As stupid and as completely braindead as his campaign has been, in this testy little exchange with Mike Allen of Politico, Rick Perry actually manages to come off as sort of sharp for a change (comparatively speaking, of course). The access journalism practiced by Politico and others, always seeming to rely on "unnamed sources" for their stories, is really not much more than what the National Enquirer does.

Mike Allen, Politico: "Governor, some of your staffers have told us that you ran this as a gubernatorial campaign for too long and you didn't look big enough, get big enough, fast enough. Do you take some responsibility?"

Gov. Rick Perry: "I don't know who you are talking to, so I can't respond unless you give me a name."

Allen: "These are members of your staff."

Perry: "You got a name?"

Allen: "Who say --"

Perry: "You got a name?"

[awkward silence]

Allen: "You won't listen to --"

Perry: "You got a name?"

Allen: "Uh."

Perry: "If you don't have a name to tell me this individual said this, then I don't take that as a corroborating source."