The Dish Awards

Throughout the year, the Dish and its readers nominate various writers, politicians, pundits, celebrities for various awards. At the end of the year, winners and runners up are announced. In the past, a blue ribbon panel has selected the winners. Its membership has been kept secret. As of 2007, the winners are picked by Dish readers in a poll.

The Malkin Award – named after blogger, Michelle Malkin, is for shrill, hyperbolic, divisive and intemperate right-wing rhetoric. Ann Coulter is ineligible – to give others a chance.

The Yglesias Award – for writers, politicians, columnists or pundits who actually criticize their own side, make enemies among political allies, and generally risk something for the sake of saying what they believe.

The Moore Award – named after film-maker, Michael Moore, is for divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric.

The Hewitt Award – 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.

The Dick Morris Award (originally the Von Hoffman Award, until readers pushed for a name-change) is given for stunningly wrong political, social and cultural predictions.

The Poseur Alert – awarded for passages of prose that stand out for pretension, vanity and really bad writing designed to look like profundity.

The Hathos Alert – for moments when you want to look away but cannot. Hathos is the attraction to something you really can’t stand; it’s the compulsion of revulsion.