Actually, as Perry looks like that was in flight school before he selected props, he was probably 22-23 when it was taken. The one of Obama was part of that "keep hidden until after the election" photo spread from 1980 when he was 19.
There is a big difference between 19 and 23 - at least there was for me - so I'll cut the President some glassy-eyed slack; but still, I think it sets a tone you will see more of. A lot more of because I think Romney is not going to get traction. The Republican primary seems to be turning in to anti-Romney and anti-Perry camps. We know who has the 'mo.
Speaking of Bookie - if you have not bought her book, The Bookworm Turns: A Secret Conservative in Liberal Land
- then go get a copy for your e-reader toot-sweet!
I'd love it if the world would stop measuring a man's intelligence by whether he cracked the books diligently when he was 21. Some of them might have even turned in their work if they'd have known the whole world would be looking at their report card when they were 40.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting when discussing learning curves to ponder a similarity between Perry and Obama. Both have seen the world. Oddly, each took away a very different lesson about that world from their wanderings. If their speeches are to be analyzed for those lessons, young Barry learned to love the sound of the muezzin and the Islamic call to prayer, which he has said was the most beautiful sound in the world. He travelled through Indonesia, Pakistan and other places. What effect did seeing poverty, squalor and violence elsewhere have on his perception of his own country? It seems only the urge to apologize for America.
Perry flew around the world as a USAF pilot. He has described in a very poignant manner how seeing the reality of other countries affected the way he looked at his own country and the importance of liberty and the American way of life and what difference it made compared to what other nations offered their citizens.
Perry's travels abroad solidified in him the idea that America was special and we must preserve that.
Just one of the ways two different men can do similar things but come away with opposite conclusions.
Here's to learning curves. Let's hope America has been on one these last 2.5 years.
The concept of stupid fighter pilots has always baffled me....I always viewed it as a self correcting profession!
ReplyDeleteThat picture is worth a whole lot more than a mere 10,000 words.
ReplyDeleteOne man loves his country and is willing to defend it, the other does not give a damn and only cares for his own gratification.
Sadly, we have elected the wrong one, but happily, we may have a chance to fix that error.
"America was special"
ReplyDeleteYou'd spend weeks whining if Obama had said that.
These are great photos of Perry if you're looking for an equivalent age. Love the down to earth folksy letter sweater with dog.
ReplyDeletehttp://d2o6nd3dubbyr6.cloudfront.net/media/images/AM-Perry_jpg_800x1000_q100.jpg
whiskey.tango.foxtrot.
ReplyDeletePerry is ~10 years older than the SCOAMF, but the compare & contrast is still valid
ReplyDeleteHis mother must have loved them.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see about perry.
Dont know what it is the US just seems to lack the man needed. Which Obama isnt. I have to wonder....would the US have elected Washington today? Dont think so.
Oh, dear. Guest.... ummm.... that's an A&M Yell Leader letterman's sweater. And "the dog" is Revielle, the most revered dog on campus. And those boots are Senior Boots. And they are...sacred. And... well... I guess you aren't familiar with the Aggie Corps of Cadets.
ReplyDeletePerry entered in '68 and that was when a lot of his peers were behaving very badly.
I can tell you there are many Aggies spread across America who would like to see one of their own become president. ;)
Rick Perry was born <span>born March 4, 1950. President Obama was born </span>born August 4, 1961. You are correct - my bust. Wow - I dorked that up. Thanks for the correction.
ReplyDeleteSo?
ReplyDeletedoes anyone know what Obama's "GPA" at Columbia or Harvard Law was? ('they' say Obama is a "genius!") what classes did Obama take, what did he study-research?
If I apply to the State Dept. or join the Reserves I have to send in copies of my college & law school records... yet Obama is allowed to be a Senator and President and NO ONE has seen his college records ?!!!? >:o
<span>You sure did, Sal. Obama has eleven more years to be something other than the vain, egocentric, easily-led, hollow, arrogant, self-righteous, Bolshevik weakling chief executive that he has become in his first 50 years....
ReplyDeleteSo give the guy a chance. It isn't like he's an adult already.</span>
It's ok, I don't expect you to understand the difference between "was" and "is."
ReplyDeletePhib, you point remains valid: compare & contrast two men at approximately the same age in each of their lives.
ReplyDeleteThe contrast in pictures is hilarious. By the way, I think your mistake about the ages of the two is very understandable. I would have assumed that Perry was fiftyish until I read your post. He looks great for his age.
ReplyDeleteThe totality of thought is usually considered by most people; clearly an agenda item for the guest. Take a powder.
ReplyDeleteActually, Guest, "was" is intended here as the past imperfect verb tense relating to Perry's realizations about the world during his early travels abroad in the past. It refers back to his emotions in the past as he was in the ongoing process of realizing something 30+ years ago. It has nothing to do with his future ongoing impressions that America remained and still remains a special place. The scope of my original post had nothing to do with that. We were comparing the learning curves of the two men in their past. I suppose like all liberals, talking to you first means one would have to determine the meaning of the word "is" before one could have an honest conversation. Future warning, don't parse verbs with an English major unless you want to be schooled in imperfect and future perfect active, passive and subjunctive tenses of verbs.
ReplyDeleteSo, guest, are you going to challenge DB's command of the English language again? If you do, let me know.
ReplyDeleteLike shooting fish in a barrel.
Funny how only Republicans' college transcripts get leaked to the media. PArt of the vetting process.
ReplyDeleteThe SCOAMF's transcripts seem to be sealed in a steel vault at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. I guess asking about them is racist.
I'm gonna pull up a comfy chair, watch DB eviscerate guest, and enjoy some popcorn. :)
ReplyDeleteNot challenging, just pointing out what she said. America was special.
ReplyDeleteI shall rig the pressure washer, so I can clean the porch floor afterwards.
ReplyDelete(Off key )"Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread..." Zounds, methinks yon Himalayan peasant has a classification error to deal with. I shall lay to lower level, man the phone and line up the drain manifold to take a suction on the front porch bilge.
ReplyDelete<span>Bolshevik? </span>
ReplyDeleteThe Bolsheviks had balls, big ones. They believed in worker control of the means of production. Obama believes in republican control of everything.
Obama is just another middle of the road conservative. Anyone who thinks this man is a Bolshevik is a fascist.
And a misogynist, racist, and homophobe?
ReplyDeleteSounds like you were pretty happy behind the Iron Curtain circa 1960. Ahh, the good old days.
Yuh-huh.
ReplyDeleteI'll just pretend guest really has a different way of constructing sentences with superordinate and subordinating clauses and his sequence of tense rules are different than mine and he is not trying to be obstreperous.
ReplyDeleteIf he uses the natural sequence of tenses, the tense of a verb in a subordinate clause is not determined by the tense of the verb in the superordinate clause, but is determined simply according to the sense of the clause taken apart from the rest of the sentence. Using the natural sequence of tenses, he is imagining Perry at the point in time denoted by the main verb and uses the tense for the subordinate verb he would have used at that time.
"Perry's travels abroad solidified in him the idea that America IS special and we must preserve that."
I prefer the attracted sequence of tenses (which is in line more with Latin and Greek construction.) According to this view, the tense of a verb in a subordinate clause is determined by the tense of the verb in the superordinate clause. If the main verb of a sentence is in the past or perfect or imperfect tense, then other verbs must also express a past. perfect or imperfect viewpoint.
Okay.. y'all can unglaze your eyes.
To follow guest's logic, this is how we could construct this sentence in guest's style:
"Everyone on the porch agreed a year ago the LCS is a bad idea."
I would have said:
"Everyone on the porch agreed a year ago the LCS was a bad idea."
My sentence in no way implies that LCS ceased at any point in the last year to be a bad idea or that it is not a continuing and ongoing bad idea. It just captures the idea and sentiment at a particular moment in time. One would have to read further to get the author's sense that the idea had been reassessed or changed.
Technically we are both right. I'll call it a grammatical draw and scratch my head why he wanted to make it an argument in the first place.
Drifter, lemme fix this for you: Obama believes in government control of everthing. <span>Anyone who thinks this man is a Bolshevik has a functioning brain.
ReplyDelete</span>
Considering his parents, grandparents, and mentors, he could not believe otherwise.
This puts him in the same camp as Bolsheviks, Marxists, and Fascists. The cleverest thing Stalin did was start the meme after WWII that Fascism belongs on the right wing or conservative end of the political spectrum.
A foolish consistency on Guests' part.
ReplyDeleteFascism is basically socialism. No real difference. Slight difference in scope, but it still revolves around government control of the populace through siphoning off will w/ buyouts and sometimes violence. Take our labor union responses to things in this country, for instance.
ReplyDeleteHey! That's the same day I was born. Wonder if he's left-handed, too.
ReplyDeleteUm, nope. They vary significantly across a wide variety of issues. It's amazing how many otherwise well-educated & intelligent people make this mistake. Don't feel too bad; quite a few folks can't distinguish between modern liberalism & progressivism, or between libertarianism & political conservatism. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't see other than the afro where Obama has changed much. He looks like a punk in the photo and he looks like an older version of a punk now.
ReplyDeleteWow, someone get her panties all wadded up over that one.
ReplyDeleteHey guest, when you find yourself in a hole, put the shovel down.
ReplyDeleteYou probably think America was great too. Sad. What happened to your jingosim?
ReplyDelete