Yes, all I think about is the village idiot in "Much ado about nothing".
"let it be noted he called me an ass..."
Unfortunately, I think of rick perry a more dangerous than a simple ass. He is possibly a cross between joseph goebbels and john calvin.
You're speaking of Dogberry, who most certainly was NOT the village idiot. (In the most recent movie, Dogberry was played nicely by Michael Keaton. It is, I suspect, a coincidence that the names Rick Perry and Dogberry sound somewhat similar.)
Dogberry was, basically, the equivalent of a local policeman. But he was not just any law enforcement officer; he was the officer
in charge. He had authoritah, and he demanded respect for his authoritah.
And he solves a major crime, sort of. He doesn't solve the crime by hard work or by skill or by intellect, but by blind luck and by the fact that the perps were basically caught red-handed. Also, the criminals did not confess their guilt until the severity of their crime was explained to them by the local sexton; up to that point, they saw their actions as little more than a practical joke. After their guilt was exposed, Dogberry was to take them to Leonato in chains for punishment. One of the criminals finds being in Dogberry's custody to be beneath his dignity, and calls Dogberry a coxcomb and an ass.
The label of coxcomb is not especially apt for Dogberry (for Perry, it
is apt), but an ass is what Dogberry is, yet Dogberry takes the gravest offense. He wants to see this insult punished (regardless of its validity), so he explains first to Don Pedro then to Leonato that he (Dogberry) is an ass, or at least that is what one of the offenders called him. Neither Don Pedro nor Leonato expresses surprise at this. In spite of the fact that he really didn't do anything to crack the case, Dogberry takes full credit for catching the bad guys and he also accepts the cash reward from Leonato.
Shakespeare wrote it funny, and Keaton played it funny. But in real life, there is not much to laugh at when an ass has power over ordinary citizens, when he takes credit for accomplishments that are not really his, and when he cannot emotionally handle justified criticism.
