Who Owns the Worst Gaffe of 2009?

When gaffe-machine Joe Biden was elected vice president of the United States, the smart money was on him taking the title for "dumbest quote of the year" every year until at least 2012.

Looks like Biden has already defied those odds. Sure, the Delawarean shared more than a few boneheaded thoughts 2009, but least seven other prominent Americans -- including the only man in the nation whom Biden answers to -- bested his knack for speaking first and thinking later.

Read on for the specific quote from each nominee.



"It's like it was like Special Olympics or something." -- Barack Obama

Barack Obama's over-reliance on a teleprompter and his poor bowling skills are two evergreen attributes that his critics like to hammer. Those unfortunate tendencies combined for a gaffe when Obama, commenting without the aid of a prompter on "The Tonight Show," unintentionally slurred Special Olympians, comparing their athletic feats to his inability to bowl.
"You lie." -- Joe Wilson

The South Carolina representative's outburst during President Obama's address on health care to a joint session of Congress was such a breach of protocol, it would have been dumb even if he had legitimately caught the president in a lie. Most independent analysts, however, have concluded that Wilson was the one being inaccurate when he accused Obama of supporting a health-care plan that extended new benefits to illegal aliens.
"I'mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!" -- Kanye West

The people practically revolted when we wouldn't let them vote for Kanye in our most hated of '09 poll. So here's your chance to express your disapproval of the Louis Vuitton Don and his VMA diatribe, which launched a thousand Internet responses.
"The system works." -- Janet Napolitano

The Homeland Security Secretary's initial reaction to last week's passenger-thwarted attack on Detroit-bound Delta flight 253 was to imply that allowing known terrorists with bombs packed inside their underwear onto commercial airplanes is all part of a successful strategy to protect the U.S. Napolitano did back off that statement the next day; but still, the whole thing has shades of "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."
"[I'm] doing God's work." -- Lloyd Blankfein

The Goldman Sachs CEO might think he's toiling with the angels. But anyone who read the recent exposé in The New York Times, which revealed how Goldman pushed bad debt onto their clients, while shorting the very same debt themselves, would take great offense to Blankfein's divine assertion.
"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage ... I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there." -- Carrie Prejean

Without even getting into the politics of gay marriage, Prejean's musings on the subject didn't make a whole lot of sense. But she really clinched a spot on this list with the tiresome "no offense" disclaimer -- and the naked hypocrisy.
"Obama is a racist who has exposed himself as a guy with deep-seated hatred for white people and white culture." -- Glenn Beck

Sometimes Glenn Beck asks us not to take him seriously. Other times he kills his credibility by accusing a man who was born to a white mother, raised by white people and who chooses to surround himself with almost exclusively Caucasian political advisers of hating white people.