Top Stories

• GOP Primary: Perry 29%, Romney 18%, Bachmann 13% – Rasmussen Reports
• Let the Perry Hatred Begin – Rich Lowry, National Review Online
• MSNBC's Ed Schultz slanders Governor Perry – The Jersey-Texan
• Reporters Wear Out Their Fainting Couches On Rick Perry's First Full Campaign Day – Mollie Hemingway, Ricochet.com
• Four More Texas Abortion Practitioners Face Investigations – Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com
• John Cornyn demands to know why Fast and Furious supervisors got promotions – Rick Dunham, Texas on the Potomac

Recommended

• Ascension – bad scenario #2 – Weston Hicks, AgendaWise Reports
• Perry's Red-Hot Bernanke Slam: A Much Needed Defense of the Dollar – Larry Kudlow, RealClearPolitics
  

  No, Ben Bernanke is not a traitor. This is a policy dispute; it’s not a matter of patriotism. However, and this is an important however, the rest of Perry’s statement suggests that his analysis of Fed policy is right on target. In other words, wrong words, right analysis.

  The Texas governor, who by some polls is the new Republican presidential frontrunner, went on to say, “We’ve already tried this. All it’s going to be doing is devaluing the dollar in your pocket. And we cannot afford that.”

  Well, to me that is exactly right.

  The journos who don’t know much about economics will, of course, stick with their strengths and focus on the more gossipy items.

• Levin: Nothing wrong with Perry’s statement about Bernanke – The Right Scoop
• No retreat by Perry in war of words – Rick Dunham, San Antonio Express-News
• Fact Checking FactCheck.org on Rick Perry and Texas Medicaid Costs – Ben Domenech, Reform Medicaid
• Perry Looks to Break the Mold in N.H. – Jim O'Sullivan, NationalJournal.com
• Perry and the Stimulus: It's Complicated – Ross Ramsey, Texas Tribune
  Memo to political headline writers everywhere: “It’s complicated” was always a bad headline choice, and now the meme has run its course. Please try harder to write a decent headline moving forward. Thanks! -Icon Eds
• Karl Rove: The Texas Miracle predated Perry. Can you say Bush? – Wayne Slater, Trail Blazers Blog
  One of our editors was so delighted that Slater had apparently found new inspiration after years of obsessing over Karl Rove, but it appears Slater has suffered a relapse.
• Perry's change not for better – Lisa Falkenberg, Houston Chronicle
  

  I had just written a column the headline writers titled “Perry’s act as crafted as his hair,” when Austin communications consultant Pete McRae sent me his essay about the first time he saw Rick Perry, in January of 1985.

  As noted by commenter Matt Bramanti, the Chronicle‘s junior political columnist leads her column with a tale from a convicted felon who used his state job to try to (illegally) boost his boss, incumbent ag commissioner Jim Hightower, in his race against none other than…. Rick Perry! None of that background makes it into the junior columnist’s latest screed.

Top Stories

• Polygamist leader gets life in prison for assaults – Paul Weber, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
• Congressional Inquiries Turn To Houston Over Gun Trafficking Investigation – Robert Arnold, KPRC-2 News
  Was the Obama Administration’s Fast And Furious fiasco modeled after a Bush-era pilot program in Houston?
• Texas hits record 249 counties with burn bans – AP
• School boards pay big money to part with admininistrators – AP
  The administrative side of public education costs Texas taxpayers WAY too much.
• HISD Announces New “Go Ahead And Cheat On State Tests” Policy – Rhymes with Right

Perry for Prez?

• Time: Perry breaks the “rules” – Paul Burka, BurkaBlog
  

  The Republican field is about to learn another thing about Perry. When he does something outrageous, like “The Response,” injecting, by his very presence, politics into a religious event, it won’t stick. He broke the rules and got away with it. Perry is Teflon. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. He just is. Nothing sticks to him.

  We can help Burka to understand. A majority of Texans do not share Burka’s (or the Austin lockstep political media’s) sensibilities about what is outrageous and what is not. Hence, they don’t pay all that much attention when said lockstep media hyperventilates over whatever they deem to be the latest “outrage.”

• Perry and . . . Giuliani? – Katrina Trinko, NRO
• Why Rick Perry will win the ‘blogger primary’ (and why it matters) – Matt Lewis, Daily Caller
• Perry 2012 speculation goes into overdrive – Rick Dunham, Houston Chronicle
• The Rick Perry that Texans know – Dan Balz, Washington Post

Recommended

• Fed Up: A Texas Bank Calls It Quits – Robin Sidel, WSJ.com
• Craig James Talks About the Tea Party and Possible 2012 Senate Campaign – RedState
• Sanchez U.S. Senate campaign makes Austin premiere – Kate Alexander, Postcards
  

  As the Republicans vying to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate have been making lots of noise, the Democrat mounting a bid for the same seat has been quietly laying the foundation for a campaign.

  SOMEBODY bought into the spin! Lawrence Person’s recent assessment seems more spot on to us, though.

• Texas budget writer: From here, state budget can't be balanced just with cuts – Robert T. Garrett, Trail Blazers
  Watch out — the state’s lockstep political media will be declaring this guy a HERO in short order (and as noted above, Texans won’t pay them much mind)!
• Burgess doesn't rule out impeachment to stop Obama's agenda (UPDATED) – Tristan Hallman, Trail Blazers Blog
  So, as it turns out, when the reporter actually bothers to talk to Burgess, he DOES rule it out. Some gotcha.
• The Self-Exam That Higher Education Would Rather Not Conduct – Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, Chronicle of Higher Education
  Good reading for those who cover the important topic of higher-education reform in Texas (since their coverage has more often read like football cheerleading than this).