The strangest reaction to Texas Monthly‘s pick of Governor Rick Perry as the 2011 Bum Steer of the Year was written by Lisa Beth Johnson for Comedy Central’s Indecision Forever blog when she used the occasion to invent the expression, “Sam Houston sakes alive!” As Johnson said, “it takes a lot for a Texan to turn on their own kind,” and editor Jake Silverstein detailed how many missteps we were willing to overlook. But some things just can’t be ignored. As Karen Brooks of Culture Map Austin noted:

The magazine defends its credentials of fairness toward Perry and defensiveness of Texas in the face of the smug Yankee press that likes to come down to Texas and make fun of the Lone Star State. Much like family defending dysfunctional family, many of us can relate to that.

But Silverstein writes that those painful 53 seconds of silence were what pushed them to do the thing they “had to do:” put him on the cover with giant letters spelling out “oops” and a Post-It note stuck to his forehead. (No, they didn’t enjoy that at all.)

At the Hill, Alicia M. Cohn took the annual tradition of mockery quite seriously, calling it “a home-state hit on Perry as he struggles to ‘reset’ his struggling presidential campaign, seeking to move on from an image that has largely been defined by his stumbles rather than his positions.” And yet, it was the Austin American-Statesman that the governor chose to call out in last night’s debate. Sniff.

“This is a publication that made a point to stand by their man gaffe after gaffe after gaffe after gaffe,” Johnson wrote, but Paul Burka (and Rick Perry, for that matter) would surely take exception to that statement. So does “Real Texan,” a commenters at the Hill:

Since its inception Texas Monthly has been a “left leaning” publication and not necessarily having any particular political credibility. It is an informative publication about many things in Texas, but politics is not among them. Not really a national newsworthy article to pick up upon given publication lack of credibility and objectivity on things political.

Below, more of the good, the bad, and the funny via Twitter and the magic of Storify: