How Pathetic is Rick Perry?

It occurred to Rick Perry that if he wanted to be president of the United States, he might need to have a position on taxes. Unfortunately, coherent thought isn't his strong suit. Charles Pierce of Esquire has the skinny in Rick Perry's Tax Plan: A Comical Slow Dance with Confusion:

It is on days like this that I don't envy political economists. They're the ones that are going to have to take this Message from Goobertown seriously. They're going to have to score it. They're going to have to do the math, such as it is, and try to find a coherent formation in this unwieldy parade of hackneyed talking points (Kill the Estate Tax and Save the Family Farm!) and tired applause lines (The Job Creators Are Uncertain!). They're the ones who are going to have to find a way to square the utter abandonment of the progressive income tax, a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, a return to explosively inflationary health-care costs, an unchained and undoubtedly newly amok financial-services industry, and the partial privatization of Social Security, all of which Goodhair has managed to wedge into "Cap, Balance, and Grow (!)."