Rick Perry: Abstinence-only education works…wait nope

Texas Governor Rick Perry has catapulted himself into the top of the Republican presidential field for 2012, which is extremely alarming if you’ve ever listened to Rick Perry speak words.

Perry’s ultra conservative views about abstinence-only education are par for the course in the Republican party and Texas in particular, but to hear him explain the reasoning behind them sounds so ridiculous we’re not sure if he knows what abstinence-only education actually means.

At one point Rick Perry visibly squirms, seemingly uncomfortable with the subject matter. The audience audibly laughs at his incomprehensible response about why Texas has such a high rate of unwanted teen pregnancy as evidence that abstinence-only education is not working. He really seems confused as to how that could be, since abstinence has worked so well in his own life.

It’s clips like these that make me pray he’s the GOP nominee who has to debate President Obama next fall.

Perry cannot point to a statistic that shows it’s working, so he starts rambling about how much money Texas spends to test kids for steroids (what?) and therefore abstinence-only education is also a good use of state tax dollars.

(UPDATE: Thanks to Michael B for posting a transcript in the comments!)

Is it just me or does he remind you of President George W. Bush? *shudders*