Wait! Don’t Tell Me!

By GAIL COLLINS
NYT

If only he’d written them on his wrist.

The most recent Republican debate will be remembered forever as the time Rick Perry announced that as president he’d immediately close down three federal agencies and then could remember only two. (“Commerce. Education. What’s the third one?”)

He appeared to be asking Ron Paul, who gave him the wrong answer. There we were, back in third grade, peeping at the next kid’s paper. Except for the part where everybody in class is running for president.

So much for Governor Perry, who went out not with a bang but an “oops.”

If only he’d prepared! I can see him now, jogging in the morning, his coyote-killing pistol tucked precariously into his sweatpants, chanting: “President Perry knocks off three: Commerce! Education! Energy!” all the way down the trail. Really, it would have made all the difference.

(More here.)