Can you hear it?
The sound of President Obama’s political advisors licking their chops in anticipation of running against Rick Perry and reminding the rest of us in a thousand different ways that the Texas governor knows his Texas history, that is.
As The Washington Examiner’s Haley Peterson reports today, Perry told a Tea Party audience in 2009 that “Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave it if we decided to do that.”
Perry was simply pointing out what most Texans know from infancy, and are known to boast modestly about from time to time when talking to folks from foreign lands like New York and California.
But you would think the former Al Gore supporter from Austin had read Jonathan Swift’s modest proposal for ending the Irish potato famine and cried “Eureaka!” in admiring response.
Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs – an Alabaman who undoubtedly knows Perry was just indulging a familiar Texas past time of boasting about the state’s uniqueness – offered this glimpse of what will surely be a standard Democratic attack theme.
“Rick Perry is the governor who two years ago openly talked about whether Texas should leave the union,” Gibbs said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Here’s something else Gibbs also must certainly have known long before he uttered those words on the Jeffrey Immelt’s propaganda network: In the same statement in which Perry reminded everybody of one of the unique conditions of Texas’ entry into the federal union, he also said “we’ve got a great union. There is absolutely no reason to dissolve it.”
So Perry said the exact opposite of what Gibbs would like everybody in America to think he said. But, hey, what’s a little outright lie among friends (Gibbs and his liberal mainstream media buddies asking him questions)?
Here’s another story that is often heard when a Texan comes into friendly contact with one or more Yankees:
In the Spring of 1863, General Robert E. Lee was conducting a military review of his Army of Northern Virginia for the benefit of an English military observer, Col Arthur Fremantle.
When members of Hood’s Texas Brigade “marched” past the reviewing stand, Fremantle, who knew of the unit’s amazing effectiveness as shock troops, was puzzled by what he saw and exclaimed: “Why General Lee, these men hardly have shirts on their backs.”
To which Lee replied: “That’s okay, Colonel. The enemy never sees the backs of my Texans.”
Hearing such a story and being from the state after which the heroes of the tale were named, it’s simply too tempting not to remind visitors from up North that Texas is just about the most unique place in the whole universe.
Too bad some people just can’t tell the difference between pulling Yankee legs and plotting political strategy.
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner.
