."

Which is why the Islamist missionaries of sharia hate Ismailis more than us infidels. So good for Perry being friends with Ismailis. To claim this makes him "pro-sharia" is a twisted joke.

But maybe Elliott wants the joke to be on us. Maybe he does know the difference between Ismailis and Wahhabis, and is counting on conservatives being ignorant enough not to know. His goal is to smear Perry, and is hoping conservative ignorance will achieve it.

Let's not let this lib smear artist get away with it.

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There is, however, one Republican governor being urged to run for president who is pro-Sharia: New Jersey's Chris Christie.

When criticized for appointing a Moslem Brotherhood lawyer, Sohail Mohammed, to the New Jersey Superior Court, he spouted the accusations of "Islamophobia" he learned from Grover Norquist, called his critics "crazies," and declared "this sharia law business is just crap."

Jihad Watch's Robert Spencer notes that "What's crap is the idea that Christie is fit to be president." Daniel Pipes states what is now obvious, that "Christie will never become president." Stick to New Jersey, Chris. Just like you promised.

Yeah, the one thing weighing on the collective mind right now is JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. Perry’s record, rightly or wrongly, gives him the best chance to monopolize that meme. I am no fan of Mitch Daniel’s “truce” on social issues, but will admit one thing: people who either don’t have jobs or fear losing the job they have don’t care much about Gardasil. To them, arguing about Gardasil is a totally idle debate.

Governor Perry isn’t as conservative as I might like, but his record is pretty solid. He’s a good man and he loves our country. I could live with a president Perry and a Tea Party Congress. A Tea Party Congress will keep his feet to the fire, and Perry has shown that he will respond if his constituents raise enough Hell.

Many on this site have become myopically obssessed with the federal presidency. Although this office is important, our top priority has to be to elect as many Tea Party candidates to as many offices as possible. This is our best chance influence events. My motto for coming elections: when possible, VOTE HOBBIT!!

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