J. Cole on R. Perry

Juan Cole's posts on his Informed Comment weblog are consistently informative and interesting, and his panning today of Rick Perry, the man on the white horse who came charging out of Texas just a few months ago amid great expectations that he would sweep all before him on behalf of the Repubs, is no exception.

The rest of Cole's article keeps up the subtle but hard-hitting tone set by his very first paragraph, which reads as follows:

As an American, I’m deeply relieved that Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is highly unlikely to be president of the United States. As a blogger who occasionally enjoys a bit of satire, I have to say it is a real shame. Sometimes I spend an hour or so scouring for what news I want to blog about. All you’d have to do is just follow this guy around and report whatever came out of his mouth and it would be endlessly entertaining (at least until he provoked someone to rain down nuclear missiles on us just to shut him up).

Going by Perry's emanations throughout this primary season, I for the life of me can't understand how his state of mind could possibly have qualified him to be the governor of Texas, or to be a pilot in the U.S. Air Force in his younger and presumably better days.

Could it be that in recent months or years he has suffered some sort of early, slow-working cranial breakdown? Because they care so much about their country and their state, why haven't Texans descended upon Perry en masse long before now to escort him back home for a very long period of observation, rest, and treatment?