Open Mike Miscue

Anyone who has ever celebrated the departure of the last guest at a long party, perhaps even commenting on the difficulty of engineering their exit, only to find the person standing in the hallway having returned to fetch a forgotten coat, knows how CNN anchor Kyra Phillips feels.

It was bad enough that Phillips microphone was inadvertently live, hot and humming at the same time CNN was broadcasting's the President'speech, her ladies room conversation with a co-worker made inadvertently part of the 24-hour news cycle. But now there is also Youtube, where anything that can be videofiled or audioclipped can be woven into the electronic fabric of our lives.

There are numerous versions of the snafu now collectively posted there, with hundreds of thousands of hits.

As many have pointed out, Phillips' remarks could have been much, much worse. Others, including presidents, have suffered similar open mike, insert foot issues, with even less politic results.

By John Eggerton