Asking For It

Rich Lowry expects Perry to be "hated" by the media. Friedersdorf pushes back:

If liberals start mocking [Perry's] rural Texas roots in 2012, I'll publicly say that they're wrong to do so. Our politics shouldn't be about cultural cues and identity politics. But any insults will come two years after Perry, in his 2010 book, pointedly mocked residents of California and Massachusetts for their cultures and values. It is too much for Perry or his sympathizers in conservative media to now come along and cast themselves as victims, or even to suggest, as Lowry does, that it is Perry's identity, rather than deliberately combative constructs, that makes him controversial.