You could Tweet all the highlights of 2009 and still have time for dithering. But to catalog the lingo? It would be like one long torture memo. We need to impose a timetable. Let’s get right to our full plate.

It was a year for birthers, deathers and Tenthers to go all nine-iron on the Obama brand.

Catchphrases and buzzwords can tell us much about a year past — what resonated, what stuck, what the year revealed about the sensibility of the nation, whether you’re a wise Latina woman, a mini-Madoff, a teabagger or Balloon Boy.

But if ever there were a year to put buzzwords before a death panel, this would be it, before the aporkalypse comes.

If the year were a Government Motors car, it would be a clunker. There was so much distraction. Things like Great Recessions and mancessions will do that, distract you (like a Dracula sneeze). So will texting while driving, which is far more dangerous in the scheme of things than sexting (unless it’s sexting while driving), and maybe even hiking the Appalachian Trail. Whatever, it was a year when a lot of people acted stupidly.