You might have noticed that I have not been overly kind in my assessments of Paul Burka’s political observations. He comes across as a world-weary, old school, middle-of-the-road liberal reporter who can’t come to grips with the changing political landscape, yearning for the days when the two wings of the Democratic Party controlled Texas politics, Republicans were an exotic novelty, and big-government policies could safely be forged in smoky backrooms over rounds of whiskey without input from those butinski outsiders known as “taxpayers.” He doesn’t understand why the Tea Party won’t just go away and let him go back to a time when the people in power returned his phone calls. (More on Burka’s textbook liberalness in this Kevin D. Williamson piece over at NRO.)
All that said, he offers some very useful advice to his Yankee cohorts (i.e., fellow liberal journalists) on mistakes to avoid in covering Rick Perry. I doubt they’ll take that advice (Burka is, after all, a native Texan, and didn’t graduate from an Ivy League college (I’m sure the idea that Rice might be as good or better than many Ivy league schools is not the sort of thought likely to penetrate their mind) and is therefore automatically suspect), but it’s good advice none the less. The short essays next to Points 1 (Perry is not George Bush) and 5 (Perry is not a male hair model) are particularly good.
It is true that Perry has a much-remarked-upon coif, but don’t let this lead you to assume that he’s soft, or feckless, like that other recent walking shampoo ad, John Edwards. Perry is a hard man. He is the kind of politician who would rather be feared than loved—or respected. And he has gotten his wish.
Read the whole thing.
Tags: 2012 Election, Kevin D. Williamson, Paul Burka, Rick Perry, Texas
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again.
[…] professional MSM Perry hater Paul Burka says that Perry is a hard man. “He is the kind of politician who would rather be feared than loved.” Perry will have […]