In a sense, Rick Perry represented our last hope. With Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain (all at one point considered serious contenders for the Republican nomination) out of the race, things just haven’t been as funny any more. Oh, sure, we still laugh
at Newt, and Ron Paul, but the jokes -like Paul himself – are getting really old.
Romney is not funny. Huntsman is not funny. Santorum is only funny because of his name, and we did that. O.K., that he dresses like Mr. Rogers and has weird kids is kind of comical, too.
But it was Rick Perry, the most beautifully coiffed governor since Rod Blagojevich, the man who just loves being photographed with guns, the man who says God told him to run, the man who responded to drought and wildfires devastating his state by praying for rain, in a big stadium with thousands of followers (God laughed at them), the man who couldn’t remember his lines in the debate, who really was the last great hope for comedy in this race.
What he said today, though, was not funny. In response to the photo of a bunch of U.S. marines pissing on the dead bodies of some Afghani men they had killed, Perry said “Obviously, 18-, 19-year-old kids make stupid mistakes all too often. And that’s what’s occurred here.” He went on to say that they should be reprimanded, but not prosecuted.
Wrong. A stupid mistake is when you go out on the front porch naked and accidentally lock yourself out of the house. A stupid mistake is when you forget to set the parking brake and your Dad’s car rolls into the lake. A stupid mistake is taking a pee just after you’ve been chopping hot peppers.
This was not a stupid mistake. They knew the bodies were there on the ground. They stood there and peed on them, while someone else held the camera. Stupid, yes. Mistake, no. It was a totally deliberate act.
A reprimand? A reprimand is what you get if you are late to work, or didn’t finish a school assignment on time. A reprimand won’t even stop the same people from doing the same thing again, much less act as a deterrent to anybody else.
This was a horrible, disgraceful act which is repugnant to any human being with a conscience. Perry’s attempt to trivialize it is both offensive, and disturbing.
I hope for better days, but I am afraid that the comedy has gone out of this race.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
At the very least, those “marines” should be booted out. They’re obviously too stupid to hold the job. I’ve never been in their circumstances so I can’t say I wouldn’t do something similar, which should not be construed as condoning what they did but, rather, not casting judgment – on that part. But to be videotaped in the act? My god! Nobody thought, “Hey, what could possibly go wrong?” I don’t want idiots like that flipping my hamburgers, let alone serving my country.