Accused pop icon Michael Jackson has been crowned America's most foolish person for the third straight year, snatching the dishonour from the likes of a murderer and US President George W Bush.
Some 80 percent of 1 030 people who took part in an annual April Fool's Day survey felt that Jackson, on trial for molesting a 13-year-old boy, deserved the top spot on the 2005 list that also featured his bra-popping sister Janet Jackson and convicted domestic diva Martha Stewart.
"It's getting hard to envision an America in which Michael Jackson isn't the most foolish individual," said public relations consultant Jeff Barge, who compiled the sixth Most Foolish American survey.
"Short of a lesbian wedding ceremony for Paris Hilton, it's hard to imagine who could possibly push him out of the number 1 spot," he added.
Eight out of 10 people polled in the telephone survey felt that the faded King of Pop had "done something foolish" in the past year, giving him top spot in the survey for the third time in a row.
In second place on the list of dubious achievements in 2005 was convicted murderer Scott Peterson, sentenced to death this month for killing his eight month pregnant wife in California. He scores 68 percent of the vote.
Stewart, who was released from jail in early March after serving five months for lying to stock market regulators about a share deal, was third on the list, with 59 percent of those polled feeling she had been foolish.
Some 56 percent of those surveyed felt that Bush was the most foolish American of 2005, putting him fifth on the list, between socialite hotel heiress and reality television star Paris Hilton in fourth spot and Janet Jackson in sixth.
Bush won re-election in November but has been fiercely criticised for his leadership of the war in Iraq. Janet Jackson caused a national scandal last year when a "wardrobe malfunction" resulted in her breast being bared on national television during the football Super Bowl, earning her sixth spot this year.
Also on the list of 23 foolish Americans were actor Robert Blake, acquitted this month of murdering his scam-artist wife, former US television news anchorman Dan Rather, actor Brad Pitt, whose marriage to Jennifer Aniston collapsed this year and Aniston herself.
In 19th spot was a cartoon character - Marge Simpson's chain-smoking sister, Patty, from the animated television series The Simpsons, who recently came out as a lesbian on the show. - Sapa-AFP