Did you see the video clip last week of Miss Teen USA contestant Caitlin Upton yammering incomprehensibly after someone asked her a question? If not, you can check it out on YouTube, but beware – it is painful to watch. That said, you really do have to see it to believe it. How that girl has made it this far in life is beyond me.

In his post about the video today, Mathew Ingram attempted to show that Caitlin has made the best of her mishap, and may actually be benefiting from it:

Caitlin, meanwhile, has gotten at least as much positive mileage out of her televised confusion as she has negative coverage…

Can anyone remember the name of the Miss Teen USA winner? Unlikely.

Mathew notes that Caitlin appeared on The Today Show to explain what happened, and that she has also taken part in several events that poked fun at her blooper. As the old saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Except that there is such a thing as bad publicity. True, there are more people who know Caitlin’s name than the name of whoever won the contest, but how important is that? At the end of the day, Caitlin still displayed some incredible incompetence on national television. Not everyone will be able to see past that. I think Caitlin has her work cut out for her.

Just imagine Caitlin going to a job interview now. Even if she does well in the interview, how can the potential employer look past her “answer” at the competition? Caitlin is lucky she’s still in high school, as that may make it easier to forget about what happened.

What do you think? Has Caitlin really helped herself by not shying away from the publicity? In general I think tackling publicity head on (as Caitlin has) is the way to go, but I’m not sure it makes a difference when the publicity is all about how stupid you are.

Read: Mathew Ingram