The South Rises Again

I've been waiting for years to announce this: Secession!

No, I'm not seceding from the Union, much as I thought about it during the previous Regime. It's coming from...wait for it...a SOUTHERN STATE!

Wow. Bet you never thought that'd happen again, eh? Almost hard to believe.

Yesterday, at one of the silly tea-bag parties in his state, Rick Perry, current Grand Dragon (sorry - Governor!) of Texas, made inflammatory remarks suggesting that Texas might want to secede from the Union. Why? Because Rick Perry is already running a really tight race against a Democratic challenger in next year's gubernatorial race and he needs to rile up his fellow klansmen (sorry - base!) to a bloody, fever pitch as soon as possible. Perry told his racist (sorry - rabid! Hmm, no, I meant what I wrote) listeners that Texas has the historical right to leave the Union whenever it wants, that being part of a deal Texas struck with the Federales when it joined the Union.

Problem: The Governor is wrong. Texas never had that right, though I've often heard it mentioned in the grand mythology that Texans wrap themselves with rather than deal with reality and historical fact. What they have is a bizzare deal struck in the middle of the 19th century that lets Texas split itself into four additional new states if it wants to (keeping the original). Given the vast imaginative range Texans generally display, I imagine they would name them East Texas, West Texas, North Texas...

Another Problem: Gov. Perry is tapping into a deep and bitter well of hatred when he says crap like this. And he knows it. He can't be a total moron (even though he is from Texas). He knows that he is appealing to every Confederate-loving racist son-of-a-bitch in the South when he says this. He may never mention it again but he did his job - he told his good ol' boys who were listening, who could hear the call and decode the code, that he wasn't going to put up with that uppity so-and-so in the White House and that he wants every red-blooded white Southern man to stand by him in his fight.

I'm only surprised he didn't make his statement leaning suggestively against a large tree, dangling a rope from one hand.

CORRECTION: I wrote, because I read a couple stories too fast, that Perry is getting serious challenge from a Dem - but I'm wrong. It's from Kay Bailey Hutchison. No wonder the sad sack has to rally the troops so hard...he might get beat by a skirt!