Michele Bachman, who is losing all the respect I had for her quickly, accused Rick Perry of selling out to Merck, an evil drug company by “forcing” little girls to be vaccinated against their, and their parent’s will. I will get to my thoughts in a bit, but first, Ace has a great post that raises some interesting points about this attack on Perry.
Via Hot Air, some of that there crony capitalism that I’ve been talkin’ about.
Perry’s gubernatorial campaign, for example, received nearly $30,000 from the drugmaker since 2000, most of it prior to his decision in 2007 to order young girls to obtain Merck’s vaccine against the human papillomavirus, or HPV.
Actually, it was $28,500 I’ve read elsewhere, the “bulk” of which came before the 2007 decision, but no one defines what “the bulk” is. Why don’t they include the actual figure, since they have all the numbers in hand?
Why, it’s almost as if they’re being intentionally vague and rounding up wherever possible. Note that happens again, here:
Merck has also given more than $355,000 in donations to the Republican Governors Association since 2006, which was the year that Perry began to play a prominent role in the Washington-based group, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Ah-he-hem, and that figure is “since 2006,” that is, until the present day, and Perry’s EO was retracted long, long ago (it never went into effect), so why does Merck continue donating? And, further, why does the media not give us the actual figures again, but instead resort to this helpfully-vague dating terminology (“since 2006″)?
The RGA, by the way, supports all Republican gubernatorial candidates, so Rick Perry’s “piece” of that sweet sweet Crony Capitalism pie is about, what, one 25th of that figure?
If you think Perry was bought that’s fine, but I seem to remember a lot of allegations that Dick Cheney started the War in Iraq “to increase his Halliburton stock value,” and to “help his friends at Halliburton,” and I remember these allegations being dismissed with a laugh, as there was no actual evidence of any improper influence or compromised decision-making.
Frankly, I thought the accusation Bachman made was, or should have been, beneath her. There is no real proof, as Ace pointed out, and I fail to understand what she is trying to do. Is she TRYING to give the Democrats ammunition should Perry be the nominee? Because you know they will make fodder of her comments.
Now, to the HPV vaccine issue. Perry was WRONG to do what he did. I opposed it then, and now. Perry, I think to his credit, has said it was wrong, and he should have handled it differently. OK, I can accept that, and one reason I can accept it is that I have lived in Texas the entire time Perry has been governor. This is also why I find accusations that he is a”big government” laughable. He has, almost always, come down on the side of LESS government. Has he been perfect? Of course not. Have I approved of every move he has made? Hell no! But, then again, neither has any other politician.
Now, one final point. Apparently Bachman, and Rick Santorum need to be educated on what the words OPT OUT mean. You see the fact is no child was forced to get this vaccine, no parents were forced into signing away parental rights either. They had a choice NOT TO HAVE THEIR CHILD VACCINATED! Get the facts straight! Bachman and Santorum keep jumping on this with both feet, and they keep doing so by lying about the executive order being a mandate. It was not!
Perry has things in his record that deserve questioning, and I think they should be looked into. But, again, there ought to be no place for using false, or at the very least misleading information. These are tactics that MSNBS uses, and Conservatives ARE BETTER THAN THAT!
I am not the only one fired up over this. At American Thinker, Russ Vaughn
I’m stunned at the stupidity of two people I previously admired. Tonight, two supposed Republican leaders handed the Democrat Party oppo videos that will no doubt be used ad nauseum when Rick Perry becomes the Republican candidate. Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, two wannabees who have no chance of winning the Republican nomination demonstrated why they aren’t even close to being presidential material.
Their emotion-driven attacks on Perry will most certainly come back to haunt the Republican Party as it seeks to rid us of Obamanation. Playing right into Wolf Blitzer’s hands, Bachmann and Santorum let themselves be manipulated into vicious, emotional attacks on Perry on an issue where he had already admitted he was wrong. He manfully stood there before them and the nation and admitted his mistake and these two lacked the professional grace to back off and let the issue rest. More than anything else they resembled a pair of rabid MSNBC loonies.
Sensing the blood Blitzer had chummed into the water, both continued to attack and bloody not just Perry, but the Republican Party, conservatives as a whole and the Tea Party, selfishly weakening our chances of victory in 2012. What self-centered, mean-spirited short-sightedness was demonstrated by both. Bachmann in particular seemed determined to bloody Perry, our apparent front runner, with her motherly appeals to emotion, repeatedly using the phrase “little girls.” Notice that the more circumspect and wiser debate participants didn’t partake of this ill-informed feeding frenzy.
Like I already said, I think Santorum, and Bachman are way out of bounds and only helping the Democrats!
Rush echoes my sentiments, that this is helping The Dems
darcprynce
Dave C
Gatordoug
Rick Perry did issue an EO that made gardasil vaccine mandatory. BUT… and this is a big BUT, he did that for two reasons:
1. The vaccine would save a lot of females from HPV.
2. He made it mandatory so that insurance companies would cover the cost of the vaccine. Without it being mandatory, any parent wanting to have the vaccine for their daughter would have to pay the full price for it.
When liberals and scaremongers went apeshit about the EO, he rescinded it.
I wrote about a month ago about the 14 myths about Rick Perry. At the time, I never figured that the gardasil vaccine mythoid would be the one that people would jumping all over today. To me this was a non-starter of a controversy.
Excellent thoughts, I agree, this has been over blown
I think what the majority of the Texans who apposed the Gardasil mandate was because it was simply that.. A mandate. Telling them what to do..
Perry really should have known better.
No doubt about that, and he has admitted as much