Rick Perry Makes Mistakes?

Have I just seen Rick Perry make his first mistake of his very new Presidential campaign? Here is a brief news item that appeared today in the Austin American-Statesman (in its entirety):

“Gov. Rick Perry today said he made a mistake when he ordered that school girls get vaccinated against the human papillomavirus.”

“In a radio interview at the Iowa State Fair, a caller asked Perry about his 2007 executive order, which infuriated Republican legislators. It never took effect.”

“Perry said he was trying to combat cancer but should have gone through the Legislature. ‘I readily stand up and say I made a mistake on that,’ Perry said.”

Yeah, I’ll say he made a mistake, and now he made another. He admitted to making a mistake.

Making mistakes, through errors in judgment that are meant to enrich your cronies is not very presidential, this is true. Admitting that you made a mistake on a radio show is really not very presidential.

Perry painted himself into a corner on this, and that, as well, is not very presidential.

Everyone in Texas knows that Rick Perry, through his executive order was trying to funnel millions of taxpayer dollars to Merck, the producer of the HPV vaccine, actually a course of 3 shots, a company represented by his former Chief of Staff.

He wasn’t trying to combat cancer. This vaccine was effective against only 4 of the several strains of HPV known to exist. This was totally transparent to us.

And it went against the sensibilities of conservatives as well as Democrats, but the conservatives opposed it because it was government intrusion, Democrats because it was that (as are sonograms for women seeking an abortion) and blatant, unabashed corruption.

So now Perry has to walk this one back. And I hope that he has to do this over and over again, especially in nationally broadcast debates.

But I know what the result will be. Because when a Democrat admits to a mistake you get skewered. Do the same thing as a Republican and the press ignores you. Besides, this tale of corruption and corporate charity is so blatant in its scope and intention that it will be seen as unbelievable. People will simply not believe what they hear with their own ears. It is too fantastic a story to be true.

The trouble is, it is, all of it, true. And this is the guy who is currently most likely to garner the Republican nomination.