It's a good issue to keep alive. You know, Donald [Trump] has got to have some fun. It's fun to poke him a little bit and say "Hey, let's see your grades and your birth certificate." I don't have a clue about where the president – and what this birth certificate says. But it's also a great distraction. I'm not distracted by it.

Perry "doesn't have a clue" where Obama was born. It's a distraction but he's not distracted. Then this remarkable answer:

Q. Even if your plan increases growth, that's going to take time. Year one, year two, you're going to blow a huge hole in the deficit, right?

A. I don't think it does.

No, it does. What Perry "thinks" it will do in the short term is irrelevant. And note the conservative indifference to the deficit and the debt. The GOP is actively preventing any attempt to forestall a double-dip recession because it would raise the debt in the short term, yet favor a tax cut/reform that would blow a hole in the immediate budget far larger! I guess the whole thing is a game for them.

The lesson of the financial crisis? You have to repeal Dodd-Frank, because the only thing wrong with the post-Rubin regulations was that they weren't properly enforced. After the last three years, the counter-intuitive aspect of this might be appealing. But doesn't it simply reek of denial? Wouldn't it be very very easy for Obama to describe Perry as Bush without the prudence, restraint and attentiveness to reality?