This is absurd.

Rick Perry is the governor of Texas and his state is on fire. So he skipped Jim DeMint’s South Carolina presidential forum in order to fly back to Texas and spearhead the disaster response.

This caused rival campaigns to attack his decision as if he wimped out.

“It’s obvious that Rick Perry is skipping the DeMint forum because he knew he was going to be asked tough questions about his previous support for gay marriage in New York, as well as his policies in Texas in favor of illegal immigration,” says one representative of a rival camp. “He’s looking for a reason to not actually be compared to the other candidates,” says an official in another camp. “He was grasping for a reason not to show.”

Uh huh.

Because if there’s one thing three-term governor Rick Perry doesn’t know how to do, it’s debate or answer questions. Which is why he’s never lost an election. Because he’s afraid of debates and questions, or something.

Ace goes on the offense:

With all due respect to Representative Doctor Paul, some people have jobs that involve more than purely-theoretical libertarian-political-club pronouncements; and with all due respect to Representative (also, Doctor) Bachmann this is what an executive job looks like; and with all due respect to Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and so on, it’s much easier to schedule your appearances when you actually don’t have any other job except for making appearances.

Indeed. Bachmann and Paul hold jobs in Congress — jobs they can skip in order to campaign. Their caucuses have plenty of votes to pass or stop legislation without their presence.

Huntsman, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, etc? They don’t even have jobs right now. Campaigning is it. That’s what they do. Like Ace says, that makes scheduling appearances pretty easy.

Perry has an actual executive job. He leads a major state. And that means when disaster strikes, he has to respond. That may be difficult for unemployed politicians and members of Congress to understand, but it’s reality.

And people who can’t understand executives having to prioritize affairs of state over political campaigning probably shouldn’t be seeking the presidency.