Wang Dang Sweet Poontang
Whatever their other faults, Republicans can be pretty damn entertaining sometimes. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, re-elected with a less-than-resounding 40% of the popular vote in November, personally asked hunting buddy Ted Nugent to play his inaugural ball at the Austin Convention Center last Tuesday night. The Motor City Madman, who has a ranch near George W. Bush‘s Crawford compound, repaid him by wearing a cutoff Confederate-flag T-shirt and unleashing an expletive-laced diatribe against, among other things, illegal immigrants and “faggots getting hitched.” (Nugent was banned from Houston’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion for a similar rant in 2001.) Austin’s annual ice storm delayed the story from hitting the wire services until last weekend, but blogs from PinkDome to the Huffington Post have been chuckling ever since. Perry’s staff has downplayed Nugent’s antics, which also included machine-gun props and a video of “Frank the Bear” getting blown away, but even some Republicans were appalled. “I think it was a horrible choice,” GOP strategist Royal Masset told the Associated Press. Perry hasn’t exactly apologized; according to Nugent’s interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Monday, Perry called him and said his detractors could “drop dead.” Still, some pundits think Nugent may have torpedoed his pal’s chances of being the 2008 GOP vice-presidental candidate, but let’s be honest, America has probably had enough folksy, trigger-happy Texans holding national office for a while. Nugent’s performance isn’t available on YouTube, either because most people went home after sets by Mary Wilson and Clay Walker – with whom Perry duetted on “Sweet Home Alabama” – or because camera-phone technology is still too sophisticated for most of Nugent’s fans (and TCB himself).This article appears in January 26 • 2007.