I snarked yesterday that the left would get hysterical and treat his statement on the Tenth Amendment as a veiled call for secession, so I’m obliged to eat my words today. Simply awful, whether as a convenient distraction for the media from the tea parties or as a brush for them to tar the protests as motivated by crackpot neo-confederate sentiments. Even Drudge, who’s obviously sympathetic to the rallies, is leading with the story right now. In the red scare font, no less.

Breitbart has the audio if you’re curious, but here’s the gist of it:

Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters’ questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

He said when Texas entered the union in 1845 it was with the understanding it could pull out. However, according to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Texas negotiated the power to divide into four additional states at some point if it wanted to but not the right to secede.

Texas did secede in 1861, but the North’s victory in the Civil War put an end to that.

What a treat to see some on the right pulling the same whiny, anti-democratic crap that the left pulled under Bush. I can only assume this means that I was wrong about Perry’s 2012 aspirations and that he’s not planning to run, as the thought of a secessionist presidential candidate would be rather highly nuanced indeed. Exit question: Chuck Norris for Texas president?