Rick Perry's "oops" gaffe probably ended his presidential hopes — Mitt Romney's the man now — Jon Stewart said on last night's "Daily Show" segment, the "Mercy Rule Edition."
But in a drawn-out, deliciously funny breakdown of Perry's delivery of "the dope diamond," as well as the "spontaneous combustion of his opponents" (including Newt Gingrich's "dickishness"), Stewart and his "Daily Show" cohorts also called Perry's "oops" utterance a gift to comedy.
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"Are you not entertained? There is so much meat on that bone and it is all breast meat," Stewart said after playing the Perry clip. "There’s the part where Ron Paul’s trying to help him out, he’s going, 'I think you mean five!' Other people are shouting out, 'I think you mean EPA!' But you know they wanted to shout shit out like 'Corndogs!' just to see if Perry would repeat it, Ron Burgundy-style. Then there’s the part where, just for a second, Perry looks like he’s going to fake a stroke to get out of the whole thing."
The blunder — an "ABC 'Wide World of Sports' agony of defeat-worthy brain turd" — was so rife with comedic possibility, in fact, that it gave "Daily Show" correspondents Wyatt Cenac, John Oliver and even Samantha Bee, "joy boners."
"I haven't pitched a tent like this since Dick Cheney shot that guy in the face," Oliver said.
Check out the video clips below for Stewart's entire "Mercy Rule" rant, including comments about how Herman Cain, in the middle of his sexual harassment scandal, might have thought of a better title than "Princess Nancy" for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi:
