Thursday, September 22, 2011

Tales of a Phony Capitalist VIII: Rick Perry's Truth Problem

In tonight's debate, Rick Perry took another stab at defending his painfully awkward pay-to-play health vaccine mandate by trying to claim he was "lobbied" by a dying woman. Here are his comments:
I got lobbied on this issue. I got lobbied by a 31 year old young lady who had stage 4 cervical cancer. I spent a lot of time with her.  She came by my office  She talked to me about this program. I readily admitted we should have had an opt-in but I don’t know what part of opt out most parents don’t get and the fact is I erred on the side of life and I will always err on the side of life as a governor as a president of the United States.
Only one problem. As ABC quickly noted, Rick Perry did not meet the cancer patient until after his Gardasil vaccine mandate was issued.
The woman Rick Perry mentioned in the Republican debate Thursday was Heather Burcham, a thirty one year old woman dying from cervical cancer. But what Perry left out in his answer was that he met her after he issued his executive order.

Perry issued the executive order requiring sixth grade girls receive the HPV vaccine in early February of 2007, and he met Burcham while she was lobbying the Texas legislature to uphold the governor’s executive order. The legislature ultimately ruled against Burcham and Perry and did away with the vaccine mandate.

As first reported by KTRK’s Ted Oberg, the pair struck up a friendship despite the Texas legislature revoking the governor’s mandate.  Perry invited Burcham to a ranch, rode motorcycles with her and even sat at her bed during her final days.  Burcham died in July 2007.
So as it turns out, not only did Burcham not lobby Perry, but the only reason he struck up a friendship with this woman was so she could help lobby the legislature to uphold his bill, not out of any moral compuction. A far cry from the yarn he has spun about being moved to "err on the side of life".

It's just another lie/half-truth in Perry's long string of evasions regarding his crony capitalist masters. Just like the one he told about only receiving $5,000 from Merck, when in reality he received $30,000 from them in past campaigns and $300,000 funneled through the RGA. An honest man he is not, and hopefully tonight's debate puts to rest the idea of Perry being the nominee among those who were initially impressed with his tough guy charade. Speaking of whic... maybe it's just his back, but the guy can't even withstand an hour of debate without being reduced to incoherent blubbering. Rick Perry is not fit to be president of the United States.

Oh, and I haven't even got started on illegal immigration. (coming soon)

1 comment:

  1. Well so much for Perry. One more bottle rocket to nowhere. If Sarah Palin runs think of all the money she has saved by waiting so long. We elect our leaders to carry our aspirations for our nation into the future. We've got a socialist/communist empty suit now. We got him because he manipulated our best impulse: trust. A capitalist empty suit would be a improvement but we deserve better. Gov. Palin is the better we deserve.

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