Rick Perry apparently won the award at last night’s GOP Reality Show for most belligerent, ill-considered comment, calling to kick Turkey out of NATO because it had ties to Islamic terrorists.
And while it doesn’t have the same utter lack of caution, I’ve always wondered why this passage from Dick Cheney’s autobiographical novel never attracted more attention:
I think we failed to understand the magnitude of the shift that was taking place in Turkey. The significance of an Islamic government taking power in one of America’s most important NATO allies was in a sense obscured because of all the other challenges we faced. Today, Turkey appears to be in the middle of a dangerous transition from a key NATO ally to an Islamist-governed nation developing close ties with countries like Iran and Syria at the expense of its relations with the United States and Israel. (379)
Sure, PapaDick didn’t call them terrorists–not explicitly. But when I read this I thought the subtext was just as shocking as what Rick Perry said last night.