It must be that Rick Perry's too scared to go home and face the constant howling mockery of every person in Texas for the rest of his life, because there's no reason for him to be in this presidential race anymore. That is, unless he wants to ruin whatever political stature he has left with increasingly desperate and insane comments? If so, that's his business. Our (every other human's) business, though, is to avoid a World War III or nuclear winter anytime soon, and Rick Perry wingin' it at debates with maniacal jingoistic death talk is detrimental to this end.

Rick Perry knows nothing about international relations beyond whatever's in the illegible notes he took at a neocon indoctrination meeting some months ago. But sadly, his best chance to revive a zombie presidential campaign in South Carolina is probably to call all people in foreign countries terrorists and threaten to bomb them and bomb them again, indiscriminately. Put these two things together and what you get is Rick Perry describing Turkey as a nation "ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists" during a televised debate.

You know who must have loved it, when Rick Perry said that? All of the officials at the State Department and who-knows how many other agencies who've had to spend all day resolving a diplomatic crisis with the important nation Turkey:

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry drew Turkey's ire on Tuesday after suggesting the country is ruled by Islamic terrorists and questioning its NATO membership.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry released a scathing statement saying Perry's comments were "baseless and inappropriate" and that the United States has no time to waste with candidates "who do not even know their allies."

The U.S. State Department also distanced the U.S. government from Perry's remarks late Tuesday.

"We absolutely and fundamentally disagree with that assertion," spokesman Mark Toner said.

We're fucked if he sticks around for the Florida primary.