Perry makes light of debate blunder on comedy show

Perry -- fresh from a televised White House debate in which he vowed to eliminate three federal departments but then suffered a brain freeze and was only able to name two of them -- appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman."

The conservative governor, who has said his campaign will continue, read the "Top Ten List," a satirical nightly feature on the long-running CBS comedy show, which on Thursday was entitled "Top Ten Rick Perry Excuses."

"Number seven: I thought the debate was tonight," Perry hammily recited in front of the New York audience.

"Number six: Hey listen, you try concentrating with Mitt Romney smiling at you. That is one handsome dude," he said, referring to the former Massachusetts governor who is widely seen as the front-runner in the Republican race.

Already dogged by poor reviews of past debate performances, Perry appeared to put the final nail in his campaign\'s coffin Wednesday night when he forgot a crucial part of his stump speech and stammered for an agonizing 53 seconds.

The states\' rights champion named the US departments of commerce and education as targets for elimination if he were in the White House but could not come up with the third, the Energy Department.

"The third one, I can\'t, I\'m sorry, I can\'t. Oops," he concluded.

On Thursday Perry made a tour of morning talk shows in a bid to rescue his sinking campaign, cheerfully admitting he had made a mistake while insisting he was still the best candidate to take on US President Barack Obama.

"I don\'t mind saying clearly that I stepped in it last night," a smiling Perry told NBC television\'s "Today Show," insisting that the debates themselves were a poor means of testing presidential mettle.

"This campaign is about ideas. It\'s not about who\'s the slickest debater or whether anyone\'s made a mistake or not. We\'re all going to make mistakes," he said.

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