Rick Perry Forgets U.S. Agency Name Again, Tries To Call On Mannequin

Early-onset dementia poster child Rick Perry is still, STILL waging his quixotic battle to correctly and consistently identify the same three federal agencies he is proposing to excise from government ever since that magical debate performance last November. This is apparently a MENSA-level test question for a Texas governor. Perry got a slow-pitch softball from a radio interviewer essentially requiring him only to repeat from his stump speech the words "commerce, education, energy" in response and not necessarily in that order, and yet he nonetheless dug up "commerce, interior and energy" instead. ALMOST HAD IT THAT TIME. Perhaps sensing that even this type of questioning was too rigorous, Perry went to a campaign stop in South Carolina today, looked out at the audience, and then decided to call on a mannequin with its hand raised.

Ha ha, from the best Department of all, the one of Things That Actually Happened:  

After Perry left [the meeting], walking by a mannequin wearing a Squat N’ Gobble t-shirt whose hand was raised above her head – a hand Perry tried to call on during a question-and-answer period -- a spirited political discussion broke out in the restaurant, with some patrons waving Nobama ’12 bumper stickers.

TO BE FAIR, we too would have wanted to field questions from more of an "intellectual equal" such as a chunk of fiberglass after battling through this interview, via ABC News:  

When asked to name and provide the number of federal departments he’d eliminate as president, Texas Gov. Rick Perry managed to list three, but they weren’t the three agencies he consistently names on the stump or that he attempted to name when he committed his now infamous “oops” moment.

“Three right off the bat, you know, commerce, interior and energy are three that you think,” Perry said during a radio interview with Bill Edwards on WTKS Radio in Savannah.

Perry made no mention of the Department of Education, one of the agencies he consistently rails against on the campaign trail, until Edwards asked Perry later in the interview if he’d eliminate that department as well.

Do you think Rick Perry ever worries he's going to space out so hard one day that he chews his tongue to shreds instead of remembering to eat? [LA Times/   ABC News]