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" At long last, this week, the empty slogan has been buried under. When Texas Governor Rick Perry, a bear of little brain, on Thursday found himself in the position of having to take back criticism of his fellow Republicans after having said that they are &amp;quot;heartless&amp;quot; if they can&amp;#039;t see their way clear to educate children in America, regardless of their legal status, you know that the barest pretense of human kindness no longer has any utility to the Republican base. Surely the bullshit slogan (which was originally coined by Republican operative Doug Wead in the late 70&amp;#039;s before being further elucidated on by Marvin Olasky, before being seized by the campaign of then-Governor George W. Bush in 2000, but who really cares?) will be missed by some of the scattered remnants of George H.W. Bush&amp;#039;s Republican party \u2014 who actually feel no enmity for their fellow man \u2014 and absolutely no one else. The locution always struck me as oddly defensive, as if to acknowledge \u2014 as most Orwellian speech unwittingly does \u2014 that perhaps the opposite is true. Or as if to say, when claiming status as a compassionate conservative, that you are a rare bird, indeed, night-and-day different from the rest of the misanthropes you hang with. In any case, the slogan, which rode side-saddle with the equally hilarious &amp;quot;Reformer with Results&amp;quot; for Bush in 2000, was always a lie. And you need look no further than the disillusioned staff of Bush&amp;#039;s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives \u2014 John DiIulio (who first exposed the ruse in this classic Esquire story in January 2003, and was promptly disappeared), David Kuo, etc. \u2014 to confirm this point. For his part, poor Rick Perry said on Thursday when apologizing for telling the truth about his fellow contenders for the nomination that in using the word &amp;quot;heartless&amp;quot; he had been &amp;quot;overpassioned.&amp;quot; And so continues his middling impersonation of Will Ferrell impersonating George W. Bush. -- Mark Warren is the executive editor of Esquire. He&amp;#039;ll be here from time to time. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a11103/rick-perry-heartless-6501147/>