Kinky Friedman endorses Rick Perry:

These days, of course, I would support Charlie Sheen over Obama. Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay. Obama has been perpetually behind the curve. If the issue of the day is jobs and the economy, Rick Perry is certainly the nuts-and-bolts kind of guy you want in there. Even though my pal and fellow Texan Paul Begala has pointed out that no self-respecting Mexican would sneak across the border for one of Rick Perry’s low-level jobs, the stats don’t entirely lie. Compared with the rest of the country, Texas is kicking major ass in terms of jobs and the economy, and Rick should get credit for that, just as Obama should get credit for saying “No comment” to the young people of the Iranian revolution.

…So would I support Rick Perry for president? Hell, yes! As the last nail that hasn’t been hammered down in this country, I agree with Rick that there are already too damn many laws, taxes, regulations, panels, committees, and bureaucrats. While Obama is busy putting the hyphen between “anal” and “retentive” Rick will be rolling up his sleeves and getting to work.

I’m still ambivalent. I’m sure that there will be things he’ll do that infuriate me, but at least he’ll end the ongoing wreckage of the economy. Oh, and on the subject of science and politicians? Given a choice between a politician who understands how the economy works and one who believes in evolution, I’ll take a young earther. I need to write a longer essay about this.

[Update a few minutes later]

The rubes continue to come out of the closet:

It is no surprise that many have begun to doubt the president’s leadership qualities. J.P. Morgan calls it the “competency crisis.” The president is not seen fighting for his own concrete goals, nor finding the right allies, especially leaders of business big or small. Instead, his latent hostility to the business community has provoked a mutual response of disrespect. This is lamentable given the unique role that small business especially plays in creating jobs.

The president appears to consider himself immune from error and asserts the fault always lies elsewhere—be it in the opposition in Congress or the Japanese tsunami or in the failure of his audience to fully understand the wisdom and benefits of his proposals. But in politics, the failure of communication is invariably the fault of the communicator.

Many voters who supported him are no longer elated by the historic novelty of his candidacy and presidency. They hoped for a president who would be effective. Remember “Yes We Can”? Now many of his sharpest critics are his former supporters. Witness Bill Broyles, a one-time admirer who recently wrote in Newsweek that “Americans aren’t inspired by well-meaning weakness.” The president who first inspired with great speeches on red and blue America now seems to lack the ability to communicate any sense of resolve for a program, or any realization of the urgency of what might befall us. The teleprompter he almost always uses symbolizes and compounds his emotional distance from his audience.

We lack a coherent and muscular economic strategy, as Mr. Obama and his staff seem almost completely focused on his re-election. He should be spending most of his time on the nitty-gritty of the job instead of on fund raisers, bus tours and visits to diners, which essentially are in service of his political interests. Increasingly his solutions seem to boil down to Vote for Me.

That’s all they ever were.

Is it immature to say “I told you so”? OK, call me immature. You were fools to vote for him the first time and I said so at the time.

[Update a couple minutes later]

“Obama is no Steve Jobs.” You can say that again:

It’s dawning on many Americans that they made a bad hire. Obama was slick and seductive in the interview that stretched from early 2007 to November 2008; the competition was unexciting and, to be blunt, old. But it turned out he had no real job skills, didn’t get along with others, failed to translate rhetoric into action and became blinded by his own ego.

The lesson here is an existential one: Leaders are what they do. They become revered because they perform, understand their market, show creativity, deliver unexpected gains and beat the competition. The star quality follows accomplishments and performance.

Of course, it dawned on many long ago, and some of us (as noted above) predicted it.

[Update later morning]

Fox, meet chickens:

Shapiro goes on to list the things about Perry that most drive liberals nuts, including “anti-intellectualism,” the “God card,” the “living Constitution” (“Perry stands out for his creative cut-and-paste approach to the Constitution”), the “pistol-packing president,” and “daring to call it treason.”

His point, of course, is not only to whack Perry for his (by liberal standards) “extreme” positions, but to gore the Left as well for, among other things, its education fetish, its mortal fear of genuine religious belief, and its abject terror in the face of the inanimate objects we like to call firearms.

Of course, what most liberals don’t realize is, to us these things aren’t bugs — they’re features of a possible Perry presidency. Any prez who would pack heat while jogging with his dog and blow away a varmint or two is okay in our book. Sure beats cowering before a killer rabbit, Carter-style.

Walter obliquely makes an even more important point: that the coming election is likely to be a stark choice between Ivy League credentialism and a form of prairie populism. And that, of course, is precisely what the next election must be about.

Many of my lefty buddies simply cannot conceive of a world in which an Aggie can whup up on a Harvard lad, and merrily call global warming a crock (but . . . it’s settled science!). People like Perry and Palin and Bachmann — hillbillies from flyover country or Outer Slobbovia — send them into towering rages of wounded and unappreciated virtue; never mind that their “virtues” are generally invisible to those of us in the reality-based community. After nearly three years of their pet policy prescriptions, we’ve had a belly full.

I know I have.