The 2009 Brutally Honest Awards
– by David Matthews 2
It’s hard to imagine that another year has already passed, and yet here it is December already.
Lot of stuff to go over, so let’s get to it…
The Daniel Shays Award for 2009: Glenn “Blood Shooting From My Teary Eyes” Beck - Glenn Beck is probably the biggest fraud you can imagine. Limbaugh, Hannity, Dobbs, Savage… they won’t put on an act like he does. He cries on cue (with a little help from Vick’s Vapor Rub under the eyes), he uses visual aids, he stretches reality in a way that would make Baron Munchausen look like a rank amateur… PT Barnum once said that there’s a sucker born every minute, and now you know where Beck gets his audience from. And now he thinks he can organize rebellions and calls them “political rallies”. Well since Beck fancies himself a student of history, maybe he should look up the person for whom this award was named after to see what happened to people who pull that sort of stunt.
The Whisky Rebellion Award for 2009: Dick Armey and his Teabaggers - Dick Armey is NOT a political outsider. His group is NOT “grass-roots”. Dick Armey is a former member of Congress. His group is a professional PAC. It’s like bringing in an NFL team to a Pop Warner football game and trying to pass them off as a bunch of “really big 10-year olds”. They only thing they want to change is which political party is in charge of things in Washington.
The “Just Shut Up And Go Away” Award for 2009: Carrie “Hysteria Barbie” Prejean - She couldn’t get past the fact that she blew her chances at winning Miss USA. She has no real concept of the First Amendment. She blew the second chance that Donald Trump gave her and then couldn’t figure out why she was dropped on her bony ass. She thinks that intentionally violating the terms of her contract makes her a religious martyr. She’s a victim in her own mind and she feels it’s her quest to make everyone admit that. Oh, and ignore the topless modeling pictures and the sextapes that aren’t really sextapes even though they reportedly feature her doing something that falls in the category of a solo sextape. Tell you what, Carrie… we’ll forget about that part as long as we can also forget about everything else that involves you.
The “Just Shut Up And go Away” Runner-Up for 2009: Former Vice-President Dick Cheney - Someone needs to remind DICK that former Vice-Presidents that he has absolutely ZERO credibility critiquing the current White House occupants over how to deal with Afghanistan. We wouldn’t have to DEAL with this problem if HE didn’t help transition it into the Iraq War. The only time I ever want to hear from him ever again is when (or if) he’s being arraigned in the Hague.
You know, the hypocrisy coming from the cons and neo-cons is absolutely surreal. What’s next… a lesson on how to comply with special prosecutors from Scooter Libby? A lesson on ethics from Karl Rove? A lesson in spelling from Glenn Beck? A lesson on how to eat a pretzel from Bush Junior?
The Political Usurper Award for 2009: Rush Limbaugh - Whether they want to admit to it or not, the GOP leadership HAS been co-opted by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk and their supporters. They have allowed the listeners of those trained parrots to bully their way into dictating the direction of the GOP, and whether they realize it or not, it WILL be a detriment for them.
The Bill Frist Quack Award for 2009: Senator Max Baucus - Baucus is the guy spearheading the healthcare reform. He also gets millions in campaign contributions from the insurance companies, Big Pharma, and hospitals. So when asked to reform the whole healthcare system, who do you think he paid more attention to: the people who can’t afford healthcare who need a public option, or the rich insurance companies who think that everyone should be FORCED to get insurance whether they can afford it or not? Yeah I can think of at least four MILLION reasons why he’d side with the rich companies over his own constituents.
The Top Buzzwords in 2009 That Should Never Be Invoked EVER AGAIN With Healthcare Reform - “Opt-In”, “Opt-Out”, “Trigger”, “Robust”, and “Hammer”.
The Bay Of Pigs Award for 2009: Former Defense Secretary Donald “Zen Master” Rumsfeld - It turns out that we COULD have had Osama Bin Laden either in custody or in a body bag back in December of 2001. We knew where he was, we could have gone in and either taken him in or taken him down. All “Rummy” Rumsfeld had to do was say “Yes” to a request for reinforcements. Instead, he said “no”.
Do you understand the implications of this? We could have had this DONE AND OVER WITH by the end of 2001! We could have then focused ALL of our attention on Iraq instead of splitting our attention between two fronts.
All of those the lap-dog apologists of the Imperium who think they can criticize Obama’s recent decision to make a modest troop increase need to explain why we REFUSED to do everything it takes to bring Bin Laden to justice when we had the opportunity to.
The All-Time Quitter Award for 2009: Sarah “Caribou Barbie” Palin - That probably should be “Governor” Palin, but she actually up-and-quit her job. She wasn’t forced out, she wasn’t given a better offer, there was no embarrassing scandal, she just up-and-QUIT! And it wouldn’t be the only thing she up-and-quit this year either.
The Delusional Loons Of 2009 Award: Palin’s Defenders - I shudder to use the word “cult” when describing the people who have pretty much put Palin on an unrealistic pedestal, but it’s as close of a description can one can get. Palin gets the nomination and everyone thinks what a “great” choice was being made before anyone even knows who she is. Then she quits as governor, for no apparent reason other than she wants to make money on the tour circuit and book sales, her acolytes start crowing about how she’s now “unrestrained” and can “let loose”. And when asked about why they support her so, they start crowing about how she “represents things like freedom”. WTF!?!
It’s almost as though the followers were just programmed to have a “fill-in-the-blank” mindset for whomever is chosen, and then run on automatic. “Gumby is so perfect! He’s, like, green and rubbery and can bend back from any kind of movement.” “Lassie is just so perfect! She, like, represents everything that is good and decent in this country.” “It’s good that the can of beans quit, because now it can just let loose and do what it wants.”
And people question why Bill Maher thinks that Americans are stupid!
The Worst Political Tactic of 2009: Neo-Conservative Projection - Projection of one’s faults on others is considered to be one of the signs of narcissism, paranoia, and psychopathy. If you’re fat, you start accusing other people of being fat. If you’re claustrophobic, you start accusing others of being claustrophobic. And in the case of the neo-cons, if you’re afraid of being called a fascist or a Nazi, you start accusing your opponents of being either fascists or Nazis… or you can even accuse them of being both. Sure the two terms aren’t interchangeable, but don’t worry about it making sense, because neo-cons never make sense. Making sense could lead to even more dangerous things like… thinking.
The Lamest Excuse for 2009: “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” - Yes that was the excuse made by the staff of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to explain why the governor seemingly vanished off the face of the planet. He didn’t really vanish, he just flew to the Southern Hemisphere to stick his wick in his “soulmate”. And then after that kind of talk he thinks he can make it up to his WIFE? In one felled swoop he destroys the very mirage of heterosexual marriage, not to mention the supposed “only purpose” of human reproduction, and then he thinks he can make it up?
The “I Proved David 2 Was Right” Award for 2009: Renegade Senator Joseph Lieberman - It was this time last year that I warned people to NOT TRUST LIEBERMAN. Remember that? Remember when I said that Harry Reid was making a mistake caving to Lieberman? Sure enough, the year wasn’t even over with and he turned on the party he promised allegiance with!
Go ahead, naysayers… admit that I was right!
I won’t hold my breath, though.
The Most Incompetent Member of Congress for 2009: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - For once, Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t even come close! Reid isn’t a leader. He’s a manager. He’s a wheeler-dealer who thinks that he can broker his way through each session instead of doing what needs to be done. If healthcare reform is shelved, you can blame him for letting it happen.
The “My Ego Is Bigger Than My Career” Award for 2009: Lou Dobbs - Once upon a time that would be “CNN’s Lou Dobbs”, but he’s not on CNN anymore… and he can thank his own ego for that. Lou’s ego became a detriment for his career. It wasn’t about “the issues” anymore. It was about HIM discussing “the issues”. The “Birther” issue wasn’t over with until HE determined it would be. The matter of immigration wasn’t how it was being addressed, it was about the fact that HE talked about it. And quite frankly, the only reason why he doesn’t HAVE a show on CNN any more is because HIS EGO wouldn’t let the show just be about the news.
The Biggest Political Non-Sequitur for 2009: “Jobless Recovery” - The Clinton Regime had “New Democrat”, the Bush Imperium had “Compassionate Conservativism”… and right now the Obama people have this BS notion that you can somehow spur an economic recovery while still have ONE-IN-FIVE Americans out of work. This is worse than the mini-recession of 2001 when real wages for most Americans did not go up. At least then it was a shell game. Here the White House is shoving hundred of billions of dollars to institutions without conditions and not even expecting it to produce the results needed - JOBS - to get us out of the Great Recession!
And finally…
The Brutally Honest Award for the Biggest Disappointment in 2009: The Obama Administration - This is an award that I DID NOT want to give, but let’s get brutally honest here… this administration has pretty much squandered a lot of the good faith that it was given in January. They underestimated the scope of the recession. They failed to deal with the issue of unemployment other than to provide a pittance of support to those still looking for work. They failed to corral the abuses of the banks and Wall Street. They failed to bring the lawbreakers in the Bush Imperium to justice. They failed to oversee the handling of healthcare reform in Congress and instead backed a failed plan by the most dubious of Senate leaders.
2009 started off on a high note for the Democrats, but if they are not careful and if they fail to address their faults now, next year will make this one seem like a fantasy.
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