Week of 12/25/2000

The 2000 Brutally Honest Awards
- by David Matthews 2

Yes, it is time, once again, to award the best of the best… and of course also award the worst of the worst. And since this is an election year, there’s plenty of stuff to go around.

Remember, there is no set criteria for awards. I am the only judge, and if you’ve seen the previous awards I’ve given out, you know I’ll go after EVERYONE, including myself.

So let’s start off the awards on a strong note…

The Most Pathetic Political Candidate in Recent American History: Vice-President Al "Robobore" Gore - This one should be a no-brainer. Gore was the heir apparent to the Clinton Regime. His party bent over backwards to get him the nomination, even at the expense of former senator Bill Bradley. They did everything in their power to give him the election.. and he ends up being the biggest baby over it all!

First Gore told lie after lie. Exaggeration after exaggeration. After a while, people were just speculating what half-truths he would come up with next. Then after he gets the nomination, and after he taps an orthodox Jew to be his running mate, he STILL could not get an edge up against the GOP. Even with rigged polling, it would be a close call.

Then on election eve, after the media fumbles the call in Florida twice (don’t worry, they’ll be getting their own award on this), Gore decides to give it up and give George W. Bush congrats.. then takes it back after his people tell him they can still give him Florida. And when Bush protests.. what does Gore say? "Now don’t get snippy.."

Snippy? Who’s going back on his word, huh?

Then there was Gore’s constant whining about wanting to "count all the votes" in Florida while his operatives were doing their best to suppress every absentee ballot, and there constant allegations of recounted ballots being rigged. And when he wasn’t whining about the ballots in Florida, Gore was whining to the morning talk shows about not having "anything to fall back on" if he loses. This from a guy who has shares in Occidental Petroleum, and who, no doubt, could get his father’s old job as chairman in a heartbeat!

And finally, to top it off, there was that unusually chipper concession speech, where he came off in a tone so condescending, you would think he was teaching civics to six-year olds! And then afterwards, he was partying in a nightclub like he was declared the winner. I mean, come on! He was high on something.. and I don’t mean life!

Now here’s the sad part in this whole situation… outside of this commentator, NOBODY will ever admit that Al Gore was the most pathetic political candidate that ever ran for president! The media certainly will not admit to it. Even the Republicans won’t have the balls to admit it!

The Most Pathetic Drama Line For The 2000 Election: Dan Rather’s "Faulty Data… Suspect Data" - Hey, if you’re going to be wrong, at least have the balls to ADMIT you’re wrong! Don’t start some BS line about "faulty" and "suspect" data as if your network was being sabotaged. You guys sabotaged it yourselves when you made asinine predictions about who would win in Florida before all of the polls in that state had closed! Have the courage to admit that you blew it!

The "I Deserve No Respect" Award For 2000: The State of Florida - Between Elian Gonzales and Florida’s Election Fiasco, the Sunshine State has been acting more like the Spoiled, Senile and Stupid State. Do you think we can find yet one more scandal that makes that state look bad before the year is up?

The Political Martyr Award For 2000: Florida’s Secretary Of State Katherine Harris - This was a woman who was basically abandoned by her party to be fed to the political wolves. The spin doctors and the journalistic jackals ripped her to pieces in the press, criticizing even her appearance. They called her every name imaginable, and accused her of being a political opportunist. And all she was guilty of was trying to do her job as spelled out by Florida law!

Hey guys, if Harris was guilty of being a political opportunist, why was it that the GOP did not lift a finger to back her up, huh? Even if Bush was a wimp, surely the party loyalists would’ve stood up to the jackals! Not even Governor Jeb Bush spoke out to defend Harris! That’s sad. That really is sad.

The Brutally Honest Award For Political Courage in 2000: New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson - Here’s a guy who has the courage to stand up against conventional political wisdom and urge not only the end of the failed War on Drugs, but also for legalization! And he’s even explained his ideas in the January issue of Playboy, no less! Libertarian Party, are you guys taking notes?

The Brutally Honest Gutless Award For 2000: Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez - She could’ve stood up to the moralists in the Democratic Party and had her fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion as intended. She could’ve reminded that party of the diversity that they represent, and the freedom of speech and expression that they claim to cherish. She could’ve done all of that… but she valued her status more. Plus she was afraid of "fragmenting" the party during their national convention.. and LORD KNOWS she doesn’t want that to happen!

By the way.. all Playboy supporters.. I hope you were taking notes on this. The Democrats don’t want you! If you want changes made, you’d better start supporting candidates and political parties that don’t have an agenda of demonizing and persecuting you!

The Bill Clinton Award For Hypocrisy in 2000: New York Mayor Rudolph "Il Duce" Giuliani - Oh yes.. a BIG law and order mayor, huh? So that explains why there were women stripped and assaulted en masse in Central Park this summer, huh? Oh, and how about those family values of yours? Sex is bad, unless it’s surrounding your illicit affair, right, Mayor Giuliani?

By the way.. did you know adultery is illegal in New York? That makes you an admitted criminal as well! Better turn yourself in, mayor. Lord knows how much you hate having criminals roam the streets of your city!

The Biggest Judicial Disappointment In 2000: The US Supreme Court - No, I’m not talking about the Bush vs. Gore case. I’m talking about the members of the Supreme Court who decided that the First Amendment can be rendered null and void at the whim of local governments when it came to strip clubs. The justices erroneously believed that laws that censored how a dancer appeared were somehow "content-neutral" by their standards.

What sort of drugs were these old farts taking to come up with such a demented rationality?

The No-Brainer Judicial Decision In 2000: US Vs. Playboy - At least the justices got it right when they struck down the dreaded Section 505 of the Telecommunications Deregulation Act. This was the so-called "signal bleed" law that censored Playboy TV from airing in many cable systems until after 10pm local time unless the providers fully scrambled both video and audio. It was a no-brainer because there were plenty of judicial decisions dating back to the early 1980’s that told the government that they cannot censor cable television like they could regular analog television.

The Biggest "Big Lie" of 2000: The "Booming" Economy - Once upon a time the economy was doing great.. and it was happening despite the fact that Bill Clinton and his cronies were screwing people right and left. (And in Clinton’s case, that is not just a figurative term.) The Internet had generated tons of new business opportunities, and plenty of people took advantage of them. And in many instances, they reaped big profits.

But then came the inevitable cycle down. Taxes were going too high, interest rates were climbing, people were starting to spend beyond their means. Businesses started laying off people, but we were told the economy would handle it all. Oh yes, that was the "Big Lie" spread by Clinton and his cronies. The world is doing great.. and all supposedly thanks to government.

And government maintained that lie through exaggerated claims of low inflation - while independent groups listed inflation as high as five percentage points higher than the government figures. They provided claims of housing starts and unemployment that were adjusted more times than Oprah Winfrey’s wardrobe. All of which to continue the illusion that Bill Clinton was the so-called "savior" of the economy.

And now that George W. Bush will be moving into the White House in January, journalists are only NOW speculating about a pending recession. Nice try guys, but you’re still too little, too late for warnings. This commentator - who is NOT an economist nor a financial expert - saw the changes downward starting to happen two years ago! Where were you guys? Oh.. I forgot! You guys were nose-deep up the Clinton Regime’s collective rectum.

The Over-Hyped Non-Story of 2000: "Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire?" - The people at Fox were laughing all the way to the bank on this one. Let’s see.. find some sap who looks good for the cameras, get a bunch of women who are looking to cash in big with offers of an expensive ring, a trip to the Bahamas, and television exposure, and tell them all they have to do is have a quickie Vegas wedding with the option of an equally quickie Vegas annulment… and PRESTO! Instant ratings!

And boy, oh boy, did Darva Conger - the winner of this gold-digging beauty contest - cash in big on this. First by playing the media with her crocodile tears saying she "didn’t know what she was thinking", and then entertaining more job offers than Michael Jordan. She milked it for all it was worth, culminating with her own Playboy pictorial which really wasn’t all that it was being hyped about. Sorry Darva, but your fifteen minutes of fame were up an hour and a half ago.

The Evil Kenevil Award For Real Adventure Promotions in 2000: Mark Burnett - From the successful "Survivor" show to the Eco-Challenge to wanting to put a man or woman on the failed Mir space station, this guy has a thing for extreme challenges. I shudder to think what he’ll come up with next. Maybe he’ll have a challenge where the winner will be riding ON the Mir when it comes crashing down in February?

The Real Survivor Award For 2000: Playboy X-Treme Team - From racing all across the country, to competing with only a month’s notice in one of the hardest races on the face of the planet, this team of Playmates managed to show they are more than just pretty faces.. but pretty faces that can kick butt!

By the way, you’ll be able to see for yourself how hard conditions were for X-treme Team members Danelle Folta, Kalin Olson, and Jenny Lavoie when the Eco-Challenge 2000 airs on USA Networks in the first week of April. If you thought the "Survivor" show was challenging, just wait!

The Americana Award For 2000: The World Wrestling Federation - If Vince McMahon wanted legitimacy, he got it. Between having The Rock speak at the Republican National Convention to having their own bunch of rabid moralists trying to shut them down, the WWF managed to get in the spotlight on more than one occasion, and for once not because of tragedy or steroid scandals.

The "I Tried, I REALLY Tried" Award For 2000: (Tie) Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader, Harry Browne, John Haglin, and Howard Phillips - The also-rans in this presidential election really tried to get the vote. They really did. Unfortunately between biased political groups like the "Non-Partisan" Commission On Presidential Debates and an often biased media that treated them like dirt, their efforts were little more than railing against the wind.

Next time, two words: antitrust lawsuits. Look into it.

Speaking of which…

The Biggest Bill Clinton Tool Award For 2000: Federal Judge Thomas Pinfield Jackson - For a man who claimed to have been unbiased, Jackson was quick to give the US Justice Department every demand possible against Microsoft, including his order to break up the company. Past decisions should’ve given some indication to the Redmond legal team that Jackson would do everything possible to screw the company over. Hey, guys, next time don’t plan your strategy for the appeals court… maybe that will keep your stock from being cut in half.

The Biggest Software Letdown In 2000: Windows ME - They promised revolutionary changes, and instead gave us a glorified bug-fix of an earlier bug-fix. Maybe they were just depressed over the breakup order from Judge Jackson to make all of those changes they promised. I will say this.. when they didn’t have to spend money on lobbying groups and attorneys, they were much more creative then they are today.

And finally….

The Most Improved Talk Liberty Show For 2000: Brutally Honest - LIVE - The show went from barely being on the air to being on the air more times than naught, and even branching into an ad-lib show called "The Liberty Free-For-All". Add to that new opening music, taped interviews, and a wider range of issues, and you really do have a show that is almost ready for radio… almost. There’s that pesky little thing about getting more people to listen to the show.