Kinky mines own novels for campaign one-liners, says get Al-Qaeda, leave Willie alone

Fresh off the re-reportage of his belief sexual predators should be imprisoned and made to "listen to a Negro talking to himself," Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman appeared on global television this morning, making an appearance with good friend Don Imus of "Imus in the Morning."

But Kinky didn't touch at all on his comment about incarcerated Negroes talking to themselves, even though it's all over the papers and the news wire services today.

He left that to Imus, who said the line is "in his books."

This bolsters our previous assertion that Friedman uses the same one-liners over and over and needs new material, which prompted us to withdraw our support a good 6 months ago.

Be that as it may, Kinky did allude vaguely to his penchant for being a loose cannon.

"I can afford to do something dumb, but I can't do anything stupid," he told Imus.

Whether his comment about what should be done to sexual predators is dumb or stupid will be decided Election Day, we suppose, but it occurs to us that use of the word "Negro," while certainly a legitimate word, is much like the way LBJ during his U.S. Senate days used the word "nigra."

Ah, well.

Kinky mentioned that he talked to Willie Nelson following the singer's arrest the other day for having a pound or so of marijuana and a bag of psyilocybin mushrooms on his tour bus near Lafayette, La.

"He just told me he was trying to get to Ann's funeral," Kinky said, alluding to the funeral of Ann Richards, the late governor of Texas.

This makes complete sense to us. If you're gonna attend a funeral, go high as a kite. Death is gawdamm depressing.

"They should go after Al Qaeda and leave Willie alone," Kinky added.

Yeah. Let's get Osama Bin Laden! And elect Kinky! Yee-HAW!!

He also said "they've known this for 40 years," apparently referring to Willie's use of controlled substances.

If this is a mitigating circumstance, we think it should be codified into Texas law. It might lessen prison overcrowding.

Other highlights of the interview:
-- Said Pat Buchanan offered to be his unpaid advisor on immigration matters. Terrific.

-- Asserted that if voter turnout reaches the 35 to 40 percent mark, he will win; only 29 percent of voters cast ballots last time.

-- Observed school teachers "have tears in their eyes" when they come up to hug his neck, evidently because they believe he will save the Texas public education system, which he says is ranked 50th in the country "and now Guam and Samoa are sneakin' up on us."

-- Called himself "a dealer in truth."

-- Said he received 18,000 campaign contributions in the last 3 months while Gov. Rick Perry received "a little over 3,000."

OK, well, it's something to talk about.