The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

98. "Do you judge Ted Williams on one bad year?" -- Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker, to Fortune magazine, explaining why it's unfair to criticize the fact that stocks on which she has maintained "outperform" ratings have lost more than 90 percent of their value. (For the record, Ted Williams's worst year was 1959. He played the season with a neck injury and still finished the year hitting a respectable .254.)
99. And the Winner Is ... Fox News!: Geraldo Rivera informs viewers that he has visited the site of a friendly-fire incident in which three American soldiers were killed. "I said the Lord's Prayer and really choked up," Rivera says. When a critic for the Baltimore Sun later points out that Rivera was, in fact, more than 100 miles away from the site of the incident, Rivera claims he was actually at the site of a different friendly-fire incident, one that has escaped the attention of the military or any other journalistic source. "This cannot stand," Rivera adds. "He has impugned my honor. It is as if he slapped me in the face and challenged me to a duel."
100. Houston, We Have a Problem, Part 14: In February 2002, as it struggles to emerge from bankruptcy, Enron pays more than $200,000 to retain its box seats and luxury suite at Enron Field. The company argues that it is making the payment solely to fulfill its contractual obligation -- although, coincidentally, it had earlier failed to fulfill a $200,000-a-year commitment to fund a local Boys and Girls Club.
101. Houston, We Have a Problem, Part 15 (and, No Doubt, to Be Continued ...): Proving that the Enron debacle is so ugly that not even a mother could love it, Jeffrey Skilling's mother, Betty, informs Newsweek, "When you are the CEO and you are on the board of directors, you are supposed to know what's going on with the rest of the company.... You can't get off the hook with me there."
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