Here are some unflattering things you should know about Rick Perry, the Republican front-runner to challenge President Obama in the 2012 election.
- His family owned a lease for a 1,070 acre property – no, thats not bad at all… please stand by…
- Rick Perry, in the early days of his political career took fellow politicians and friends to this property for hunting trips. – no, number 2 is not that bad either. He’s from Texas, and hunting is most likely the favorite pastime…. but, please stand by…
- The name of this property frequented by Rick Perry and his friends is “Niggerhead.”
Now, since this story broke in the
Washington Times, Rick Perry and his campaign released a statement stating that the Perry family did not own this property. But they did not deny the claim that Rick Perry’s father leased the property in the 1980’s, or the claim that a rock at the entrance to the property has the name, “Niggerhead” painted on it. The campaign also claims that the rock was eventually painted over.
From the Washington report;
When asked last week, Perry said the word on the rock is an “offensive name that has no place in the modern world.”
Asked to explain why the name is still seen on the rock through the coat of paint, Perry answered;
“My mother and father went to the lease and painted the rock in either 1983 or 1984,” Perry wrote. “This occurred after I paid a visit to the property with a friend and saw the rock with the offensive word. After my visit I called my folks and mentioned it to them, and they painted it over during their next visit.”
“Ever since, any time I ever saw the rock it was painted over,” Perry said.
But it seems that Perry’s recollection about this rock may not be correct at all. The Washington Post report continues;
Perry’s version of events differs in many respects from the recollections of seven people, interviewed by The Washington Post, who spoke in detail of their memories of seeing the rock with the name at various points during the years that Perry was associated with the property through his father, partners or his signature on a lease.
… Of those interviewed, the seven who said they saw the rock said the block-lettered name was clearly visible at different points in the 1980s and 1990s. One, a former worker on the ranch, believes he saw it as recently as 2008.
Herman Cain, one of the Republican challengers to Rick Perry and the only black Republican trying to get the Republican nomination said the name on the rock is “just plain insensitive.” Making his Sunday rounds on the cable networks, Cain told Chris Wallace of Fox News;
“My reaction is, that’s just very insensitive. [There is not] a more vile negative word than the N-word and for him to leave it there as long as he did, before I hear that they finally painted it over is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country.”
However, not everyone thinks the name is offensive. A Texas county judge is quoted in the Washington Post as saying;
“It’s just a name,” said Haskell County Judge David Davis, sitting in his courtroom and looking at a window. “Like those are vertical blinds. It’s just what it was called. There was no significance other than as a hunting deal.”
Rick Perry is trying to become the President of these UNITED States in 2012… in 2012! Amazing that stuff like this is still news in our times.
