Rick Perry’s Unanswered Prayers

By TIMOTHY EGAN
Opinionator
The New York Times Blogs
August 11, 2011, 8:30 pm

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/rick-perrys-unanswered-prayers/?emc=eta1

[Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the
West.]

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:

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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."

But Texas is 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
interview,  he wished for the president to pray away the
E.P.A.

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. "As a nation, we must call upon Jesus to guide us
through unprecedented struggles," he said last week.

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.

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.

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.

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