LOS ANGELES - Faded pop superstar Michael Jackson on Friday was on Friday crowned as America's most foolish person in 2006, narrowly beating out trigger-happy US Vice President Dick Cheney for the title.
The 47-year-old "King of Pop," who is living in exile in Bahrain following his acquittal last June on child sex charges, snatched the dishonour for the fourth year running, according to a survey by a US public relations consultant.
Sixty-nine percent of the 1,045 people polled in a random telephone survey ahead of Saturday's April Fool's day said the singer had "done something foolish" in the past year that merited the title, the poll showed.
"Michael Jackson seems to have a lock on the number one spot for the foreseeable future," said the poll's organiser Jeff Barge. "If Mr Cheney's actions weren't enough to oust him, it's hard to imagine what could."
"And he hasn't even been in the country," Barge said, noting that Jackson was last spotted in Dubai shopping in a market wearing woman's clothing.
Cheney tied with US hotel heiress and socialite Paris Hilton for second place in Barge's seventh annual April Fool's poll, with 59 percent of Americans saying that they had done "something foolish" in the past year.
The vice president became the focus of a media firestorm and the butt of a barrage of jokes after he accidentally shot an elderly friend in the face and neck with a shotgun while quail hunting last month.
Cheney's boss, President George W. Bush came in third in the 2006 survey, with 57 percent of those polled saying he had done something foolish.
Bush had received a foolishness rating of only 48 percent in the 2001, meaning that Americans believe he has become 19 percent more foolish since then, Barge said.
US movie star Tom Cruise snatched fourth place in the survey, entering its ranks for the first time after leaping on television talk show queen Oprah Winfrey's sofa while expressing his love for his fiancee, Katie Holmes.
Some 54 percent of those polled said Cruise had been foolish in the last year.
The survey was conducted with the assistance of Opinion Research Corp. and had a margin of error of three percent.

03/31/2006 20:50 GMT