hunting for controversy

Sure, the name 'Niggerhead Ranch' might have given some more cautious politicians pause, but of all the negatives that have been aired about Texas Governor Perry, racism is not among them (while questionable judgment and obliviousness most assuredly are). Given the fact that the average potential voter receives their knowledge of presidential candidates in very small bites, it will probably be a wash, with an equal distribution of negative and positive knee jerks. But if nothing else, the controversy over the name of Rick Perry's former hunting camp should have at least one positive effect.   "I'm thinking this is probably the death knell for using 'gate' as a suffix for controversies," says UCLA linguist Hines Norton. "I saw it coming with the failure of Solyndragate, but today when I actually saw 'N-WordheadGate' in New York Magazine, I said stick a fork in it, this turkey is done."    And that's a good thing, too, because the country has too many pressing problems to spend any more than a week or so talking about N-WordheadGate. And after all, either Rick Perry or his daddy Joe Ray did put a coat of white paint over the mysterious but undisputed rock that had the word Niggerhead on it, and Perry vowed to never utter the offensive term aloud again, and he never renewed his lease on that vile ranch when it expired in 2007, which, ironically, happened to be the same time that they just went ahead and changed the name to North Camp Pasture.   "Well, the Perry family leased the place since the mid-1980s and they never requested a change," said Chuck Wilson, who manages the property. "Course, they could have called it anything they wanted amongst themselves, but people around here all called it Niggerhead. There used to be lots of places with that name, but back in 1962, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names just upped and changed em, just like that. Talk about your government overreach. Now this being private property, we were exempt from everything but their scorn, so screw em. Still, I'm happy to clear up one mystery - it was either Rick or Joe Ray that vandalized my rock, and I'm gonna take this to court for all I can get."   "I'm not gonna be worryin' about some small claims court," said a defiant Rick Perry. "What I don't like is this besmirchin' of my good name. Sure, I realize everybody else is gonna be slanderized too, and I'm not clueless enough to not realize that this is all part of the liberal media's gotcha game. Still, I'm gonna be extra careful not to give them any extra ammunition. For example, just this morning I cancelled my membership to 'Burning Jew Country Club'."