Things that are okay with Texas Gov. Rick Perry: Saying that a fatal explosion is
no reason to increase inspections aimed at preventing fatal explosions.
Touting your state's weak regulations to lure businesses there. Things that are not okay with Perry: A cartoon pointing out that weak "pro-business" regulations and businesses that explode are not unrelated phenomena.
Perry is outraged over a Sacramento Bee editorial cartoon which, on the left, shows the governor bragging that "Business is booming in Texas!" in front of a banner saying "low tax" and "low regs." On the right it shows a giant explosion going "BOOM!" Actually, Perry goes beyond outrage:
In a letter to the Bee’s editor, Perry said it “was with extreme disgust and disappointment I viewed your recent cartoon.”
“While I will always welcome healthy policy debate, I won’t stand for someone mocking the tragic deaths of my fellow Texans and our fellow Americans,” Perry wrote. “Additionally, publishing this on the very day our state and nation paused to honor and mourn those who died only compounds the pain and suffering of the many Texans who lost family and friends in this disaster.”
Disgusted, you hear? In reality, Perry's position is the real mockery of those deaths. Pointing out that he spent not just the years leading up to the explosion but the week following it bragging about the "pro-business environment" he's nurtured in Texas by having weak environmental and safety protections backed up by weaker oversight does not mock the victims of those policies. It mocks Perry, yes. But that's likely not even his real problem with the cartoon—in fact, he probably doesn't really have a problem with it. He's just trying to change the subject, to put political commentary he disagrees with off-limits as mockery, to blunt any serious discussion of what happened in West, Texas, and how it's representative of Texas, and how that can be changed.