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<DIV align=left><SPAN class="timestamp published"
title=2011-08-11T20:30:51+00:00><EM>The New York Times</EM> OP/ED</SPAN></DIV>
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title=2011-08-11T20:30:51+00:00></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><SPAN class="timestamp published"
title=2011-08-11T20:30:51+00:00>August 11, 2011, <SPAN>8:30
pm</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<H3 class=entry-title align=left>Rick Perry’s Unanswered Prayers</H3>
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<ADDRESS class="byline author vcard">By <A class="url fn"
title="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/timothy-egan/ CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/timothy-egan/">TIMOTHY
EGAN</A></ADDRESS></DIV>
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<P class=summary><A
title="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/timothy-egan/ CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/timothy-egan/">Timothy
Egan</A> on American politics and life, as seen from the West.</P></DIV>
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<H4>Tags:</H4>
<P class="meta tags"><A
href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/elections-2012/"
rel=tag>Elections 2012</A>, <A
href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/religion/" rel=tag>religion</A>,
<A href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/rick-perry/" rel=tag>rick
perry</A>, <A href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/texas/"
rel=tag>Texas</A></P>
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<P>A few months ago, with Texas aflame from more than 8,000 wildfires brought on
by extreme drought, a man who hopes to be the next president took pen in hand
and went to work:</P>
<P>“Now, therefore, I, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested
in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim
the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as
Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas.”</P>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>In the four months since Rick Perry’s request for divine
intervention, his state has taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
<P></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P></P></DIV></DIV>
<P>Then the governor prayed, publicly and often. Alas, a rainless spring
was followed by a rainless summer. July was the hottest month in recorded Texas
history. Day after pitiless day, from Amarillo to Laredo, from Toadsuck to
Twitty, folks were greeted by a hot, white bowl overhead, triple-digit
temperatures, and a slow death on the land.</P>
<P>In the four months since Perry’s request for divine intervention, his state
has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Nearly all of Texas is now
in “extreme or exceptional” drought, as classified by federal meteorologists,
the worst in Texas history.</P>
<P>Lakes have disappeared. Creeks are phantoms, the caked bottoms littered with
rotting, dead fish. Farmers cannot coax a kernel of grain from ground that
looks like the skin of an aging elephant.</P>
<P>Is this Rick Perry’s fault, a slap to a man who doesn’t believe that humans
can alter the earth’s climate — God messin’ with Texas? No, of course
not. God is too busy with the upcoming Cowboys football season and solving
the problems that Tony Romo has reading a blitz.</P>
<P>But Perry’s tendency to use prayer as public policy demonstrates, in the
midst of a truly painful, wide-ranging and potentially catastrophic crisis in
the nation’s second most-populous state, how he would govern if he became
president.</P>
<P><STRONG><FONT size=5>“I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God,
and say, ‘God: You’re going to have to fix this,’” he said in a speech in May,
explaining how some of the nation’s most serious problems could be
solved.</FONT></STRONG></P>
<DIV class=w427>Pat Sullivan/Associated PressTexas Gov. Rick Perry spoke at a
day long prayer and fast rally on Saturday, Aug. 6, 2011, at Reliant Stadium in
Houston.</DIV>
<P>That was a warm-up of sorts for his prayer-fest, 30,000 evangelicals in
Houston’s Reliant Stadium on Saturday. From this gathering came a very specific
prayer for economic recovery. On the following Monday, the first day God could
do anything about it, Wall Street suffered its worst one-day collapse since the
2008 crisis. The Dow sunk by 635 points.</P>
<P>Prayer can be meditative, healing, and humbling. It can also be magical
thinking. Given how Perry has said he would govern by outsourcing to the
supernatural, it’s worth asking if God is ignoring him.</P>
<P>Though Perry will not officially announce his candidacy until Saturday, he
loomed large over the Republican debate Thursday night. With their denial
of climate change, basic budget math, and the indisputable fact that most
of the nation’s gains have gone overwhelmingly to a wealthy few in the last
decade, the candidates form a Crazy Eight caucus. You could power a hay
ride on their nutty ideas.</P>
<P>After the worst week of his presidency (and the weakest Oval Office speech
since Gerald Ford unveiled buttons to whip inflation), the best thing Barack
Obama has going for him is this Republican field. He still beats all of
them in most polling match-ups.</P>
<P>Perry is supposed to be the savior. When he joins the campaign in the next
few days, expect him to show off his boots; they are emblazoned with the slogan
dating to the 1835 Texas Revolution: “Come and Take It.” He once explained
the logo this way: “Come and take it — that’s what it’s all about.” This
is not a man one would expect to show humility in prayer.</P>
<P>Perry revels in a muscular brand of ignorance (Rush Limbaugh is a personal
hero), one that extends to the ever-fascinating history of the Lone Star
State. Twice in the last two years he’s broached the subject of Texas
seceding from the union.</P>
<P>“When we came into the nation in 1845 we were a republic, we were a
stand-alone nation,” says Perry in a 2009 video that has just surfaced.
“And one of the deals was, we can leave any time we want. So we’re kind of
thinking about that again.”</P>
<P>He can dream all he wants about the good old days when Texas left the nation
to fight for the slave-holding states of the breakaway confederacy. But the law
will not get him there. There is no such language in the Texas or United States’
constitutions allowing Texas to unilaterally “leave any time we want.”</P>
<P>But Texas <EM>is</EM> special. By many measures, it is the nation’s
most polluted state. Dirty air and water do not seem to bother
Perry. He is, however, extremely perturbed by the Environmental
Protection Agency’s enforcement of laws designed to clean the world around
him. In a recent <A
href="http://blogs.cbn.com/beltwaybuzz/archive/2011/08/05/rick-perry-i-pray-for-the-president-everyday.aspx">interview</A>,
he wished for the president to pray away the E.P.A.</P>
<P>To Jews, Muslims, non-believers and even many Christians, the Biblical bully
that is Rick Perry must sound downright menacing, particularly when he
gets into religious absolutism. <STRONG><FONT size=5>“As a nation, we must call
upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles,”</FONT></STRONG> he said
last week.</P>
<P>As a lone citizen, he’s free to advocate Jesus-driven public policy
imperatives. But coming from someone who wants to govern this great
mess of a country with all its beliefs, Perry’s language is an insult to the
founding principles of the republic. Substitute Allah or a Hindu God for
Jesus and see how that polls.</P>
<P>Perry is from Paint Creek, an unincorporated hamlet in the infinity of the
northwest Texas plains. I’ve been there. In wet years, it’s pretty, the birds
clacking on Lake Stamford, the cotton high. This year, it’s another sad
moonscape in the Lone Star State.</P>
<P>Over the last 15 years, taxpayers have shelled out $232 million in farm
subsidies to Haskell County, which includes Paint Creek — a handout to more than
2,500 recipients, better than one out every three residents. God may not
always be reliable, but in Perry’s home county, the federal government certainly
is.</FONT><FONT size=2 face=Verdana></FONT></P></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>______________________________</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Wayne A. Fox<BR><A
href="mailto:wayne.a.fox@gmail.com">wayne.a.fox@gmail.com</A><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>