Tuesday, October 4, 2011

No, Rick Perry’s not a racist say … Texas Democrats

Worth posting for two reasons. One: It contains one of the most surreal quotes you’ll ever read in a political story. Two: It helps answer a question I’ve had since WaPo’s story broke on Saturday night. Namely, how’d Perry manage 10 years as governor of Texas without the story about his family’s hunting camp coming out? - HotAir

Texas Chief Justice Says Ranch Furor an Overreaction - Texas Tribune

Even some of Perry's fiercest Texas critics say they do not believe he is racist. They point to his record of appointments as evidence: He appointed the state’s first African-American state supreme court justice, Wallace Jefferson, and later made him chief justice. (Jefferson’s great grandfather was a slave, “sold like a horse,” Perry once said with disgust.) Perry’s former general counsel and former chief of staff, Brian Newby, is black; so is Albert Hawkins, the former Health and Human Services commissioner who Perry handpicked to lead the massive agency in 2002.

“He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body,” said former Democratic state Rep. Ron Wilson, who is black and served with Perry in his early years in the Legislature. “He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now.”