If North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue is not America’s dumbest governor, a whole lot of us here in the Tar Heel State would be very surprised.
And why is it that so many Republican candidates are so wimpy and foolish as to meekly fall in line when Democrats and their accomplices in the media demand that they denounce any fellow Republicans who dare treat a Democrat office holder in any way similar to how Democrats routinely treat Republican elected officials?
That’s what I’m left wondering as I observe the media’s latest effort to try to turn an insignificant little matter into some brouhaha.
The other evening during a precinct organizational meeting in Raleigh, Wake County Republican Party Chairwoman Susan Bryant happened to remark that liberal Democrat Governor Bev Perdue is “the dumbest governor in America.”
Feigning shock and outrage, a spokesperson for Governor Perdue demanded that the leading Republican candidate for governor, Pat McCrory, in effect apologize for what Chairwoman Bryant had said, whereupon, treating the wishes of liberal Democrats as their command, the media promptly put the demand to McCrory, who took the bait and declared that he did not “agree with or condone those comments.”
Don’t Republicans ever learn? Rather than grant Democrats their wish by directing his fire at a Republican country leader for expressing such a widely held view, all McCrory had to do was decline to comment on the grounds that these were Susan Bryant’s remarks, not his. He should have added that he will begin commenting to the media about what other Republicans say about Perdue or any other Democrat when the media drop their double standard and begin demanding that Democrats speak out against things other Democrats say about Republicans.
McCrory let the Democrats and their media accomplices get away with propagandizing the notion that it is okay to call Republicans dumb or worse — think of what they’ve said about Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, etc. — but thou must not say that a Democrat best known for doing something really dumb is dumb.
Were the roles reversed here and some Democrat had called some leading Republican dumb, you just know that the Democrats and the media would make note of the fact that in his statement demanding disavowal of the “dumbest governor” remark, the spokesman did not dispute its accuracy but merely expressed annoyance with its having been said — and we’d be asked to name any governor we think is dumber.
So hats off to County Chairwoman Susan Bryant for not wimping out and instead responding to the Democrats and media by telling them, nicely, to kiss off, in effect reminding them of that great line from the movie “Forrest Gump”: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Five months ago, Bev Perdue grabbed the attention of the nation when she offered up this advice for the country: “I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. … You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”
Dumb was a word that came to many Americans’ minds as they learned about Perdue’s advice to the nation. The governor of the 10th-largest state in the country had no idea that the American system of government provided for under the U.S. Constitution that she had taken a solemn oath to support and defend requires that there be congressional elections every two years and that they cannot be suspended!
Most Americans understood what Perdue apparently didn’t grasp — that among those who “suspend” elections so they don’t have to “worry” about voters’ opinions are a whole series of the world’s leading good-for-nothings — Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Fidel, etc. Following their lead is an idea Americans find, well, dumb.
Only after Perdue’s “let’s suspend elections” suggestion made her the laughing stock of the country did she claim she had just been joking. The audio of her speech and the initial news report on it clearly demonstrate that’s not true. Only after she was laughed at did she offer up the excuse that she was being funny.
Governor Perdue is as Governor Perdue does. And what Governor Perdue does is, as Chairwoman Susan Bryant accurately noted, dumb. Really, really dumb.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory was politically dumb to let the Democrats and the media sucker him into proclaiming that the “stupid is as stupid does” rule should not apply to Democrats. Let’s hope other Republican candidates wise up and learn from McCrory’s foolish, wimpy mistake.
Fred J. Eckert, author of the new book, That’s a Crock, Barack, is a former conservative Republican Congressman from New York and twice served as a U.S. Ambassador (to the U.N. and to Fiji) under President Reagan, who called him “a good friend and valuable advisor.” He’s retired and lives with his wife in Raleigh, North Carolina.