Droning On

If they weren't so patently dangerous, the political inanities of Texas Governor Rick Perry might be entertaining. Unfortunately, it's hard to keep up with the tempo of his pendulum swings in logic. He started off toward the political precipice exactly a year ago; Perry turned down $556 million in federal funds for extended unemployment benefits for 45,000 Texans still looking for work. In an almost incomprehensible turn of hypocrisy, a few months later the longest serving governor in Texas history asked the federal government for a loan of $170 million to cover its existing unemployment benefits. Because that was only a stopgap amount, the total is expected to reach $650 million in federal loans, which is about $100 million more than he rejected in stimulus money. The convolutions of Mr. Perry's gray matter must be a sight to behold because he's now got another contradiction he is pursuing that is flat dangerous. On the right side of his mouth, he speaks about secession and keeping Washington out of our lives but on the left side of his barbecue pit he's now demanding the federal government deploy unmanned aerial drones along the US-Mexico border. How does one secede while also using federal troops to militarize a border?