Texas to break away from the USA?

This has to be a most amazing idea, but it has been raised as an issue by no less a personage than the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry. Mind-blowing. Of course, he would say the same if his own party was in power in Washington. Of course. This gives some idea of the remarkably partisan atmosphere in American politics at the moment. The fact that a State Governor, indeed the Governor of the second largest state, is raising the spectre of secession really is astonishing.

"Texas is a unique place," the governor told reporters in Austin. "When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.
"My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pays attention," he said. "We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that? But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot, to boot."

It's dangerous territory for a Governor. It is a tack which suggests that there may be some sort of election coming up. ....And, indeed, there is.

I wonder what George W. Bush thinks of this wacky idea...