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There's been a certain amount of discussion recently about a grammatical aspect of Rick Perry's recent TV ad, which starts with a clip of President Obama saying "We've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades", and continues with Governor Perry commenting

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Do you believe that?

That's what our president thinks wrong with America?

That Americans are lazy?

A typical discussion can be found in Michael Scherer, "So Much Happening in New Rick Perry Ad, Except for One Verb", Time Magazine:

A while back, I argued that Rick Perry made good television ads, and his newest spot–”Lazy”–is no exception. But it is also, in the tradition of the best political advertising, inaccurate, fanciful and grammatically adventurous. […]

Clinton struggled over what the definition of “is” is. Perry just gets rid of the word. Here is what Perry says: “Can you believe that? That’s what our President thinks wrong with America?” Most would say this sentence differently: “That’s what our President thinks is wrong with America?” Without the second use of the verb “to be,” the sentence is a lot more folksy.

Or "Rick Perry Is So Lazy That He Doesn’t Even Use Verbs", Gawker:

An outraged Perry responds, "Can you believe that? That's what our president thinks wrong with America?" Well, dude, you were just too lazy to include the word "is" in your slickly produced new ad, so maybe the president has a point.

I'm not sure that "folksy" is entirely the right word for this construction; and I'm pretty certain that laziness is not an important part of the story. Searching Google Books for "thinks wrong with" turns up relevant examples in mostly rather highfalutin prose; thus Christopher Norris, "Hilary Putnam: realism, reason and the uses of uncertainty", Manchester University Press 2002:

Putnam now finds that position unacceptable and indeed spends a good deal of time in the Dewey Lectures explaining what precisely he thinks wrong with it.

Or Mary Robinson, "Walsingham, or, The pupil of nature" (edited by Julie Shaffer), 2003:

Although Hanbury has said he condemns folly with “contemptuous silence”, here he tells his social “betters” (and in the following scene, in dialogue with Lord Linbourne, speaks of his betters) in no uncertain terms what he thinks wrong with their behaviour and attitudes.

Or this, from the BBC's The Listener, 1969:

Exactly what he thinks wrong with homosexuality he never says; on this subject his ' rationale ' simply riots into purple-faced passages of belly-laughable irrationale.

Or Maurice R. Berube, "Beyond modernism and postmodernism: essays on the politics of culture", 2002:

Ravitch locates everything that she thinks wrong with American education in the twentieth century on the doorstep of progressive education.

So why do so many people interpret Perry's phrase as hick grammar at best; or as a reason to ask, as one blogger did, "How’s that lack of IQ working for you, Ricky?"

I speculate that some Americans recognize this construction as one they wouldn't use; but because it came from Rick Perry, they don't realize that it's fairly common in a certain register of British prose, and therefore in some writing by American intellectuals as well.

Here's the full Perry ad:

The general consensus, as explained in the Time Magazine piece cited above, is that this ad is duplicitous:

Did President Obama argue that “Americans are lazy,” as Perry alleges? No. He argued that American policy makers have been lazy in not doing more to attract businesses. (Obama’s standard line about the American people, by contrast, is that they are the “best workers in the world.”)

But Governor Perry's grammar is not an indication of folksiness, laziness, or stupidity.

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