Gov. Rick Perry shows his vacation slides

The Texas governor went to Iraq and upon his return home summoned the media to show them the pictures.

He might as well have hung a sign around his neck that said, "Kick me."

Writes John Kelso, humor columnist of the Austin daily:

One slide showed a group of young Pakistani boys. While showing the slide to the media, Perry explained that the boys came outside "and showed me their goat."

Trust me. If you go to College Station, you can get some boys to show you their goat, a couple of cows and a sheep to be named later.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't criticize anyone for going to visit our troops overseas. I'm fairly sure they appreciate the effort. Even Al Franken has gone over there. Letterman, too. But Rick Perry is no Al Franken or David Letterman, neither of whom called a press conference to show off their slides. And many of us have sat through vacation slide shows of friends, so common sense tells you, "Don't go there." But if you do go there, don't stay there for 90 minutes.

More Kelso:

"This is an Iraqi general," Perry said from the lectern as a photo of him standing with an old bald-headed guy in a suit popped up on the screen. "His son is at Texas A&M."

Haven't we done enough to these poor Iraqis already by invading their country? And now we're turning their children into Aggies? Isn't there a University of Texas T-shirt that addresses this by saying, "Friends Don't Let Friends Go to A&M?"

Doesn't the Geneva Convention prohibit this kind of cruel and unusual behavior? Doesn't it amount to outsourcing torture?

And:

I liked the way Perry kept referring to the theater of war as the "thee-AY-ter."

"Everybody who travels into Baghdad or thee-AY-ter is sufficiently armored, as you see there," said Perry, showing a slide of four guys in Army helmets, one of them being him.

Perry also had on jeans and sunglasses, like he was fixing to ski or something.

Again, you can hear this same sort of goober "thee-AY-ter" talk in College Station for a lot less cash outlay than what the Department of Defense must have paid to send Gov. Hairdo overseas.

Yup. The governor shoulda known better.
[statesman.com]