Texas Gov. Rick Perry, talking about the three federal departments he's immediately eliminate if he were elected President, rattled off the first two (Education, Commerce), and then had a brain burp, and couldn't remember the third (it's getting rid of Energy, one of candidate Perry's main points on his platform).
Oops. That was his response during the debate.
A moment that makes you cringe when you see it.
Well, Mr. Perry argued, it just proves I'm like everyone else, and I have a brain freeze.
Perhaps not the words you want to hear from a guy with his finger on the proverbial ol' trigger. But Gov. Perry is making the most of his uncomfortable moment on national television - and the viral video that it spawned. He made wall-to-wall appearances all day today - starting with the network morning shows and then booking walk-ons with The Daily Show and David Letterman (he's doing the Top 10 list).
Smart, is how most political experts judge it. But no matter how funny or clever the spin, the damage has yet to be judged.
We'll have the latest on the 2012 race for the White House, tonight at 11.
Also at 11, we're in State College, Pennsylvania, where reaction continues to be strong tonight to the firing of Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, and Penn State President Graham Spanier, in the wake of the child sex abuse scandal that is now rocking the university.
The allegations of child sex abuse - many of them over several years - will be played out in a court of law. But the court of public opinion is what did-in the legendary coach and the veteran college president.
Their inactions - and in fact the continuing employment of people who acted badly - stood and stand in the way of any attempt to embrace a higher-road philosophy. And because universities are supposed to be higher-ground places, Penn State's board of trustees in the end had little choice but to let go the people at the center of the controversy.
It has certainly sparked much water cooler discussions, in the kind of "what would you do" if you walked into a locker room and saw a grown man raping a 10 year old boy?
Hit him with a baseball bat or any other object - that's been the predominant response I've heard. Why the then-28-year-old grad student (now an assistant football coach at Penn State) reportedly didn't do that is the subject of much conjecture. Why did he reportedly go home and tell his father? And then only the next day why did he reportedly tell Coach Paterno? One thing's for sure - the truth will out in this case. And we will eventually know the answers to the questions.
Our Marci Gonzalez is at Penn State for us, at 11.
We're also looking into the New York State Inspector General's report into the scandal involving the Nassau County Police crime lab. At least 10 percent of drug tests showed "inconsistencies" and the report suggested more criminal cases are likely to be affected.
The report also said that Nassau County D-A Kathleen Rice, when she found out about the problems in testing, acted "promptly and appropriately" to close the lab.
And our Nina Pineda has one of those homeowner nightmare stories that unfortunately do happen. The target of squatters, thieves and vandals: homes for sale without someone living inside. And wait till you see what Nina and 7 On Your Side has discovered.
We'll also have any breaking news of the night, plus Meteorologist Lee Goldberg with his AccuWeather forecast, and Rob Powers with the night's sports.
I hope you can join Sade Baderinwa and me, tonight at 11.
