Washington Post looks under rock for dirt on Rick Perry
Ted and other liberals are lying about this a lot on other threads.
Well, not literally. Because they never actually got a first-hand look at the rock itself. But that didn't discourage the intrepid truth-seekers at the Washington Post. So if you're in the mood for a wade through the swamp, read Stephanie McCrummen's long smear piece on Rick Perry. The Post's crack investigative team musters all the guilt by association and vague, anonymous recollections it can find in an effort to defame Perry and sabotage his chances of dethroning Barack Obama, to whom the liberal media gave a free pass in 2008. It must have been hard, at times, for them to ignore Obama's connections to a confessed domestic terrorist, or his twenty-year friendship with his race-obsessed, anti-American pastor, but a liberal media outlet's gotta do what it's gotta do. This time around, it's Rick Perry's turn to get the Palin treatment.
What appear to be facts:
- The name of the piece of land in question predated Perry's use of the land by many years.
- Neither Perry nor his parents ever owned the offensively-named land. They leased it.
- The rock seems to have served as a sign indicating the name of the property.
- Someone (Perry says it was his father, at his own request) painted over the offensive place name. At some point the rock was also flipped over.
From the article:
When asked last week, Perry said the word on the rock is an “offensive name that has no place in the modern world.” [. . .]
In his responses to two rounds of detailed, written questions, Perry said his father first leased the property in 1983. Rick Perry said he added his own name to the lease from 1997 to 1998, when he was state agriculture commissioner, and again from 2004 to 2007, when he was governor.
He offered a simple version of how he dealt with the rock, followed by a more elaborate one.
“When my Dad joined the lease in 1983, he took the first opportunity he had to paint over the offensive word on the rock during the 4th of July holiday,” Perry said in his initial response. “It is my understanding that the rock was eventually turned over to further obscure what was originally written on it.”
Perry said that he was not with his father when he painted over the name but that he “agreed with” the decision.
In response to follow-up questions, Perry gave a more detailed account.
“My mother and father went to the lease and painted the rock in either 1983 or 1984,” Perry wrote. “This occurred after I paid a visit to the property with a friend and saw the rock with the offensive word. After my visit I called my folks and mentioned it to them, and they painted it over during their next visit.”
“Ever since, any time I ever saw the rock it was painted over,” Perry said. [. . .]
It is possible that guests approaching from the east would not see the rock at the gated entrance. In his responses, Perry said he and his guests used the eastern entrance in later years.
“The rock was at the entrance we used in the 1980s,” he said. “We stopped using that entrance in the 1990s, and entered only by Watt Matthews’ ranch where there was a grass landing strip.”According to the article, the property's owner forbade Post reporters access to the camp, so they haven't actually seen the rock:
The rock remained by the gate, the name brushed with a thin coat of white paint. The paint was slightly faded, according to the person who saw it recently. [. . .]
As recently as this summer, the rock was still there, according to photographs viewed by The Washington Post.
In the photos, it was to the left of the gate. It was laid down flat. The exposed face was brushed clean of dirt. White paint, dried drippings visible, covered a word across the surface. An N and two G’s were faintly visible.And on this basis the Washington Post hopes to tar Rick Perry as a racist and thereby destroy him. It's all in a day's work for the Post.
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