The best line last night from the ineducable Rick Perry -- he actually gets worse with practice -- was:
One of the reasons that I think Americans are so untrustworthy of what’s going on in Washington is ...
Or it could be they're distrustful, or untrusting, of what's going on, although it's hard to disagree that American voters are, by and large, untrustworthy. Nonetheless, after eight recent years of another Texan's butchery of basic syntax and elementary vocabulary, it's even harder to be amused by such witlessness in high places.
It's demagogic amateur hours like that -- Perry went on: "the fact of the matter is the issue is we need to have a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution. (Applause.)" -- that cause one to fondly recall the real masters of demagoguery.
Take, for instance, Huey Long. A historian once noted that Long could step down from a train and deliver a stemwinder of a hayseed speech -- dropping his "g's" and throwing bundles of "ain'ts" and in general molesting the English language in every imaginable way -- and then reboard the train and, privately to his advisers, pontificate with the flawless tongue of a Harvard lawyer.
With Perry, one gets the feeling that his is no act.