Joe Arpaio Is Distancing Himself from Rick Perry? Shouldn't It Be the Other Way Around?

This morning's News carries a paywall-less story about yesterday's meeting of the minds between Rick Perry and Phoenix-area sheriff Joe Arpaio. (No wall on an immigration story? Liberal media!) It was the move of a desperate candidate, and it came on the same day Perry forgot both the legal voting age and next year's election date.

If things continue on this trajectory, Perry's December will look something like this:

Dec. 1: Campaign stop with a man claiming to be the shadow in the iconic immigration street sign, who tells America that he and his family were actually running back to Mexico.

Dec. 3: Offers to shoot a coyote live on Fox and Friends.

Dec. 3: Forgets what a coyote looks like and shoots that Gretchen lady instead.

Dec. 5: Drops out of the race, citing fatigue and guilt over the Gretchen incident.

Either that or shooting Gretchen will catapult him to the top of the polls. Regardless, yesterday's campaign stop was remarkable.

If anyone should have been distancing himself, it should have been Perry. Arpaio, after all, has spent his career violating the civil rights of his prisoners, many of whom have yet to be convicted when he puts them on chain gangs, roasts them in outdoor prisons, humiliates them in pink underwear, denies them basic health care and, in several cases, kills them.

There's no mention of any of that -- except that always-cute pink underwear -- in the News. But there is mention of Arpaio keeping his distance from Perry:

But even Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio kept his focus on the need for more border security, a view he shares with Perry, while carefully keeping his distance from the part of Perry's record that has given hardliners such fits -- in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants at state universities.

It's like Hitler distancing himself from Goebbels, only with considerably less hair gel. And it's the latest sign that our governor is losing his grip. He'll be home soon, I'm sure, unless he forgets where he's from and accidentally moves into the governor's mansion in Nevada. A boy can dream.