The 10 smartest people of 2008

There were a lot more smart people than dumb people this year, starting with the 67 million people who voted for Barack Obama instead of John McCain.

But there were some people who managed to stand out for their smarts in 2008. Some you won't agree with and some you may. Some are obvious, while others are kinda questionable. But it's all in good fun. With that in mind, here's my completely biased list of the 10 smartest people of 2008.

10. Donna Brazile. Brazile was a critical voice of reason at CNN during the big prime time primary and general election events. As a member of the Democratic National Committee and a superdelegate, she faced enormous pressure to declare her allegiance before the primary season ended, but somehow she managed to stay friendly with both the Clinton and the Obama teams and speak fairly of both. She ended the year (guest?) hosting a new show on CNN.

9. The pregnant man.  Here's a case where being able to exploit the media's stupidity becomes its own form of brilliance. Everybody knows that men can't get pregnant, but the mainstream media spent much of the year talking about a so-called "pregnant man." Was it some sort of scientific breakthrough? No, it was a transgender man who used to be a woman and still has the female biological equipment. So, no a man did not somehow get pregnant. A woman (who now identifies as a man) got pregnant. But kudos to Thomas Beatie (who is now pregnant with his second child) for managing to entertain the media all year long.

8. Jon Stewart. No one in the media covered the 2008 election as cleverly as Jon Stewart and his team at "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central. Even New York Times columnist Frank Rich started quoting Stewart in his columns to emphasize his points. The Daily Show reporters, calling themselves "the best f***ing news team on television," spent the year covering "Indecision 2008" with the memorable tagline: "the news better run." And Stewart himself landed some impressive interviews with everyone from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, and some top Republicans as well. It's sad and revealing that the best TV news coverage of the year often came from a low-budget cable comedy program, but it did.

7. Vladimir Putin and Mike Bloomberg. The Russian leader and New York billionaire may not seem to have a lot in common, but they both had chutzpah. Putin left the presidency and became prime minister this year while his hand-picked protégé, Dmitri Medvedev, followed his footsteps to his old office. But Putin, love him or hate him, held on to the real power. Took a lot of audacity to quit and take a demotion and turn it into a promotion. Almost like Bloomberg. The term-limited Republican-turned-Independent managed to convince the Democratic-controlled New York City Council to change city law so he could serve another term as mayor. To do that, he was smart enough to let the Council in on the deal for themselves too. If Barack Obama represented the audacity of hope, then these two guys surely represented the audacity of audacity.

5. Tina Fey. Two words: Sarah Palin. When the Alaska Governor appeared on the world stage on August 29, many people remarked that she looked like Tina Fey. But no one could have expected that Fey would so brilliantly portray Palin in her regular guest appearances for "Saturday Night Live" spoofs. Fey's performances sent SNL ratings through the roof and even encouraged Palin to make a last minute visit to the show before the election. And Fey managed to do it all while she was preparing for a new season of NBC's sitcom "30 Rock."

4. Rachel Maddow. To go from radio show personality to having her own prime time TV show on MSNBC, this openly gay former Rhodes Scholar had to be pretty smart. But Maddow also made it big by not taking herself too seriously. She joined Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as a TV news host with an actual opinion. But Maddow, a well-informed progressive, managed to deliver hers with a smile and a fresh new style that catapulted her in the ratings.

3. Paul Krugman. This liberal Princeton economist and New York Times columnist has been warning about the collapse of the economy all year and pushing Democrats to pursue a progressive agenda to fix things. He's also responded to a lot of the conservative misinformation about tax policy, government spending and the auto bailout. Despite all the right-wing critics, Krugman was vindicated this year when he won the Nobel Prize for Economics.

2. Barack Obama. To get from freshman senator to president of the United States wasn't easy. For a black guy with the middle name Hussein to win the presidency in the midst of the war on terror was absolutely brilliant. Obama had to convince the media, the money people, and the people of Iowa in order to be taken seriously. Then he had to vanquish the powerful Clinton machine, John McCain, Sarah Palin and the entire Republican Party apparatus. No small feat.

And for all those (myself included) who wanted Obama to be more aggressive during the campaign, it looks like he knew what he was doing all along. He couldn't come across as the "angry black man" if he expected white people to vote for him. He had to be the calm, cool Obama that we've come to know, an especially appealing trait while John McCain proved to be erratic and Sarah Palin looked untested.

1. Oprah Winfrey. When Oprah Winfrey first announced that she was supporting Barack Obama for president last year, a lot of people scoffed. Why is Oprah getting into politics? She'll destroy her brand. What if he doesn't win? What does she know about politics?

A year later, guess who's laughing now. Maybe that's why she's a billionaire, the most powerful woman in television and the smartest person of 2008.