Priorities

The wildfires in Texas are bad.  Bad doesn't even describe it.  One look at the pictures will show you more than words will.

Yet everyone wants to know if Perry will be at the debate tomorrow.  His response?

"Yesterday morning it became apparent that we needed to come home and be with the people - not only our emergency management folks but particularly the men and women who have lost all of their possessions.  There's over 1000 homes now that have been lost by these fires and over 50 different fires in the state of Texas.  that's not counting the fires that local the local fire departments are able to handle without any state or federal assistance...."

"The issue is taking care of these people right now..."

"The fact of the matter is  now is not the time to be trying to work out the details of how to make these agencies more efficient.  Let's get people out of harm's way."

"We'll deal with the dollar side of it when that's appropriate.  Right now I want to go back to getting people out of harm's way...the money side of this will take care of itself later.  Right now it's all about saving people's lives and in a lot of cases trying to save their possessions and homes."

"This is not the time to be talking about politics.  There's another 14 months ahead to talk politics.  Right now I'm substantially more focused on making sure that these people...are being taken care of, getting out of harm's way.  Saving lives is what's a big issue for me right now."

"That's a fluid situation at the moment.  We're going to be taking care of the folks here...we're really focused on the events at hand. "

"I'm focused on the event at hand."

Priorities.


Photo credit: Reuters/AP