Perry addresses debate gaffe: ‘I’m human like everyone else’

Texas Gov. Rick Perry was in full damage-control mode less than 12 hours after an embarrassing presidential debate gaffe, appearing Thursday on all the morning news shows in an attempt to stanch the flow of negative publicity.

Speaking on NBC’s “Today Show,” Perry had a broad smile on his face and occasionally chuckled as he was shown video from Wednesday’s debate. After promising to close three government agencies when he became president, Perry had named two but struggled to remember the third.

“I will tell you that I don’t mind saying clearly that I stepped in it last night,” he said Thursday. “But I think I’m kind of like most Americans, and there are so many agencies of government that they’d like to forget, that the Department of Energy was one of those.”

{mosads}Perry tried to change the focus of the slip-up to the message he was trying to send, something his campaign did after the debate Wednesday night by calling the misstep a matter of style, not substance.

“The issue wasn’t about whether I could sing off a line of a number of agencies,” he said. “It truly gets to the core of the matter that we’ve got so much government out there and people are so tired of government telling them how to do this, what light bulb to buy, what car standards they’re going to have for fuel efficiency, etc., that going through that long list of government agencies is really what this campaign is all about.”

Still, Perry at one point addressed the personal nature of going blank in front of an audience of millions.

“I’m human like everyone else,” he said.

Perry said despite the campaign obituaries being circulated by the media, he had no intention of dropping out of the race, and would in fact participate at the next debate on Saturday in South Carolina.

“It’s the 236th birthday of the United States Marine Corps — if there was a day to stay in the fight, this is it,” he said. “So you bet I’m going to continue on, and this debate is about ideas — it’s not about the slickest debater or whether anyone has made a mistake or not; we’re all going to make mistakes.”

When asked how “Saturday Night Live” might choose to parody his performance, Perry said only, “I hope they get the agencies right.”

At Wednesday night’s CNBC debate, Perry said that if elected president he would close three government agencies, but fumbled for almost a full minute before admitting he forgot.

About 10 minutes later, Perry finally remembered and offered his response. “And by the way, that was the Department of Energy I was reaching for a while ago,” he said.