The Hewitt Award is named after the absurd partisan fanatic, Hugh Hewitt, is given for the most egregious attempts to label Barack Obama as un-American, alien, treasonous, and far out of the mainstream of American life and politics.
Below are the finalists we’ve selected for this year’s award, please review them and then vote for your favorite at the bottom of the page.
#1
Quin Hillyer (Jan 11):
“It matters not where he was born; this man is deeply and fiercely alien to the American tradition. He thinks ordinary Americans “cling” to Gods and guns because we are “bitter.” He believes we should “redistribute the wealth.” He thinks cops are “stupid” for politely asking a Harvard professor to show proof of residence when a neighbor reported a burglary in progress. He thinks that if Congress doesn’t immediately do his bidding, he can ignore the Constitution because he supposedly has a superceding need to”act.” He thinks government has a right to tell people when they have made “too much money.” He is an alien menace,” – Quin Hillyer, American Spectator.
#2
Liz Cheney (Jan 13):
“I think, in fact, what President Obama is doing is something that America’s enemies–the Taliban, al Qaeda–have been unable to do, which is to decimate the fighting capability of this nation,” – Liz Cheney, Fox News.
#3
Andy McCarthy (Mar 9):
“Yes, Obama has been very tough on al-Qaeda overseas, but that has made it far easier for him to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood (both overseas and here at home). This makes perfect sense, actually: the Muslim Brotherhood is to al Qaeda as Alinsky was to the Weathermen — the bloodthirsty and ultimately ineffective Islamists are giving way to the sophisticated, competent, highly effective Islamists,” - Andy McCarthy, National Review.
#4
Bishop Daniel Jenky (Apr 18):
“In the late 19th century, Bismark [sic] waged his “Kulturkamf,” [sic], a culture war against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany. Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century. Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care. In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path,” – Bishop Daniel Jenky.
Words fail. It is not encouraging when a reference to nineteenth century Germany cannot get the spelling of Bismarck or Kulturkampf right. But this is the current hierarchy. They weren’t selected for their intelligence, which, after all, could be a liability. They were selected for their subservience to their superiors.
And the good, if intellectually challenged, Bishop is comparing a deliberate policy of minority Catholic persecution in Germany in the nineteenth century, when thousands of Catholics were thrown in jail, with a tiny provision in the first universal healthcare law in America (a longstanding Catholic goal) that would include contraception in health insurance paid for by the insurance company. No woman would be forced to use it. And yet 98 percent of Catholic women still consult their consciences and do. The Vatican’s own commission on the subject came to the same conclusion as these Catholic women – only to be vetoed by one celibate man, Pope Paul VI. If this is a totalitarian attack on religious freedom, then I am a proud heterosexual.
What it actually is is a dyspeptic eruption from an all-male “celibate” hierarchy about the loss of its power over its employees, Catholic and non-Catholic. And it is a terribly depressing sign that the Catholic hierarchy, like much of the evangelical leadership, is now in danger of becoming a front for one political party.
#5
Rush Limbaugh (Jul 17):
“I think it can now be said, without equivocation — without equivocation — that this man hates this country. He is trying — Barack Obama is trying — to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream. There’s no other way to put this. There’s no other way to explain this. He was indoctrinated as a child. His father was a communist. His mother was a leftist. He was sent to prep and Ivy League schools where his contempt for the country was reinforced. He moved to Chicago. It was the home of the radical-left movement. He hooks up to Ayers and Dohrn and Rashid Khalidi. He learns the ruthlessness of Cook County politics. This is what we have as a president: A radical ideologue, a ruthless politician who despises the country and the way it was founded and the way in which it became great. He hates it,” - Rush Limbaugh.
You know Obama’s doing OK when Limbaugh has to resort to the crudeness of this formulation. It’s not that he hasn’t said this before. It’s that he is now at that Breitbart moment when he is merely screaming epithets at those whom he hates.
VOTE HERE:
When you’re finished, use one of these links to vote for another 2012 award:
Malkin Award
Moore Award
Dick Morris Award
Yglesias Award
Poseur Alert Of The Year
Hathos Alert Of The Year
Mental Health Break Of The Year
Face Of The Year
Chart Of The Year
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