Whoever you are tonight, and whatever it is you're doing, just be glad you're not Rick Perry, whose 53-second fumble has become an instant master class in how not to intimidate your political foes in front of a live, national audience. Do you think he knows he screwed up? Yeah. He knows.

"I'm glad I had my boots on tonight," Perry [told reporters]. "I stepped in it out there." [...]

Said Perry: "I may have forgotten Energy, but I haven't forgotten my conservative principles."

Asked by a reporter if that moment was embarrassing, Perry said: "I stepped in it, man. Yeah, it was embarrassing. Of course it was."

Aw. Poor lil' guy. It's like he just dropped a fly ball to center field at the Little League World Series. You just want to take him out to Pizza Hut or something and let him drown his sorrows in a pitcher of root beer. [Politico]