This week former presidential candidate and current governor of Texas, Rick Perry, stated that alcoholism and homosexuality are alike. He did this in the city of San Francisco. If there is one city you should have your facts in order about homosexuality it is San Francisco. Earlier during his speech he was asked about the Texas Republican Party’s adoption this month of supporting access to “reparative therapy” for gays and lesbians – a disproven process intended to change sexual orientation. Perry stated that he did not know as he is not a doctor or psychologist. Governor, the science says it does not work. That is something you should know. However, you back pedaled to not having the information to comment on the adoption by your party in your state. Fine. Saying one does not have the answers is a very smart thing to do when you do not know what the heck you are talking about.
He was then asked if he believed homosexuality was a disorder. Danger! Danger! Danger! Governor, just go back to your prior statement and get out of this situation. Unfortunately, he did not and dropped this on us. “Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that. I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.” Oy Vey! What happened to the I’m not a doctor and I’m not a psychologist? What are you basing your belief’s on? Why are you making public what your beliefs are? Just say this not your area of expertise and you are not here to talk about this. You would have looked so much smarter if you just would have admitted what you did not know. Instead we all know you are a boob. I mean we had a strong inclination when you had trouble remembering the three departments of the federal government that you would close down but we almost forgot about that. Almost.
Remember Malaysian Flight 370? Remember when they found it? Oh wait, they didn’t. Yet CNN had experts on 24/7 telling us all where the plane was and why. Breaking News routinely scrolled across our screen. Everybody knew where the plane was. Turns out they did not. Some experts cautioned they could not be sure but that did not stop CNN. Debris!!!! Cool!!!!!! This must be from the plane! Until it wasn’t. Until it was just ocean garbage. Now when CNN breaks in with an update on the missing plane we all snicker. Why? Because we lost faith in them. Instead of just doing what most other networks did and say nobody knew where the flight was CNN had to keep talking. Keep creating content. Restraint and silence would have been the better way to go. Now besides being the least watched of the three “news” networks they are a punch line to jokes. Fox News thanks you for the break. You remember Fox News right? The station that kept putting Karl Rove on the air to tell us how Romney was going to win the election right until then end. Until, even Fox News had to pull the plug on Rove the way the voters pulled the plug on Romney. Another “expert” proclaiming his expertise until his reality was show to be a only his “reality.”
America loves to see a train wreck so we enjoy these types of things. However, the person or organization talking out of their butt greatly damages their credibility. Smart thing to do is when in doubt admit as much or even better say nothing. Let some other boob make the gaffe. Can you imagine a world where news agencies only reported facts and news and politicians only spoke about their area of expertise? Me neither.