1 Bob Dole. At one point in his quest for the presidency, the Republican candidate told a crowd that as the head of the Red Cross, wife Elizabeth had seen many natural disasters, "and I'm not including my campaign in that." Ah, but there was a calamity at every turn. There was his stubborn insistence that tobacco was not necessarily addictive. There was the premature release of his concession speech on Election Night. And, of course, there was the symbol of his campaign, the Chico--as in California, not Marx--pratfall. On the very same day that Dole landed on his back after crashing through a fence on-stage, he also cited Hideo Nomo's no-hitter for "the Brooklyn Dodgers." It could have been worse. Better to call them the Brooklyn Dodgers than what they were known as in the 19th century: the Brooklyn Bridegrooms.
2 Bill Clinton The President went over the top Down Under. At a press conference in Canberra, Australia, last month, Clinton was asked about the allegations of illegal campaign contributions solicited by former Democratic party fund raiser John Huang. The Chief Executive responded, "One of the things I would urge you to do--remembering Mr. Richard Jewell in Atlanta... we ought to just get the facts out, and they should be reported." Perhaps the President and Jewell, whose life was ruined through no fault of his own, can get together in Atlanta and empathize over slaw dogs at the Varsity.
3 John Tesh The former host of Entertainment Tonight served up embarrassingly fatuous commentary during NBC's telecasts of the Olympic gymnastics. A cross between Barney the Dinosaur and Fabio, Tesh said things like, "It was the U.S. who had the key, soaring through the rarefied air, newly baptized in the fire of Olympic competition." At one point he cautioned, "There's something in the warm summer air tonight, can you feel it?" Yes, it was a blast of hot air from a himbo who knew what had happened at events taped that afternoon. E.T., take him home.
4 Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner If the world of telecommunications were a playground, the two moguls would be given a timeout. Irked that the Fox News Network wasn't on the Time Warner cable system in New York, Murdoch called in the friendly muscle of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, used his New York Post newspaper to question Turner's sanity, and hired a blimp to fly over Turner's Braves during the World Series with the message, ted, play baseball, not monopoly. Turner, for his part, continually rants about Murdoch, once comparing him to "the late Fuhrer." A far better tack for the old sailing rivals might be to ignore each other. After all, that's what Fox Sports did to Turner in its Series coverage.
5 Pierre Salinger The veteran journalist announced in France last month that he had proof that TWA Flight 800 was accidentally shot down by a U.S. Navy missile. His proof turned out to be an elaborate Internet rumor. James Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, chastised Salinger "for raising confusion in the minds of many people here and abroad...for causing consternation and pain to the families of the victims" and for promoting third-hand information "as some scoop of his." Talk about getting shot down.