I started writing my year end Email Fail wrap up post several weeks ago.

I got as far as the title. Don’t you think  The Year in Email Failure is catchy? Then I sat down to get my post written and discovered that Chris Hoke’s Ten Worst Email Gaffes of 2009 beat me to it.

I’m on board with most of Hoke’s picks. But I thought I’d go through the Email Fail archives and revisit some of my favorites.

Check these out:

• The Governator’s creative email to members of the State Assembly.
• The state employee who lost his job for sending rude emails complaining about police road blocks (while on the job and because he had been caught in possession of drugs by one of said roadblocks).
• The weatherman who lost his job, thanks to his roommate sending threatening emails to his morning show co-host.
• The company who sends an email saying “Hey, we know we’re not supposed to email you. Are you happy with this arrangement?
• Securities fraud by SEC lawyers, using their SEC email accounts.
• Classmates.com emails Class of ’83 with appeal to join and reconnect with long-dead classmate.
• The mean boss sends a crabby email to his staff, and gets raked over the Twitter coals.
• A state senator berates a struggling student for her poor use of punctuation.

I love it when politicians make my life easy.

This Email Fail story involves the mayor of Clarksville, Tennessee. His name is Johnny Piper. First of all, a grown man going by the name Johnny is just a joke. Johnny Piper, really? Is he the mayor or the lead singer of a doo-wop group?

Johnny Piper and the Cubs
Johnny Piper and the Bigotaires
Johnny Piper and the Shouldn’t-Have-a-Forward-Button-Ettes…

photo adapted from flickr user didbygraham's image

Anyway, Johnny’s patriotism was stirred when he received an email about two new stamps commemorating Muslim holidays. I’m still not sure how somebody else’s holidays had any correlation to his own patriotism, but I think I’ll just put that aside for a moment.

Anyway, so stirred, Johnny forwarded the email to city employees, he says as a ‘public service’.

According to Chattabox.com, Johnny said

“I was surprised at a stamp being developed, and would have thought others would be, too,” he said. Piper also said he was struck by the reminder of several terrorist attacks against Americans.

The email in question contained several falsehoods, including a reference to “Muslim Communist OBAM [sic] ” who allegedly directed the Post Office to create the stamps. Turns out, they were first in circulation in 2001 — so I wonder if that should read Muslin Communist Bus…

My favorite part is that good ol’ Johnny doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with equating Muslim holidays with terrorists, or with sharing that ignorance with other city employees. And in his defense, he pulls out the oldest, lamest one in the book:  “I have lots of Muslim friends…”

At least this might make my wife’s  89-year-old grandparents feel better in the knowledge that they aren’t the only ones still reading and forwarding moronic, outdated, inaccuracy riddled emails.

They’ve got Johnny Piper on their side.