Jesse Jackson: Cut His Balls Off

TheDailyBeast: 12 Best Open-Mic Gaffes

Waiting for his live interview to begin in July 2008, Jesse Jackson started chatting with a guest about then-candidate Barack Obama’s speeches in black churches. Jackson was not pleased with them and found Obama’s remarks condescending to black people. As punishment, Jackson said he would like to “cut [Obama’s] nuts off.” This whispered comment, which, really, was a little too specific to be a completely spontaneous utterance, was punctuated with a rather violent hand gesture. Jackson later apologized, saying, "My support for Senator Obama's campaign is wide, deep, and unequivocal."

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Nicolas Sarkozy:...

After speaking publicly for a G20 press conference last Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and President Obama reportedly got into a heated exchange in which Sarkozy declared he could not “stand” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called him “a liar.” Obama reportedly responded with equal fervor to Sarkozy, saying, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!” Keep clicking to see more open-mic gaffes.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

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Chuck Schumer: B...

At least one staffer in Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office is probably having a very bad day. The New York senator was caught briefing colleagues on what to tell reporters during a conference call with reporters about the budget process. Apparently unaware that reporters were already on the line, Schumer ran down a set of talking points, including suggesting that Speaker John Boehner was handcuffed by Tea Party members of his caucus and calling the GOP’s proposed spending cuts extreme. “I always use the word 'extreme,'” Schumer said. “That is what the caucus instructed me to use this week.” Then the talk suddenly cut off, perhaps when someone realized the gaffe. Funny thing, though: the Democrats on the line were adamant that spending cuts were extreme and said John Boehner was being held hostage to Tea Party–backed representatives.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Jesse Jackson: C...

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Carly Fiorina: G...

As Carly Fiorina prepared for a TV interview during her 2010 Senate campaign, she chatted idly with an aide and distractedly checked her BlackBerry, unaware the camera and microphone were on. She told aides that her opponent in the general election, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), had been spotted on TV by an associate, who "said what everyone says, 'God, what is that hair?' So yesterday!" She was shushed by an aide, but not before the damage was done.

(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

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Joe Biden: B.F.D...

When introducing Barack Obama before he gave a speech on the passage of a sweeping health-care overhaul, Joe Biden whispered to him, “This is a big f---ing deal.” (Note to politicians: those microphones can pick up whispers.) Liberals—including then-White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs—embraced the gaffe, proudly declaring that “Signing health-care reform into law is a big f---ing deal.”

(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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George W. Bush: ...

At a campaign rally during his first run for the presidency, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney waved to the crowd as it roared in approval. As the cheers continued, Bush spotted New York Times reporter Adam Clymer and warned his running mate that the journalist was a “major-league a--hole.” “Yeah, big time,” Cheney concurred. Clymer’s feelings were apparently unhurt, though, as being disliked by Bush and Cheney—though not as impressive as appearing on Nixon’s enemies list—is a journalistic badge of honor.

(AP Photo/Eric Draper)

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George Allen: Ma...

Rumors of George Allen’s not-so-racially-enlightened past percolated through the 2006 campaign for Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat. (Well, not exactly rumors: he kept a noose hanging from a ficus tree in his office as part of his “memorabilia” collection.) But the meme didn’t take hold until Allen was caught on tape at a campaign rally calling the cameraman—an opposition staffer named S. R. Sidarth—“macaca,” a racial slur common in Allen’s mother’s native Tunisia.

(AP Photo/Matthew Putney)

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Obama: You’re Cl...

A Huffington Post blogger secretly recorded Barack Obama at a San Francisco fundraiser explaining that some voters, facing tough economic conditions, feel so betrayed by government that they “cling” to guns and religion to deal with the frustration of their working-class middle-American lives. This did not go over well, especially among working-class middle Americans. Obama retracted the comment, saying it was poorly phrased, and then won the election largely thanks to tough economic conditions.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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John Edwards: I ...

In 2003 The New York Times reported that John Edwards was derided inside Bush circles as “the Breck Girl of politics,” and reporter Adam Nagourney eventually apologized for reporting the jibe, which helped popularize the Bush-campaign storyline about his opponent. Little did we know how dead-on that nickname was. While Edwards was running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2007, a five-minute video of Edwards vainly fixing his hair—with an “I Feel Pretty” soundtrack—was posted on YouTube. This year, Edwards’s formerly loyal staffer Andrew Young released a tell-all about the candidate, explaining: “Naturally thick and lustrous, his hair was a fixation with him. He insisted on using just one kind of shampoo—HairTec Thick and Strong Shampoo for Fine, Fragile Hair”—and personally paid for his $400+ haircuts to keep them off campaign expenditure reports.

(AP Photo/Peter Cosgrove)

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Gordon Brown: Bi...

As he met with voters during his ultimately unsuccessful reelection campaign, then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown committed a dreaded “Kinsley gaffe”—when a politician errs accidentally by telling the truth. Brown was asked by a voter, "You can't say anything about the immigrants … All these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?" Brown gave her an answer, and then drove away in his entourage, unaware his mic was still hot. He called the incident “ridiculous” and the voter “a bigoted woman.”

(AP Photo/ Luke MacGregor)

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Peggy Noonan: Po...

Conservative pundits Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy waited until the cameras stopped rolling to say what they really thought about John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Or so they thought. As the cameras pulled away, Noonan could be heard scoffing at Palin’s meager résumé, chiding the McCain team for attempting “political bulls--- about narratives.” Murphy agreed, and added that the choice undermined McCain’s cynicism-free brand. Noonan later apologized for the “barnyard epithet.”

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Obama: Kanye’s a...

After Obama’s “bitter” gaffe, he was seen as out of touch with regular folks—but scolding Kanye helped get the president get back in their good graces. Who wouldn’t agree that Kanye West acted like a jacka-- when he stole the mic from Taylor Swift last year? Obama asked the press not to make his comment "another fly thing” (a clip of a ninja-like Obama killing a fly went viral) but the press would grant no such allowance.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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