Posted on 08/30/2011 11:14:19 AM PDT by martosko
Texas Governor Rick Perry has been among the most vocal critics of President Obama’s health care reform initiative, and of Mitt Romney’s preceding health care program in Massachusetts. But in 1993, while serving as Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Perry praised the efforts of then-first lady Hillary Clinton to reform health care, a precursor to Obama’s health care reform efforts.
In a letter to Clinton, who is now U.S. Secretary of State, Perry wrote: “I think your efforts in trying to reform the nation’s health care system are most commendable.”
“I would like to request that the task force give particular consideration to the needs of the nation’s farmers, ranchers, and agriculture workers, and other members of rural communities,” Perry continued, noting his administration’s focus on economic development for rural Texans. “Rural populations have a high proportion of uninsured people, rising health care costs, and often experience lack of services.”
“Again, your efforts are worthy,” Perry concluded, ”and I hope you will remember this constituency as the task force progresses.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedc.com ...
—Bachmann has never praised anything about Hillary.—
Doesn’t sound very diplomatic. :->
—How are Perry fanatics going to defend this?—
I just read the letter. What’s to defend, exactly. I think it is a great letter! Notice it does not call out any specific thing she had proposed. It was a very politically savvy document that basically said, “I think it’s great that you (a first lady who is not on the government payroll) are spending your time seeing if you can come up with a way to improve the health care system, and please think about the farm community which I represent while you’re at it”.
You can almost seeing him say to himself, after he signed it, “And good luck with that.”
Perry was Agricultural Commissioner at the time. He was looking out for his constituency.
I think you really need to read the letter. Read every sentence and think about what it is communicating. And events contemporaneous with the letter.
And remember, Lindberg, at one point, thought Hitler was wonderful for Germany. So did a lot of prominent Americans and Europeans. AS events unfolded, they changed their opinion.
You need to take this letter in context and see not only what it is saying, but what it is NOT saying. Some of the readers here are incorrectly inferring things that are not said, nor implied.
That’s a token bone to McCain for making her career for her. She’ll pay that back to McCain for the rest of his life.
So you can take Palin "at her word" as long as she does not have any debt, known or unknown, she is paying off. How come this sounds just like politics as usual? You can trust me, as long as I'm not paying off a political debt.
We know he voted for Carter in 1976 (a Southern Democrat campaigning as a Christian running against a northern liberal, Ford); we know he worked on Al Gore's Texas primary in 1988 (when he campaigned as a moderate Southern Democrat running against a northern liberal Dukakis) and that he voted for Bush41 against Dukakis. But there is no evidence that I have seen that he voted for Carter in 1980 or Mondale in 1984. Since what we know about his voting pattern (supporting the ostensibly more conservative candidate), it would seem possible, maybe even likely, that Perry was a "Reagan Democrat". If you have evidence to the contrary (evidence, not just your assumption that because he was a Democrat he must have voted Dem - if that were true, Reagan never would have won in 1980), then please present it, complete with sources. IF not, then please be honest enough to admit that you are posting your own bias, not anything factual.
Wait a minute here people, are you all letting facts get in the way of conjecture and opinion?!?! I am afraid that will not be tolerated here.
He didn’t praise Hillarycare. Read the article.
He didn’t say he thought she would come up with good ideas. He wanted to strongly insist she take into account the constituents he represented. He started with boilerplate niceties, because that’s how you start official letters from government officials to government officials.
I do have to admit that I didn’t read the whole article, because since it isn’t really NEWS, my company blocks it.
Perry was not a Reagan democrat. Perry is on record of being against Reagan and supported Carter in 76 and 80 and if he was for Gore in 88 then I am sure he was for Mondale and Dukakis too.
Perry was fortunate that in Texas, the legislation didn’t pass, with the support of the governor, a sweeping ethics reform law which ended up making the governor an easy target for frivolous complaints.
He did have ethics complaints filed against him, which were dismissed. Anti-Palin freepers have even posted here that he was “being investigated for ethics violations” without ever including the final outcome — just like anti-Palin liberals did to her.
IN the previous post, I meant “anti-perry freepers”, not “anti-palin freepers”. Sorry about the typo.
Another very astute observation.
Please provide sources...
Actually, I can provide evidence to the contrary:
"There were Hispanics in the community, but Perry said he did not meet someone who was Jewish until he was in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University and really only got to know blacks while serving as a pilot of a C-130 transport in the Air Force. The last Democrat he can remember voting for for president was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
"I'll confess, I wasn't paying much attention. I was flying," Perry said. "Jimmy Carter. Peanut farmer. Georgia. Fooled us."
Houston Chronicle, "Rivals Perry, White share passion for leading Texas", 10/17/2010
So we have evidence in Perry's own words that he never voted for a Democrat for president after 1976. I assume you cease posting such nonsense after this...
“How are Perry fanatics going to defend this?”
Oh come on, he was a DEMOCRAT just 5 years prior. It takes time to figure out how you’re supposed act when you change parties.
There. LOL.
“Rest assurred, they’ll defend it.
Shoot, they’ll even defend “La Raza.” “
Hell, one guy is now defending Sharia.
All of these Perry haters are going to end up with obama just as sure as I’m typing here.
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