Posted on 08/17/2011 12:40:57 AM PDT by bronxville
Rick Perry’s bad, Obama-style medicine by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2011
Texas, we have a problem. Your GOP governor is running for president against Barack Obama. Yet, one of his most infamous acts as executive of the nation’s second-largest state smacks of every worst habit of the Obama administration. And his newly crafted rationalizations for the atrocious decision are positively Clintonesque.
In February 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a shocking executive order forcing every sixth-grade girl to submit to a three-jab regimen of the Gardasil vaccine. He also forced state health officials to make the vaccine available “free” to girls ages 9 to 18. The drug, promoted by manufacturer Merck as an effective shield against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital warts, as well as cervical cancer, had only been approved by the Food and Drug Administration eight months prior to Perry’s edict.
Gardasil’s wear-off time and long-term side effects have yet to be determined. “Serious questions” remain about its “overall effectiveness,” according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Even the chair of the federal panel that recommended Gardasil for children opposes mandating it as a condition of school enrollment. Young girls and boys are simply not at an increased risk of contracting HPV in the classroom the way they are at risk of contracting measles or other school-age communicable diseases.
Perry defenders pointed to a bogus “opt-out” provision in his mandate “to protect the right of parents to be the final authority on their children’s health care.” But requiring parents to seek the government’s permission to keep an untested drug out of their kids’ veins is a plain usurpation of their authority.
Translation: Ask your bureaucratic overlord to determine if a Gardasil waiver is right for you.
Libertarians and social conservatives alike slammed Perry’s reckless disregard for parental rights and individual liberty. The Republican-dominated legislature also balked. In May 2007, both chambers passed bills overturning the governor’s unilaterally imposed health order.
Fast-forward five years. After announcing his 2012 presidential bid this weekend, Perry now admits he “didn’t do my research well enough” on the Gardasil vaccine before stuffing his bad medicine down Texans’ throats. On Monday, he added: “That particular issue is one that I readily stand up and say I made a mistake on. I listened to the legislature … and I agreed with their decision.”
Perry downplayed his underhanded maneuver as an aberrational “error,” and then — gobsmackingly — he spun the debacle as a display of his great character: “One of the things I do pride myself on, I listen. When the electorate says, ‘Hey, that’s not what we want to do,’ we backed up, took a look at what we did.”
Are these non-apology apologies enough to quell the concerns of voters looking for a presidential candidate who will provide a clear, unmistakable contrast to Barack Obama? Not by a long shot.
How Obama-like was this scandal?
Let us count the ways:
READ MORE: michellemalkin.com
How Obama-like was this scandal? Let us count the ways:
Trampling the deliberative process. Since Day One, President Obama has short-circuited transparency, public debate and congressional oversight. How can Perry effectively challenge the White House’s czar fetish, stealth recess appointments, selective waiver-mania and backdoor legislating through administrative orders when Perry himself employed the very same process as governor?
Not only did Perry defend going above the heads of elected state legislators, but his office also falsely claimed the legislature had no right to repeal the executive order. “The order is effective until Perry or a successor changes it, and the Legislature has no authority to repeal it,” Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody told The Washington Post in February 2007.
When both the House and Senate repealed the law six weeks later, Perry did not — as he now claims — listen humbly or “agree with their decision.”
Human shield demagoguery. In response to the legislature’s rebuke, the infuriated governor attacked those who supported repeal as “shameful” spreaders of “misinformation” who were putting “women’s lives” at risk. Borrowing a tried-and-true Alinskyite page from the progressive left, Perry surrounded himself with female cervical cancer victims and deflected criticism of his imperial tactics with emotional anecdotes.
He then lionized himself and the minority of politicians who voted against repeal of his Gardasil order. “They will never have to think twice about whether they did the right thing. No lost lives will occupy the confines of their conscience, sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.” Perry, of course, has now put his own ghastly Gardasil order on that same altar — but with no apology to all those he demonized and exploited along the way.
Cronyism. Most noxious of all, Perry wraps his big government health mandate in the “pro-life” mantle. But the do-gooder theater is a distraction from the business-as-usual back-scratching and astro-turfing that are Obama hallmarks. Perry’s former chief of staff Mike Toomey is a top Merck lobbyist. Toomey’s mother-in-law headed a Merck-funded front group pushing vaccination mandates. Merck’s political action committee pitched in $6,000 to Perry’s re-election campaign in 2007 and Merck discussed the vaccine with Perry staff on the day they donated.
The PerryCare executive fiat was not simply a one-off mistake explained away by lack of “research.” It exposed a fundamental lapse in both political and policy judgments, an appalling lack of ethics and a disturbing willingness to smear principled defenders of limited government who object to the Nanny State using their children as guinea pigs.
Trusting Rick Perry’s tea party credentials is a perilous shot in the dark.
michellemalkin.com
Tea Party members:
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE REJECT RICK PERRY!
Please don’t be fooled by this phony opportunist.
He has never supported the Tea Party. He will not fight for our causes. His supporters have been going around the Internet and viciously trashing Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Michele Bachman and everyone associated with the Tea Party.
Go ahead and join him if you are an Establishment Republican who is satisfied with politics as usual, whose only goal is to beat the Democrats instead of fixing the catastrophic problems our country is facing.
PLEASE SAY “NO” TO RICK PERRY!
.
I trust Michelle Malkin far more than I trust the Perry apologists who are pushing (hard) to recharacterize his record.
woot! woot! I love how people who hate McCain b/c of immigration, all of a sudden love Perry who has the same stance as Juan!.... and some freepers even defending illegal immigration saying we need the “migrant” workers...I never EVER saw that on FR until Perry decides to run, then suddenly illegal immigration is no big deal!
I agree, its nerve wracking. Who do you want to be overtaken by, liberals or illegals? Some choice.
“In February 2007, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a shocking executive order forcing every sixth-grade girl to submit to a three-jab regimen of the Gardasil vaccine. He also forced state health officials to make the vaccine available “free” to girls ages 9 to 18.”
We’d be hypocrites to even contemplate this man after the fuss we kicked up about obamacare. If we back him our credibility is zero.
It was in 2007 he was invited to the Bilderberg meeting. I wondered if it was innocent, but now can see why he got an invite, they like his style.
If that’s a dig at Michelle - she’s not running for president.
It’s good to see Malkin knows how awful Perry is.
But it doesn't surprise me that she parallels the Gardisil issue and Obamacare in the same breath. This is a woman who couldn't tell the difference between using race and ethnicity in profiling terrorism and putting 100,000 Japanese-American men, women, and children in concentration camps.
Only someone with such a broken moral barometer could make such an asinine comparison.
What Perry says now:
“I made a mistake on that,” Perry told Iowa Radio later in the day Monday, calling it “an error in not having a conversation with the people of the state of Texas.”
“I agreed with their decision. I don’t always get it right, but I darn sure listen,” he said of the legislature responding to his decision.
“One of the things I do pride myself on, I listen. When the electorate says, ‘Hey, that’s not what we want to do,’” Perry told Houston’s ABC affiliate on Monday. “We backed up, took a look at what we did. I understand I work for the people, not the other way around.”
#
What Perry did and said then.
Not only did Perry defend going above the heads of elected state legislators, but his office also falsely claimed the legislature had no right to repeal the executive order. “The order is effective until Perry or a successor changes it, and the Legislature has no authority to repeal it,” Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody told The Washington Post in February 2007.
When both the House and Senate repealed the law six weeks later, Perry did not — as he now claims — listen humbly or “agree with their decision.”
Human shield demagoguery. In response to the legislature’s rebuke, the infuriated governor attacked those who supported repeal as “shameful” spreaders of “misinformation” who were putting “women’s lives” at risk. Borrowing a tried-and-true Alinskyite page from the progressive left, Perry surrounded himself with female cervical cancer victims and deflected criticism of his imperial tactics with emotional anecdotes.
He then lionized himself and the minority of politicians who voted against repeal of his Gardasil order. “They will never have to think twice about whether they did the right thing. No lost lives will occupy the confines of their conscience, sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.” Perry, of course, has now put his own ghastly Gardasil order on that same altar — but with no apology to all those he demonized and exploited along the way.
##
The Perrytistas think we should ignore this and Move On.
I so wanted to support the governor if my candidate didn't get in; but Perry is withering now that he's in the spotlight.
This and more is what I have been finding out about Perry’s record, a conservative he is not.
Me, too. bttt
I don’t see how requiring a vaccination to attend a PUBLIC school is anti-libraterian. If using a government school, then follow government rules. There was an opt-out provision. If a parent chooses to be ill-informed and fail to opt out, that cannot be blamed on the government. I thought personal responsibility was a conservative hallmark . I find it more troubling that Perry backed away from his decision. No one can predict with certainty who will be the Republican nominee. My guess is it will be Perry and November’s choice will be him or Obama.
Somewhere between Huckabee and Trump
Oh, you go girl!!! Ping for later reading but this is THE singular reason for me balking at a Perry run.’’Thank you Michelle Malkin.
And what about that highway going through Texas and up into Canada and something about the “North American Union”?
I really don’t like this guy. He reminds me too much of Romney. Charming snakeoil salesman.
Very statist post.
HPV is transmitted by behavioral actions and is not contagious in the way that chicken pox, measles, influenza, etc.
As far as I’ve been able to discover there have been no “sudden outbreaks” of HPV affecting large local populations. One has have direct with an infected person for the viral transmission. It is not like typhoid or cholera.
So Governor Perry circumvented the legislative process and public debate and issued an edict, the executive order, to benefit Merck, the public be damned.
The opt-out provision is immaterial to the abuse of executive power to impose forced inoculation which has serious consequences for a significant portion of those inoculated with a drug fast tracked by the FDA with no serious study of long term effects.
Perry further exhibits his arrogance by not having rescinded his executive order, relying on the Texas legislators to do the job. Brings back memories of LBJ and his life story closely matches LBJ’s.
He can talk smoothly but as far as I can tell he’s a wave rider with a very keen sense of the shifts in public opinion. His readiness to change party affiliation after Turd Blossom’s seduction underscores his drive for power.
The approach of big money interests urging him to run absent any previous public expression of running justs cements his lust for power.
He’s going to be walking a whole herd of cats back in short order.
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