Rick Perry lost traction in his 2012 presidential bid when, during a debate, he volunteered that there were three federal agencies he would get rid of if he were elected President:
“It’s three agencies of government when I get there that are gone,” Mr. Perry declared. “Commerce, Education and the, uh, what’s the third one there, let’s see …”
Later, Perry indicated that the forgotten agency was the Department of Energy.
No matter. This makes him the perfect choice to head this Department. In a Trump administration.
He brings to the job a great enthusiasm for fossil-fuel extraction. And his resume speaks for itself:
Mr. Perry, 66, was governor from 2000 to 2015 and before that was the Texas agriculture commissioner. He holds a bachelor’s degree in animal science from Texas A&M University.
In contrast,
The two men who served as President Obama’s energy secretaries were physicists, one with a Nobel Prize, the other a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
As is appropriate for an office that...
…. plays the leading role in designing nuclear weapons and in ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation’s aging nuclear arsenal through a constellation of scientific laboratories.
Perhaps it's the Enron connection that sealed the deal (from a 2002 Molly Ivins column):
Last summer, the Guv appointed an Enron executive to the state's Public Utilities Commission and, the next day, Perry got a check for $25,000 from Ken Lay. He explained this, to everyone's satisfaction, as being "totally coincidental."
As Governor, Perry took over $200,000 in donations from Enron. So he’s got a terrific track record in making deals with the energy sector. Trump likes deals; deals are good.
Or maybe those snazzy new glasses did the job after all.