Perry goes on Letterman for a "Top Ten Rick Perry Excuses."

You can read the list here, but it's actually pretty fun to watch. Perry is good at doing comedy. In fact, he's so good at doing comedy, he can do comedy without even trying.

I liked #2: "I wanted to help take the heat off my buddy Herman Cain."

But I was especially interested in #10:

Actually there were three reasons I messed up last night: One was the nerves, and two was the headache, and three, um… uh… oops.

What caught my ear was the pronunciation of "oops." Did you notice the difference between the way he said it there and the way he said it at the end of the 53 seconds of hell on Wednesday night? He said it the old-fashioned way, with the "oo" as in "foot." In the debate, he said the "oo" as in "moo," which is a recent and especially girlish way to say it. It's the way Britney Spears pronounces it in "Oops! I Did It Again." (Hey that guy in the space helmet looks like Rick Perry!)

And by the way, there was something painfully school-girlish about the last 10 seconds of the 53 seconds. He starts the list of 3 over again, like a kid who's memorized a list. Then there's the pathetic... "I can't... I can't..." And finally, "oops," said with the Britney Spears pronunciation that seems to express an inane lack of interest in one's own helplessness.

And this extremely weak, girlish ending is especially bad because of the hypermasculine beginning: "And I will tell you, it's 3 agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone." Like he's that Texas gunslinger, comin' in there to git ya. But who's he gonna git? He doesn't even know!

That's why we shouldn't feel sorry for him. He wants to be the guy who's gonna git in there and do big things. He just knows what needs to be done and he's got the balls to do it. But if he doesn't know what he's doing... !!!