Rick Perry's Book of Laughter and Forgetting

I am getting tired of reading that Perry is dealing with his debate melt-down with good humor. What he's doing is doubling down on the shtick that makes him capable of forgetting which federal government agency he'd do away with.  As with all of Perry's humor, it pastes a genial face on bullying, belittling reflex.

Immediately following the debate, Perry approached reporters with some do-it-yourself-damage control:

Romney vs. Romney on the auto bailouts

In tonight's CNBC debate in Michigan, did Romney not tie himself in knots trying to differentiate the "managed bankruptcy he recommended for GM and Chrysler in November 2009 from the bankruptcies that the Obama administration in fact managed on their behalf? To the tape:

My view with regards to the bailout was that whether it was by President Bush or by President Obama, it was the wrong way to go. I said from the very beginning they should go through a managed bankruptcy process, a private bankruptcy process.

We have capital markets and bankruptcy, it works in the U.S. The idea of billions of dollars being wasted initially then finally they adopted the managed bankruptcy, I was among others that said we ought to do that.

And then after that, they gave the company to the UAW. They gave General Motors to the UAW and they gave Chrysler to Fiat. My plan, we would have had a private sector bailout with the private sector restructuring and bankruptcy with the private sector guiding the direction as opposed to what we had with government playing its heavy hand.