Category: Awards

A blog is born.

The number of votes for this year’s awards is already the largest in the history of the Dish. We’ve had over half a million pageviews today and thousands upon thousands of votes in the different categories. It was, I suspect, the sheer quality of the bile – especially against Obama – that enlivened the competition this year. The Awards are a reminder of just how nasty, fearful and unhinged the resistance to Obama became at times.

Maybe that’s why the Dish’s Mental Health Breaks proved to be so popular as well this year. And for the first time, you can vote for your favorite. (My own personal favorite is now in a comfortable lead.) Plus: Hewitt! Wonderful Hewitt! Voting is still open: so click the links and you can vote for the 2008 Malkin Award, Moore Award, Von Hoffmann Award, Yglesias Award, and Poseur Alert. Don’t forget the new Hewitt Award and the Mental Health Break Of The Year. Award glossary here.

FP has a list. The Dish’s Von Hoffmann award nominees are better. Vote now!

It’s that time of year again. Over the past twelve months, The Dish has covered the presidential election,  bringing you nuggets of campaign crack from all corners of the web. But the year wouldn’t be complete without an election of our own. There have been dozens of award nominations from readers this year and we have more categories than ever before. The Malkin and Hewitt competition is particularly fierce. Case in point, this gem from Craig Smith didn’t make the cut:

Barack Obama will be our first hip-hop president. I can only imagine how the world will embrace the leader of the free world when he introduces other foreign leaders with, "give it up for my man Vladimir." Giving "props" for joining us in a treaty. Or the first lady Michelle talking about "my man" the "daddy of my babies" when referring to the president. That should go over well everywhere from 10 Downing Street right on down to the streets of the Middle East.

If something that juicy wasn’t good enough to make it into the top ten, imagine what beat it out. The blue-ribbon panel worked feverishly to select finalists in each category, and we’re giving readers a week to pick the winners. There are many big names and some not-so-big names to choose from. Click the links and you can vote for the 2008 Malkin Award, Moore Award, Von Hoffmann Award, Yglesias Award, and Poseur Alert. Also – for the first time – the Hewitt Award and the Mental Health Break Of The Year are on the ballot.

Award glossary here. Vote early. Vote often.

"I  have given up trying to convince most of my conservative friends of the necessity of speaking out against what has transpired these last several years with regards to the approval of torture at the highest levels of our government. But I will continue to write about it because it is something about which I feel very strongly. I will not, as many liberals do, berate those of you who disagree with me. This is a matter of conscience. Each of us must examine our own beliefs, our own mind, and come to our own conclusions in this matter.

So in the end, while the issue is a legal one, where you stand is matter of opinion. One can dismiss the legal questions and file it under the rubric of justifiable actions taken by the chief executive during a time of war. We can try and sweep the entire matter under the rug, claiming there are more important issues to address like the economy and the continued prosecutions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Or we can bite the bullet and risk the partisan political consequences that would surely flow if any attempt is made to investigate and prosecute lawbreakers. It may drive the two sides further apart — if it is done inexpertly and in a partisan manner. But we should risk the consequences if only to prove to ourselves that the number one reason to oppose what these men did in our name is that we are a better nation and a better people than that," – Rick Moran, Pajamasmedia.