Having a good memory in a televised debate does not necessarily make a good president, and is not even a very good indicator of intelligence IMO.
I respectfully disagree with your opinion.
I have in the past stood up in a room of 150 people, few of which I knew and not had such a massive cock-up as that, and yes I did forget points that I later realised that I had failed to voice, but I was spontaneous with no preparation at all due to not having any plans to speak - Perry has no such excuse, he should not have forgotten such an important point, and he should have had that written down on the off-chance that he should forget.
It is usually more productive to discuss the merits of the various policies that each candidate advocates, and not whether the candidate can recount all the details of their position from memory.
In general terms I agree with you, however he is a politician and as such should know that such errors will end up in a public-flogging as we have already seen, thus he made himself look "stupid" or "forgetful", either of these does not look good for a potential president of America - and that very point makes my worried that we will end up with another moron like Bush jnr.
The Third Reich was lead by many very intelligent and high educated men, who enjoyed the Opera at night, and committed genocide during their day job.
So if Adolf Hitler had better debating skills than Harry Truman, and the two debated at the end of WWII on TV, then the media (and apparently some here) would say that Hitler won the debate, irrespective of the positions they exposed.
I do not want this thread closed, but it is pretty obvious that "Godwin's Law" has already happened and by definition m0002a has already lost
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
Maybe things are different in your country.
edh has already given a fine answer to this so I will just add a couple of other points - in the UK there has only "ever" been 3 TV debates by potential future political leaders of the UK and that was only last year. The politics in the UK and America are quite different in a number of ways - there is a constant live feed of the debates in the House of Commons, this then ends up in the news, and each and every cock-up is highlighted and then used by the opponents of the person who cocked up, which also ends up in the news - Perry would very rapidly look like the moron he obviously is if he entered UK politics, and would be a constant source of amusement - UK politics is much more refined than in America, yet at the same time much harsher and not based on the principal of "buying votes via huge marketing campaigns".
It is simply easier to not even stray onto that subject, but rather to keep to the point.
America is very important for the whole world's economies and safety, so it is in my own personal interest to be concerned with a possible American president who is a half-with like JW, whether or not I agree with his points is also of great concern to me, but as you can imagine American politics isn't talked about or even in the news a great deal in the UK unless someone has a massive cock-up like this.
I have identified a number of UK politicians that I respect a great deal even though I don't support their party or agree with many things that they believe in or stand for, likewise there are a number who's ideas and policy's I like, but the person who has come up with them is never going to get far in the political arena because they cannot communicate effectively, or constantly make blunders like the one Perry made (but not as bad) - that is the world of politics - a silver tongue is important as is image - image includes how people "see" that politician, ugly, lacking in confidence or being fat wont go down well - but stupid is another problem altogether.
Hopefully Perry wont get in, and I also hope that the red team (that is blue in America, unlike the rest of the planet) will get back in with a giant majority and both houses and the president so something actually gets done. This is I believe very unlikely to happen, but a giant majority and both houses and the president all on the same side can only be a good thing with the way American politics works - the way I see it is that America is in such a bad way currently that anything is better than the stalemate that we have seen, where nothing happens, and when it does it is so watered down it wasn't worth doing - just look at the long overdue health system in America - its basically Medieval, and it hasn't changed in the last 3-years a whole lot even though that was one of Obama's main fights.
It is ridiculous to debate whether it was a minor slip. Personally, I don't agree with many of Perry's ideas on eliminating or cutting those agencies, and that is a lot more important than whether he can remember exactly which agencies he wants to cut in the middle of a live debate.
It could only have been worse if he had said, Military or Police or Education, if he had mentioned any of those then he would have been crucified regardless of whether it was "a minor slip" or not (in the UK, Health would be at the top of the list of things not to say that you are cutting - not a problem in America though.
Andy