Geographical flubs have brought down lesser beauty queens, so when a Democratic presidential hopeful says he has already visited 57 states, searchers will flock to the Buzz like 14th century explorers to the New World.

The queries "obama 57 States" and "57 states" pulled into the top 35,000 searches in the past 7 days. Of course, the inflated number unleashed conspiratorial theories. Rush Limbaugh implied a "more telling slip" after claiming there happened to be "57 islamic states," which in turn spurred online investigations into that bit of information.

Actually, according to Obama, there should be 60 states, since he mentioned during his Oregon tour that he had another state to visit, plus Alaska and Hawaii. If he indeed harbors empire expansion plans, how about annexing Tijuana, as the Border State?