How Ignorant Do You Have To Be?

Caption: The American Revolution, as envisioned by Rick Perry.

Image credit: Walter Lantz

Wow. I thought after the last Republican primary things couldn't get any worse for that party's presidential candidates. I was wrong:

[Texas Governor Rick] Perry, a favorite of tea party Republicans, replied, “Our Founding Fathers never meant for Washington, D.C., to be the fount of all wisdom. As a matter of fact, they were very much afraid of that because they’d just had this experience with this far-away government that had centralized thought process and planning and what have you, and then it was actually the reason that we fought the Revolution in the 16th century, was to get away from that kind of onerous crown if you will.”

Tea Party Favorite Perry Gets Revolution Date Wrong

This isn't just nitpicking. He didn't say it was 1776, when Concord, Bunker Hill, and all the early battles in Massachusetts happened in 1775. Nor is this a case of saying "17th Century" because the Revolution happened in the 1700s. By any reasonable criterion, he's off by more than a century. Columbus didn't reach the Western Hemisphere until the end of the 15th Century (1492). The 16th Century was when the Spaniards set about stealing all the gold they could from the locals.

It wasn't until the 17th Century, the 1600s, that the first English and Dutch settlements were founded, which were the first efforts by Europeans to settle what became the original thirteen colonies. The American Revolution was still more than a century and a half away.

This isn't Perry's first time being on the wrong side of reality. Like the idiots of 2007, he doesn't "believe" in evolution. He's the one who implored his state to pray for rain when droughts brought fires to much of Texas, when he had not long before cut funding for fire fighting. Which, one would have to think, was due to the fact that he doesn't "believe" in climate change, either.

Rick Perry is the answer to the question "How ignorant do you have to be to be the Tea Party's favorite?" The answer is not very flattering to either Perry or the party.