When the accolades came out Monday for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued an effusive statement thanking "the brave men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to tracking this individual down, particularly the members of our valiant special forces who flew into harm's way Sunday to finally put an end to bin Laden's murderous reign."
Conspicuously absent from his statement were former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, both of whom have had, well, not nothing to do with the operation that finally led to bin Laden's demise.
During a photo op with some visiting Afghani agricultural researchers on Tuesday in his offices, we asked Perry if he did that on purpose.
His answer: Sorta, but it's not personal or anything.
"I didn't say, 'Way to go,' to the president of Texas A&M when the women won the national chamipionship of basketball, so I appropriately said 'Thank you' to the participants that really mattered," Perry said, with a hint of a smile. "And that's not to say that anyone else doesn't matter, but the ones that matter most to the American people are the young men and women who put their lives on the line every day - and particularly those special operators who went in and did the Lord's work, in our opinion, and removed an individual who had been needing to come to justice for a long time. So I think appropriately we said thank you."
Then he added:
"If I had to list everybody that was engaged in the process, we'd have run out of paper."
As an aside, when asked by an Afghani reporter - who was in country shadowing the researchers - whether the U.S. should focus its attention on Pakistan (instead of Afghanistan) now that everyone knows bin Laden was hiding there, Perry gave him a roundabout yes - though he didn't say Pakistan specifically should be targeted.
"It is absolutely appropriate to penetrate into any country that is harboring terrorists that are either planning to do ill will to the citizens of the United States or our armed forces," Perry said. "So I would suggest that any country that is harboring terrorists should be on the lookout for American troops to make right - particularly those that there is clear and compelling evidence that they're either planning or have engaged in acitivites that would harm American citizens or troops."
Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/05/it-would-be-like-thanking-rona.html
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