Rick Perry calls South Carolina church shootings 'an accident'

Oops?

Former Gov. Rick Perry in a television interview Friday described the deadly church shootings in Charleston, S.C. as “an accident.”

Perry spokesman Travis Considine later said that, “From the context of his comments, it is clear Gov. Perry meant `incident.’”

But the verbal miscue, if that’s what it was, could prove decidedly unhelpful as Perry, who announced June 4 a second run for president, seeks to erase the memory of the “oops” moment four years ago when, at a Republican presidential debate, he could not remember the name of the third federal agency he wanted to eliminate.

Beyond the word choice, the rest of the 3 minute, 35 second YouTube clip of Perry’s interview on the Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV in New York City may undermine confidence that Perry, who has spent the last year preparing for another presidential campaign, is really ready to debate.

“He is being very careful but his thought process is skittery, like butter in a frying pan,” said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson of the interview.

Perry said that “any time there is an accident like this,” President Obama seizes the opportunity to seek to “take guns out of the hand of everyone.” Instead, he said, “we need to be working hard to bring people together,” launching into a familiar campaign talking point that “if you’re African-American and you live in Texas you live in the state with the highest high school graduation rate.”

Asked if the attack by Dylann Roof at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church ought to be considered an act of terror, Perry said, “there were more people than that killed in Paris” — a reference to the assault on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January which left a dozen people dead — but then didn’t follow that thought to a conclusion.

Rather than focus on guns, Perry offered a theory that, in an apparent reference to Roof, “these individuals have been medicated,” mentioning the widespread distribution of “opioids” by the Veterans Administration that has led to dysfunction and suicide among veterans. Four months before the shooting, Roof, who is not known to be a veteran, was arrested on a misdemeanor charge for possession of suboxone, a drug typically used to treat addiction to heroin and other opiates but can be used to get high.

None of this is good for a candidate that, “it has been said so many times, has to have a mistake-free campaign,” Jillson said.

“It’s a problem for him given his past, and, with 15 other candidates, even minimal damage is important,” said Kirby Goidel, a professor of political communication at Texas A&M University.

Jennifer Mercieca, an associate professor of communication at Texas A&M, said there was nothing in Perry’s delivery or context that indicated he had chosen the wrong word when he said, “accident.”

“I don’t think it was an accident he said accident,” Mercieca said. “He’s running for president as the West Texas cowboy and what he said is, I think, in character and on message.”

In the latest Iowa poll, Perry has moved into the middle of the pack since formally entering the race.