Just one week after Election Day 2010, and Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was already chomping at the bit. His Tuesday column indicates that Milbank is crossing his fingers, hoping that Texas Gov. Rick Perry is testing the waters for a run for the Republican presidential nomination.
Milbank seems convinced that Perry will be the Sarah Palin of 2012, the Big Name Republican who promises to speak off the cuff, and put his foot in his mouth; a valuable source of column fodder for an entire cycle.
Milbank used his column inches to try to clown Perry, and mock his anti-Washington message, dubbing it at once simplistic and scary. Milbank on Perry and his rhetoric: Like Tea Party favorites, “He’s taking it a step too far.” Milbank thought he’d zinged Perry, but the Lone Star State’s chief executive can’t blame the smirking columnist entirely. The same day, Perry flubbed up on Washington newspaper racks all by himself. He didn’t need his a smirky liberal columnist’s help.
Gov. Perry was in town, making a pit stop on a book tour promoting the new title published under his byline, “Fed Up!” Perry was addressing a fawning crowd at the Heritage Foundation and got a little carried away. Milbank decided to ambush the governor, calling him out, demanding the footnote backing up an anecdote warning that nanny-staters want to regulate salt levels in processed foods.
Milbank not only tried to embarrass Perry as camaras rolled during the book signing session, he collard PoliFact to declare a ruling on Perry’s claim: “False.”
The same verdict that Milbank rendered on Perry might be turned around on the columnist: “He’s taking it a step too far.”
But before too many tears are shed on Rick Perry’s behalf, consider this: on the same day that Milbank’s column ran, the Washington Times ran a friendly profile. Perry had sat down with the veteran conservative movement journalist Ralph Z. Hallow.
Among the softballs that Hallow lobbed addressed Perry’s reading habits, a subject so twisted Sarah Palin in 2008. (Hallow must have been offering Perry a chance to avoid the fun the press had lampooning President George W. Bush as a Texas philistine, too.)
Here’s how Rick Perry flubbed up himself:
“Asked what newspapers and magazines he reads, the governor said he takes the Dallas Morning News and Austin Statesman at home and reads assiduously on the Internet.
For overseas news, ‘I read the Jewish press — and the Wall Street Journal,’ he said.”
No doubt Perry was looking to shore up his pro-Israel, War on Terror credentials, seeking to reassure conservatives that he doesn’t buy the foreign press’ skepticism of American foreign policy. He was likely citing the “Israeli press,” the Jerusalem Post, JTA, or maybe even the venerable American Jewish weekly, the “Forward.”
But a blurting out a phrase like “the Jewish press,” walks right into Milbank’s attempt to paint him as a voice from the right wing’s fever swamps, were anti-Semitic screeds against so-called Jewish control of the media can be found around the blogosphere. (It needs noting, however, that the Lefty blogosphere has had to address its own anti-semitic indulges, too. DailyKos discussed its own issues just a few years back.)
Gov. Perry better buck up and prepare for a hostile greeting from mainstream press types like Milbank, but he also better think before he opens his mouth. If he doesn’t watch his tongue, he won’t need Milbank’s help in deflating his White House dreams.
