Minutes before picking over what's left to discuss about Rick Perry's now-infamous brain freeze, Jon Stewart made one thing clear to Republicans: "You are now stuck with Mitt ...  He is the winner, we're calling it tonight. It's over." How bad was the Perry gaffe? "In our coverage of Romney's clinching debate, we need not even show highlights of Romney, but merely the spontaneous combustion of his opponents." So, fast-forward to the Texas governor (6:08 in below clip). Before calling it the "53 seconds that can change" a comedian's life, he savored the moment--then reeled off a blistering series of jokes about Perry as Ron Burgundy, Perry faking a stroke and ending with this: "My favorite moment occurred just toward the very end ... in the quiet moment of desperation at the end," Stewart fondly recalls.  And then came the "Oops" clip. "OOPS!? That is not the four-letter word I would have gone with."

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Erik Hayden