Wow, this is just getting sad. Appearing on a Savannah, Ga. S.C., radio station on Friday, Rick Perry again messed up his now-famously gaffe-prone talking point about the three government departments he'd like to cut. "Three right off the bat, you know, Commerce, Interior and Energy are three that you think,” Perry said when asked which three parts of the federal government would get his ax. That's three, so what's the problem? Well, the three he's stumped in the past are Commerce, Education, and Energy -- with Interior not included. WTKS's Bill Edwards had to remind Perry about his disgust with the Department of Education later in the interview, and afterward, a Perry spokesperson terribly spun it by saying “it shouldn’t be surprising the governor is talking about another federal agency that needs to be looked at and cut.” Forgetting every single gaffe of his for a second, it should be surprising that Perry stumbled again over the very piece of dumb rhetoric that has come to define this campaign, especially since he actually named all three correctly (to chuckles) during last Sunday's debate.

But maybe just maybe what we're seeing here is a looser (or less confident?) Rick Perry. After he was unable to find a stuffed dog to buy for his kid yesterday, for example, he quipped “I’m a day late, and a dollar short -- story of my life," according to a Politico article that described him as "cutting loose." They meant his campaign style, but  despite his insistence on not dropping out, his 5.6 percent-polling suggests he cut loose the campaign altogether.

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