And so it all comes down to four Obamateurisms — the most memorable and significant of all the gaffes celebrated in this feature throughout 2011. In 2010, readers selected Barack Obama’s decision to abandon the Briefing Room podium to Bill Clinton at a press conference as the Obamateurism of the Year; in 2009, the winner was the two minutes of shout-outs from the podium from Obama before he got to the reason for the presser — which was the massacre of 14 people at Fort Hood in a lone-wolf, home-grown terrorist attack.  Which of our four finalists will join these golden moments in presidential facepalming?

• Identifies wrong soldier as non-posthumous MoH recipient
• Obama telling people it would be easier to be President of China because “No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.”
• Claims he’s made “all right choices” on economy, adviser disagrees
• “I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president— with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln.”

I don’t envy readers their decision today.  In order to keep you all in suspense, the poll won’t display the results after voting, so the only way to find out which of these won will be to check out the results tomorrow!

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!