I am not sure about the past, but the dumbest moment in the future will inevitably involve George W. Bush in some capacity. I cringe each time he speaks to other world rulers because he is representing me as an American. How incredibly embarrassing.
Didn’t Papa Bush once try to give the peace/v-for-victory sign to Australia, only it didn’t mean peace over there?
Papa Bush puking on the Japanese official. (No, I feel fine, just a little nervous stomach…)
My vote:
Island of San Lorenzo.
The new president allows the frozen body of the former president to fall into the sea, thus freezing all water on the face of the planet into Ice-9 and effectively bringing an end to all life.
…or was that a book?
And let’s not forget Jimmy Carter and the Torpedo Rabbit. Or, for that matter, the marathon. Jeez, how can someone be so cool as an ex-President and yet screw the pooch so bad when he was in there?
Do you have a cite for this? Thanks.
The King James says: “… My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins.”
I presume it’s an idiom.
Wow. So many great moments in here. But how about Princess Di not buckling up?
Gotta at least be worthy of a runner-up.
May not be the dumbest, but it’s a pretty good one:
Gerald Ford believing that the Soviet Union did not have satellite countries in Eastern Europe.
And then of course there’s George W. Bush. He’s a good man, but his grasp of the English language is not up to par, if you know what I mean.
Don’t forget Walter Mondale’s promise to raise taxes if elected.
The 1990 WWF Survivor Series–for several months, a giant egg had been on prominent display at WWF events. Viewers were promised that at the Survivor Series, the surprising contents of this mysterious egg would be revealed. Would it be some cool new wrestler? Would the egg explode in someone’s face during the main event?
When the egg finally hatched on the PPV show, some man dressed in a bad turkey suit emerged. It was like a very poor imitation of the San Diego Chicken. The crowd gasped in disbelief, then booed heartily throughout the ensuing segment. Announcer Mean Gene Okerlund dubbed this montrosity the “Gobbledy Gooker” and tried his best to salvage the segment by square dancing with the giant turkey man in the wrestling ring. Meanwhile, the ringside announcers struggled their best to convince PPV viewers that the crowd actually loved the Gobbledy Gooker.
What were they thinking? Did they expect people in the crowd to turn around and high five each other while yelling, “Yeah baby, a man in a bad turkey suit!!! YIPPEE!!!”
My nomination:
Noah…didn’t kill the two cockroaches. :rolleyes:
Leaving Dave Stapleton on the bench.
“Barrabus, Barrabus, give us Barrabus”
:eek:
Qaddafi.
You leave out substantial French assistance against the Libyans, both covert and overt. Above all air power. The quote does not sound very authentic.
If Dunnigan fails to mention the French role, then he’s not described the situation.
Sorry for not replying sooner. You can check “The Mac Bathroom Reader” if you want a book reference, or use the URL for a web reference–
There is no standard spelling of this guy’s name. In fact, Cecil has written an entire column on this topic.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_264b.html
On the actual topic, I was reading parts of this thread to the boyfriend, and his vote for dumbest moment in history was Hitler’s decision to terror bomb London. His take on it (paraphrased):
“Well, the goal previously to that had been for the Germans to selectively target fighter command fields and radar stations and the like, with the idea that they would keep the skies clear so they could manage the invasion by air. But then a couple of British planes dropped like four bombs on Berlin, and because Hitler had promised the Germans that Berlin would never be bombed, he felt he had to flatten London in retaliation, and screw winning the war. Of course this is just off the top of my head – hey, are you posting this?”
I know, I speak Arabic. However Quadaffi is wrong, there is no “u” in it. Actually “Kh” is also wrong as it doesn’t come anywhere near the actual sound. K or Q or G. (To get closest to actual Libyan pronounciation, Gaddafi is best, formal Arabic Qathafi)
Personally, I liked SNL’s list of possible spellings.
My favorite was “Qadaffi Duck”.
Several of the minor Russian conflicts qualify as folly, particularly of the wretched variety. F’rinstance, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 ended abruptly when the Russian fleet, after sailing some eight long months with coal stops every three to five days, was sunk nearly to a ship by the Japanese in twenty-four hours. When fighting the Finns in the winter of 1939-40, the Russians lost a quarter million to Finland’s 50,000, an embarrassingly lopsided defeat considering Russia’s population of 171 million to dinky Finland’s 3.5. When Peter III decided to invade Denmark in 1762 with a sick navy [ordered to heal as fast as possible by the Czar], disgruntled wife Catherine the Great declared herself empress in his absence and prevented his ship from landing. It is alleged he later died of a “hemorroidal cholic” in prison, which is French for “poisoned”. This doesn’t even begin to address Peter III’s unusual affinity for the Prussians, or his grandfather Peter the Great’s wild partying practices [think dwarfs and all-nude octogenarian marriages].
There’s no end to it. Oh, and the Children’s Crusade is mostly apocryphal.
http://www.historyhouse.com/stories/childrens_crusade.asp
Cheers,
Q
Hannibal at Cannae: "Yahoo! We just kicked Roman butt! Now all we have to do is take Rome and the war is over. . . We don’t have any siege engines? You’re joking, right???"
The Nika rebellion; not so much dumb as bizarre. Several thousand Byzantines decide to depose Emperor Justinian, apparently for no better reason than because he doesn’t root for their sports team. Finally Belisarius locks both sides in the Hippodrome and massacres umpteen thousand of them. Like a bloody Monty Python movie.
The knights of the Fourth Crusade decide to besiege Christian-held Constantinople instead of Muslim-held Jerusalem.
The great papal schism of the 14th-15th century where everybody in Europe got excommunicated at least twice.
Mao’s Great Leap Over The Cliff, which dragged half the able-bodied agricultural workers in China off their farms to melt down pots and pans.
Maurice Gamelin in 1940. “Where’s the reserve?” “There is none.” “But this means the destruction of the French army?” “Yes, it means the destruction of the French army.” Oops.
The Maginot Line itself, of course. Let’s just build it on our frontier with Germany; there’s no way those bloody Boches would come through the Low Countries again. Didn’t they learn the first time that the Ardennes are impassable?
Dumb: The South Sea Company offers to buy out England’s national debt in company stock. Dumber: Parliament accepts.
It’s 1849. The Austrians have just barely managed to put down a massive Hungarian uprising because the Czechs and Slovaks stayed loyal. Emperor Franz-Josef then offers the Hungarians effective autonomy, and gives the Czechs and Slovaks the back of his hand. Lesson: Revolt, and you get what you want. Stay loyal, and you get more oppression.