viz.

Image Credit: The Daily Show

While searching yesterday for video of Rick Perry’s memory issues in Wednesday night’s debate, I came across an interesting series of montages on youtube. Thinking I was about to hear Perry eloquently speak about “the three agencies of government when I get there that are gone,” instead I heard Perry saying, “Ice cream. That is cheap. Fact.” Only a moment’s pause was needed to see that these weren’t Perry words. Someone divinely competent with video editing software has taken video clips of prominent politicians (in this case, Perry), muted all sound therein, and then over-dubbed random words that seem fitting given the movement of their lips. As can be seen above, these videos work to fantastic effect. Their true success is emphasizing that, in our age, what really matters is the way a politician looks whenever he or she says something. Looking closer at Perry, it becomes clear that he’s modeling his style off that of Ronald Reagan. Perry’s team was probably taking advantage of their candidate’s Reganesque chin when they suggested that he get a Reaganesque haircut.

In the interests of bipartisanship (presumably), the people who’ve made this montage have also made compellations featuring of important Democrats. (The Barack Obama montage is too inappropriate to imbed within this post.) The first moments of these videos will make one chuckle, no doubt. But ultimately it’s somewhat sad that in twenty-first century America, we find it ironically funny when our politicians seem to say nonsensical things. I don’t know what I find more surreal: Rick Perry not recollecting what would be the central aspects of his domestic policy, or a random string of words that perfectly fits the movement of Perry’s lips.