Conservatives poised for Perry's stance on immigration

Governor okays in-state tuition for illegals' kids


Las Vegas – When it comes to conservative politics, one should never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

However, by Texas beer joint standards, some of this stuff is guaranteed to get your butt stomped. Those who choose to tune in to Fox at prime time will get another dose of it tonight, direct from Las Vegas, Nevada.

Consider the behavior of the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum. This presidential non-contender insisted on interrupting Governor Rick Perry repeatedly when he tried to answer his question. He must have asked, then repeated his question a half dozen times. Even the moderator at the Fox News debate admonished him.

Pretty unusual for an electronic lynching, which is what the technicolor event had become as Santorum the agitator proceeded to answer his own question, rudely interrupting a favorite son of the Lone Star state who is merely stating what is obvious to any chili-headed denizen from the prickly pear prairies to the piney woods.

How you got here doesn't matter at all. The fact is, you arrived as soon as you could, and that settles it. As Rick Perry will tell anyone who will listen, education is a pretty good sign that a man or woman won't become a burden to the fiscally conservative taxpayers of the Tea Party.

Give 'em all a Lonesome Star on me, Mr. Bartender. I'll pay you by and by.

Folks whose moms and pops waded that river and walked that cactus and mesquite-strewn road to the land of the Big PX, then stuck and stayed and graduated from a Texas high school, get to pay the same amount of tuition as those whose birth certificates say their mamas dominoed while graced with American citizenship, a green card, or some other document that proves they are human beings endowed by their Creator with a right to be themselves – native Texans.

I have spoken.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, that well-known member of what the pastor of First Baptist of Dallas calls a “cult,” says that in-state tuition rates for the sons and daughters of illegals who attend public colleges in Texas amounts to a “subsidy,” a $100,000 “discount.”

Oh, well, that's one way of putting it.

And then the studio audience, described by various liberal news persons as “heavily infused” with Tea Party types, cheers and applauds wildly. Kind of reminds me of the kind of pep rally any self-respecting Texas high school knows how to put on in any gym anywhere on any autumn Friday morning. Beat them Bulldawgs bloody, y'all.

When Mr. Perry states what is obvious to anyone who ever walked a mile in his pointy-toed cowboy boots on Texas soil, namely, that if you endured a Texas education reading textbooks approved by those who sit at the right hand of God Almighty to see to it that our kids don't get any fuzzy-headed liberal stuff that is not approved by the right-winged state board that grants the nod to purchase of books supplied to all students for no extra charge other than the hard-earned dollars of the taxpayers, you should pay the same amount as anyone else - they boo and holler and shout him down.

English professors at The University at Ostentatious say the Globe Theater received most of the purple-toned lines in “MacBeth” and “King Lear” with much the same sentiment. So, it's not anything new, after all.

It's cost him the front-runner spot in the polls, this thing of being the first Governor in a series of more than a dozen states to follow Texas, our Texas in the in-state tuition option for kids of illegals who have the gumption to get accepted at the University or A&M – or any of the fine state universities supported by Texas land grants.

His approval rating stood at 32 percent on the day when he was first confronted by the fact that a near-unanimous vote by the Texas Legislature put the law on his desk back in 2001 - and he signed it.

Nestor Rodriguez, a professor of sociology at the University at Austin, said “Among Republicans, immigration can be a very salient issue. He is making himself vulnerable in his political party.”

A Republican consultant, Bettina Inclan, told newsmen that at least the Governor has one thing going for him. “At the end of the day, Perry is the only presidential candidate who has real experience in dealing with a diverse Latino community.”

Instead of wanting a build an electrified fence, as Herman Cain the pizza godfather joked, and Rep. Michelle Bachman demanded, he wants to “put boots on the ground” and ferry the troops in by helicopter.

What Texas politician from LBJ on down wouldn't advocate air mobility by egg beater? I mean, what's all this fuss about helicopters boil down to, anyway? They build them right here, in Texas, in Cowtown. Lyndon got elected Senator in 1948 riding around in a variety of the infernal things – every one of them bought and paid for by Brown & Root.

Which gets us back to the logic of the beer jeer debate on low-brow perceptions. The kids of folks who got their feet wet and got here by other than legal means get the privilege of paying the same price – dollar for dollar – as the brats of any Dr. Pepper-swilling dame from Big D, the Domed City, North Zulch, or Terlingua.

It's no free ride, any way you slice it...

Oops, did I mention the blade? You know, they gave Marcel Ledbetter that beer joint for way less than that. I know that happened over there in Mississippi. That's where they had some kind of hassle over who gets to go to school – way back there.

Please forgive me, y'all. I am not the man what carries the football.

Just stopped in for a brew.