Perry Dropping Out to Play More Scrabble With Huntsman

Rick Perry is finally dropping out of the Republican race Thursday, and will endorse Newt Gingrich because it's just more fun that way. He will now return in shame to Texas to command-in-chief his Burundi-sized army and obsessively read over all his old emails to Jesus for clues about why Jesus dumped him and maybe whatever else Rick Perry used to do besides dare to dream about the presidency, troll eBay for bulk hair products, probably. Was it something he said?

Perry will be announcing his decision at a press conference in North Charleston at 11AM this morning, the day of the candidates' final debate in South Carolina and two days before Saturday's primary. Like his good pal and Words With Friends partner Jon Huntsman, who dropped out Monday, Perry is not doing so hot in South Carolina polls ... at all, despite his now long-expired potential appeal to social conservatives there. His slim-to-invisible standing in SC carried over from New Hampshire and Iowa, where he placed sixth and fifth respectively. Nothing too complicated here: it was the gaffes, which led to unfortunate W. comparisons, to which the public apparently wisely remarked, "Too soon."

Things went from bad to worse this week when Perry said Monday that he believed that Turkey, a U.S. ally, is run by "Islamic terrorists." He then proceeded to spend all week backing up his claim, unable to divorce the fact that he was once stationed in Turkey as an Air Force pilot from the fact that he fundamentally does not understand what's going on there. Oops, indeed.

On that note, some of Perry's golden moments from the campaign trail.

"Treasonous"

"Oops"

"Speed of Light"

"Turkey"

 [LA Times]