If all anyone ever needed to know was taught in kindergarten, then Barack Obama must have missed the lesson about how one listens with one’s ears and not one’s mouth.  In his joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama was so anxious to suck up to a rare friendly face that he wound up making a fool of himself, as Mark Knoller of CBS noted on Twitter:

Intercepting a question for Sarkozy, Obama insists “I listen to Nicolas all the time – I cant stop listening to him.”

Sure Obama can — in fact, he just did it, by hogging the question and not allowing Sarkozy to answer it himself.  Obama has it easy, though.  He gets to listen to Sarkozy, at least on those rare occasions when he allows Sarkozy to speak.  The rest of us have to listen to Obama.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at [email protected] with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!