Editorial: Oops. Rick Perry shares our insomnia
Editorials September 24, 2012 6:18PM
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (left) has an “Oops!” moment during a GOP presidential candidates' debate last November. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul tried to help him out. | Paul Sancya~AP
Updated: October 26, 2012 6:12AM
Oops. Rick Perry failed to get enough sleep before a big nationally televised debate.
And that, according to a new book about the Texas governor’s disastrous run in the Republican presidential primary, explains why he couldn’t remember the name of an entire federal department that he would eliminate.
“Sorry,” he said. “Oops.”
Not enough shut-eye.
It’s hard to feel sympathetic. If a President Perry mistakenly pushed the nuclear bomb button, he would not be allowed to say, “I was a little tired that day.”
Then again, you may be yawning even as you read this editorial, brilliant as it is. An awful lot of working Americans — nearly a third — get six hours or less of sleep a night, which is an hour or two short of what most studies say folks need.
So instead we “pull a Perry.” We fail to recall stuff we thought we knew darned well. We can’t concentrate. We don’t reason well. We turn to emotional Jell-O. We get irritable. We stumble over our words.
Hmm. Sounds like another day at the office for a lot of us.
The good news, as reported in the New York Times on Sunday, is that experts think Americans may be placing too much importance on getting a solid eight hours of sleep each night. Turns out we might be smarter to grab some of that essential sleep in bits and pieces — a quick nap here or there. It may be more natural, and more physically regenerative, to do as the Chinese do and put our heads on our desks for an hour or so after lunch.
Speaking of which, we’ve just polished off a turkey sandwich and we’re feeling a little . . .
