Posted on 08/17/2011 4:41:52 PM PDT by Brices Crossroads
Texas, we have a problem. Your GOP governor is running for president against Barack Obama. Yet, one of his most infamous acts as executive of the nation's second-largest state smacks of every worst habit of the Obama administration. And his newly crafted rationalizations for the atrocious decision are positively Clintonesque.
In February 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a shocking executive order forcing every sixth-grade girl to submit to a three-jab regimen of the Gardasil vaccine. He also forced state health officials to make the vaccine available "free" to girls ages 9 to 18. The drug, promoted by manufacturer Merck as an effective shield against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital warts, as well as cervical cancer, had only been approved by the Food and Drug Administration eight months prior to Perry's edict.
Gardasil's wear-off time and long-term side effects have yet to be determined. "Serious questions" remain about its "overall effectiveness," according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Even the chair of the federal panel that recommended Gardasil for children opposes mandating it as a condition of school enrollment. Young girls and boys are simply not at an increased risk of contracting HPV in the classroom the way they are at risk of contracting measles or other school-age communicable diseases.
Perry defenders pointed to a bogus "opt-out" provision in his mandate "to protect the right of parents to be the final authority on their children's health care." But requiring parents to seek the government's permission to keep an untested drug out of their kids' veins is a plain usurpation of their authority. Translation: Ask your bureaucratic overlord to determine if a Gardasil waiver is right for you.
Libertarians and social conservatives alike slammed Perry's reckless disregard for parental rights and individual liberty. The Republican-dominated legislature also balked. In May 2007, both chambers passed bills overturning the governor's unilaterally imposed health order.
Fast-forward five years. After announcing his 2012 presidential bid this weekend, Perry now admits he "didn't do my research well enough" on the Gardasil vaccine before stuffing his bad medicine down Texans' throats. On Monday, he added: "That particular issue is one that I readily stand up and say I made a mistake on. I listened to the legislature ... and I agreed with their decision."
Perry downplayed his underhanded maneuver as an aberrational "error," and then — gobsmackingly — he spun the debacle as a display of his great character: "One of the things I do pride myself on, I listen. When the electorate says, 'Hey, that's not what we want to do,' we backed up, took a look at what we did."
Are these non-apology apologies enough to quell the concerns of voters looking for a presidential candidate who will provide a clear, unmistakable contrast to Barack Obama? Not by a long shot.
How Obama-like was this scandal? Let us count the ways:
TRAMPLING OF THE DELIBERATIVE PROCESS
Since Day One, President Obama has short-circuited transparency, public debate and congressional oversight. How can Perry effectively challenge the White House's czar fetish, stealth recess appointments, selective waiver-mania and backdoor legislating through administrative orders when Perry himself employed the very same process as governor? Not only did Perry defend going above the heads of elected state legislators, but his office also falsely claimed the legislature had no right to repeal the executive order. "The order is effective until Perry or a successor changes it, and the Legislature has no authority to repeal it," Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody told The Washington Post in February 2007.
When both the House and Senate repealed the law six weeks later, Perry did not — as he now claims — listen humbly or "agree with their decision."
HUMAN SHIELD DEMAGOGUERY.
In response to the legislature's rebuke, the infuriated governor attacked those who supported repeal as "shameful" spreaders of "misinformation" who were putting "women's lives" at risk. Borrowing a tried-and-true Alinskyite page from the progressive left, Perry surrounded himself with female cervical cancer victims and deflected criticism of his imperial tactics with emotional anecdotes.
He then lionized himself and the minority of politicians who voted against repeal of his Gardasil order. "They will never have to think twice about whether they did the right thing. No lost lives will occupy the confines of their conscience, sacrificed on the altar of political expediency." Perry, of course, has now put his own ghastly Gardasil order on that same altar — but with no apology to all those he demonized and exploited along the way.
CRONYISM.
Most noxious of all, Perry wraps his big government health mandate in the "pro-life" mantle. But the do-gooder theater is a distraction from the business-as-usual back-scratching and astro-turfing that are Obama hallmarks. Perry's former chief of staff Mike Toomey is a top Merck lobbyist. Toomey's mother-in-law headed a Merck-funded front group pushing vaccination mandates. And Merck's political action committee pitched in $6,000 to Perry's re-election campaign in 2007.
The PerryCare executive fiat was not simply a one-off mistake explained away by lack of "research." It exposed a fundamental lapse in both political and policy judgments, an appalling lack of ethics and a disturbing willingness to smear principled defenders of limited government who object to the Nanny State using their children as guinea pigs.
Trusting Rick Perry's tea party credentials is a perilous shot in the dark.
“It’s imperative that Obama is defeated, but equally imperative that he’s defeated by a reliable TEA PARTY Republican nominee”
Right you are, Onyx. I came to the conclusion three years ago that the most reliable TEA party Conservative is Sarah Palin. An examination of Rick Perry’s record convinces me that he is not reliable. Not even close.
Shame on you for your slanderous words about FReepers who just happen to disagree with YOU!
Your post is the DU type troll post.
I really ought to hit abuse, but prefer to let everyone see your idiotic rage.
"Astroturf post" by CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST MICHELE MALKIN?
Calm down and please offer your apology to your fellow FReepers.
Palin receives hundreds of death threats annually, has to have security protect her and id under constant attack by the media and RINOs ... that's your idea of no stress?
Indeed she is, without question and that's why I am solidly for Governor Sarah Palin and praying faithfully for her!
She will be *in* shortly and then bar the door Katie or is it Nellie?
We need to work our hearts out and our butts off, but with our prayers, our money and all our work, we can and I think we will, get her elected as our nominee and then onto and into the White House!!!
“You get to vote in the primary of your state, but beyond that, it’s all out of your control.”
Really. You mean I can’t contribute to a candiate. Work for a candidate? Blog for a candidate? Really. All I can do is vote for the candiate? Who knew? Thanks for clearing that up for all of us.
“Will you stay home on Election Day if you don’t get your perfect candidate?”
There is no such thing as a perfect candidate. I have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t deal in hypothets. We are picking a candidate now. You can go on speculating to no purpose if you wish.
What makes no sense to me is this blind devotion to a person who has yet to decide if she will even run. I hope she does. I voted for her once, and would have no problem doing it again. But the obsession to kneecap anyone who isn't Palin is sick.
Our only choices are the ones who actually apply for the job.
I am not supporting anyone just yet, but watching the Palin cheerleaders and the delusional Ron Paul supporters trying to turn Perry into a cartoon character before he has a chance to tell his side of the story is not helpful to advancing conservatism. Supposedly our collective goal.
BTTT
The term “Sell Out” went out with 80 “s.
I want the Soros-Buffet-Daley machine Marxist GONE.
All this astroturfing over nothing will get him elected again.
Perry is pro gun, pro life, pro states rights, repeal Obamacare, anti- Tort lawyer, anti-Bernake policies,
anti-EPA, Anti-Global warming scam.
He has a decent record and so what if he is not perfect.
I think Palin would be great too. The point is to defeat the Marxist and stop his minions in the federal offices. Your nihilistic posts are tired Bye
None of these links prove your “never” theory. And they dont even say what vaccine is being charged as the culprit.
The first link says there is no scientific link, but x and y are both happening, so x might be the cause of y. Not scientific, not logically sound.
The second link is about a lawsuit of under 5,000 people claiming autism as a result of mercury in vaccinations, but there is nothing in the article on how the trial wound up and what type of science was used. It also happens to be from a site dedicated to non-medicinal treatment and “natural health”
The third link, also from naturalnews.com, is about how celebrities are getting behind the anti-big pharma bandwagon.
The fourth link wont open, but as the other three, is also from the suspect site.
Since you had no words you could create as a rebuttal, I take it that you are just trying to clear room for some other candidate, no matter the accuracy of your claims.
ONE BIG LIE! Perry did not "kill" the plan. He didn't even rescind the Executive Order. He waited for the legislature to pass a bill over riding his order and then signed it.
There was an opt-out, so that statement appears false.
>> “I am not supporting anyone just yet, but watching the Palin cheerleaders and the delusional Ron Paul supporters trying to turn Perry into a cartoon character before he has a chance to tell his side of the story is not helpful to advancing conservatism” <<
.
Bull crap!
Perry’s record is out there, and exposing it is far from the dream you’re living in.
I agree, this issue is a loser and frankly the horse is dead from beating it to death. He made a mistake and admitted it - no candidate will ever please everyone. If he ends up being the party candidate, I will vote for him.
You are correct...Perry was forced by the legislature to back down...he didn’t kill the bill.
“But the obsession to kneecap anyone who isn’t Palin is sick.”
If examining his record and criticizing it is kneecapping, then count me as a kneecapper. Calling political discussion of a candidate’s record “kneecapping” is really a dangerous point of view. Does the First Amendment ring a bell?
Statists and totalitarians try to stifle debate this way and it is not healthy. Frank political discussion is not kneecapping, and you shouldn’t call it such. It would be something else again if I were commenting on Perry’s private life which I have not done.
I think Gardasil should be advertised by Merck and parents or someone other than government should decided whether a given person should get a dose.
Gardasil is basically for women who end up screwing a lot of men. That’s the statistical fact. I am tired of spending government money to cancel out the effects of bad behavior.
Does she seem like these threats are getting to her.
Heck NO.
She is lovin life just look at her.
Sadly,most famous people are stalked and threatened.
I grew up next door to someone who became famous and she has security everywhere when we visit but she never mentions it. Its part of her daily routine.
Secondly, to say I am going to "hand Barry a second term' is to do yourself a great disservice, assuming, of course, that you want to be taken seriously. Your rhetoric notwithstanding, I would vote to defeat Obama in the general election. But this is a primary and that’s not what primaries are about. To advocate for Perry now is to say you approve of his liberal policies -- and I don’t just as no conservative should. Primaries are about nominating a conservative candidate and not in the wildest of imaginations is Slick-Rick Perry a conservative candidate.
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