The 1999 Brutally Honest Awards
- by David Matthews 2
Once again, it’s time for us to take a brutally honest look at the best of the best and the worst of the worst of the year. We’ve been through one hell of a lot in 1999, starting with a failed trial to unseat the Clinton Regime, the lawsuits filed against Intel, Microsoft, Visa, Master Card, the gun manufacturers, and the tobacco companies, and some pretty pathetic individuals who decided to go on killing sprees. And to top it off, we have a whole new batch of clowns trying to be the successor to the most dictatorial President in recent US history. It’s been hard for the world to swallow, but it’s been great material for commentators like yours truly.
And so, without further ado…
The Joseph Stalin Quote for 1999: Governor George W. Bush - "There ought to be limits to freedom." And this guy wants to be president?
The Freedom Quote For 1999: Russian President Boris Yeltsin - "I want to tell (President Bill) Clinton ... not to forget what kind of a world he lives in. It has never been and never will be the case that he will dictate to the whole world how to live." (December 9th, 1999)
The "Hello, I’m a birth survivor" Award: Media Coverage of The Columbine Massacre - Yes, it was a horrific situation. Yes, the two people responsible had the guts, or perhaps the cowardice, to kill themselves instead of being arrested and having to sit through a trial. But the way the media milked the situation to the point where kids all around America were paranoid about their lives gave a whole new meaning to the word hysteria. It really does make it seem like today’s kids should introduce themselves as "Hi, I’m Johnny, I’m a birth survivor."
The "I’m a martyr, you’re a martyr, he’s a martyr, she’s a martyr, wouldn’t you like to be a martyr too" Award: The Columbine Copycats - That includes all of the bomb-threat callers; the punk kid in Heritage High School who shot up his school a month after Columbine; the so-called "experts" who blamed everything under the sun for the Columbine massacre; the school "experts" who used the massacre as an excuse to start banning crucifixes, Star of David medallions, and Wiccan symbols; and all the people who used this horrific crime to gain some media attention. And now we can include some 18-year old jerk in Florida who e-mailed a girl who attends Columbine who threatened that he would "finish the job."
Come on people! There are better ways to get your name in the papers!
The "I’m not really a nice guy, I only play one when I’m campaigning" Award: New York Mayor Rudolph "Il Duce" Giuliani - Between his efforts to create his skyscraper command center, removing tacky sex signs with tacky stores, and abusing his authority when it comes to art, Giuliani is living proof that crap should never be displayed, only elected.
The "I have a scheme" Award: Ralph David Abernathy III - The former Georgia state senator is being tried yet again (as of this article) for possible fiscal mismanagement, but only because the first trial resulted in a hung jury. Of course, having his friends from the King family sitting right in front of the jury, and having that "accidental" meeting with the two lone black jurors had absolutely NOTHING to do with those two jurors causing a hung jury. And the investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations on possible jury tampering charges is just an over-exaggeration, right?
Yeah, and that was just oregano he tried to smuggle in his underwear.
(Note: Just days after this article was first published, Abernathy was convicted on multiple counts of fraud.)
The Biggest Political Prick-tease Award: Hillary Rodham "I’m Listening" Clinton - Oh, she’s gonna run.. yeah, she’s just thinking about it… she’s just mulling over the options.. she’s just "listening" to the voters right now.. she intends to run.. she just can’t commit to anything right now.
Of course while she’s teasing the voters, she’s also racking in the soft money dollars.. and doing so at taxpayer expense!
The Foot Sandwich Award: Vice-President Al Gore - No matter how many times Robobore tries to distance himself from Big Bubba Spin, he always ends up sticking his foot into his mouth.
You invented the Internet, Al? Nice try, but way back when the ARPANET - the original Internet - was first developed, NOBODY ever thought it would be used for commercial applications. It was strictly a military venture back then, a way for the military to communicate in the event of a nuclear war. And besides, you didn’t even get INTO office until ten years AFTER the ARPANET was created!
You saved the people of the Love Canal, Al? From what? Boredom after being evacuated by President Carter two months previously? How about the fact that the chemicals that were used to pollute the Love Canal came from a company owned by your father’s mentor - Armand Hammer? Or the fact that your father was once the chairman of the board of that very same conglomerate that owned the company that polluted the Love Canal? Not exactly something you want the public to know, is it?
The Purple Heart Award For Political Courage: Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura - "The Body" was always outspoken, but when his interview in Playboy magazine came out, he didn’t try to weasel out of his statements like a typical politician would. Instead, he stood proudly and firmly by his interview. That takes guts! Far more guts than the next award recipients…
The Bleeding Heart Award For Political Whining: The Religious Wrong - Do you hear that? That’s the sound of the world’s smallest violin playing "Cry me a river, you whining theocrats!" You can’t take honest, straightforward criticism from people like Jesse Ventura? You take offense when someone else’s interpretation of the Bible doesn’t match yours to the letter? You don’t like it when the world isn’t EXACTLY like you want it to be? Tough! You’ll just have to deal with it like the rest of us!
You know, it’s one thing to be against something because of your religious beliefs. Like certain religions have a prohibition against eating pork. But the religious crusaders would take that one step further. Their arrogance is such that if their religious beliefs prohibit eating pork, then they’re not happy until all pork products are outlawed! Of course, they’ll say it’s for "the children" and, besides, they’re just exercising what they believe is their constitutional right to force their beliefs on the rest of the world. And if they don’t get their way? They just whine and pout that they’re the victims of "hate speech" and bigotry.
It is not their beliefs, but rather their actions based on those beliefs, that have rightly earned them every bit of scorn.
The Most Undeserved Title In 1999: Bill Clinton as "Healer-In-Chief" - The media, wanting to suck up to President Clinton following all of the hysteria surrounding the Columbine massacre, dubbed him the "Healer-In-Chief" when it was announced he would be visiting Littleton, Colorado. Of course, as luck would have it, a teenager in Conyers, Georgia, would decide to use that day to shoot up his school. Once that happened, any mention of the words "Healer-In-Chief" quickly vanished from the news services.
The Most Deserved Title In 1999: (tie) Bill Clinton as "Quack-In-Chief", and "Bill Clinton - Narcissus Rex" - Bill Clinton, the highest elected con man in American history, earned two titles in 1999 which best fit his actions as President.
The first came as a response to the media dubbing him the "Healer-In-Chief." Please! Bill Clinton is no more of a "healer" than I am a GQ model! If you’re going to use a medical-sounding term to describe him, you had might as well be honest about it and call him a Quack, because that is what he is!
The second title actually came from a special report on the Liberty News Hour, where the subject was about the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Watergate scandal. I made the comparison between Presidents Nixon and Clinton, noting that Nixon resigned out of a sense of honor rather than having the nation face an impeachment hearing, while Clinton pressed forward and shoved as many rigged polls down the public’s collective gullet until the impeachment hearings were over and he was acquitted. When Nixon resigned, the lesson learned was that even the President of the United States was not above the law. Following Clinton’s impeachment hearing, we are left with a president who considers himself to be above the law and acts with complete impunity. A President who behaves more like a narcissistic king than an elected leader. And thus, the Latin term for a narcisstic king - Narcissus Rex - was Clinton’s more appropriate title.
The "I Want My Mommy Party" Award: Senator Bob Smith - Poor Bob Smith! The senator from New Hampshire wanted to be the Republican Party’s nominee for president, but the party’s movers and shakers wanted Governor Bush. So Senator Smith threw a temper tantrum on the floor of the US Senate and resigned from the GOP in a huff.
At first he wanted to be with the US Taxpayer’s Party, but then when they didn’t make all of the changes to his liking, he left that party and said he would run as an independent. Months later, he comes crying back to the GOP. So much for "principles"!
Best Liberty-Oriented Mainstream Show for 1999: George Carlin - You Are All Diseased - George Carlin’s latest comedy special on HBO really poked at some of the sacred cows of society, including religion, children, and government. It’s what he’s been doing for decades, and he’s pretty good at it.
The Luddite Award for 1999: The US Versus Microsoft Trial - This looked like it could have come straight from a cheesy soap opera. You have a team of prosecutors with an axe to grind, a major software corporation that wants to defend themselves by some sense of "ethics", and a judge that is about as unbiased and fair as a referee for professional wrestling. Can you smell the predictability? I could, and it smelled like pure, Grade-A prime big government sewage! The so-called "finding of fact" by Judge Thomas Pinfield "Bill Gates Can Kiss My Ass" Jackson was so slanted it could have been written by the Clinton Regime long before the opening statements. About the only thing Judge Jackson did right was appoint a judge as a settlement mediator that had more brains than him.
And finally….
The Crash-And-Crash Again Award: Brutally Honest - LIVE! - Great show. Started out as a half-hour of commentary with two or three songs in between. Then it went to a full hour, with a lot more commentary and a few more songs… then problems erupted in a big way!
Sure, part of them involved an upgrade to the G2 server, and part of them involved my struggles with the phone lines. However, I have YET to do a whole show where I’m not being hit with "server disconnected" messages or having a general protection fault crash the encoder.
Well, hopefully 2000 will bring a more powerful connection so I can have those error message go down to zero! In the meantime, the show just keeps on going… crash after crash.
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