Category: Awards

Von Hoffmann Award Nominee

"All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light. Save it for 2050 … I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and values. The right knows Obama is unelectable except against Attila the Hun," – Mark Penn, March 19, 2007.

Von Hoffmann Award Nominee

A blast from the past:

I think his 15 minutes as a serious contender for the presidency are about up.

Palin supporter, Kathryn-Jean Lopez, on Barack Obama, November 4, 2007. In rounding up the nominees for the year-end awards, I found several candidates like this one on Obama. Feel free to find some more and add them to the competition while there’s still time. Email me if you dig one up and send me the link. It could be a fun Christmas season. (Awards glossary here.)

Poseur Alert

"This is all funny stuff. But I submit that the true genius of lolcats lies in their tragedy. In one classic example, one cat is crying, and another is hugging it and saying, "Don’t crai. We’ll get cheezburger someday." It’s sweet and poignant and wistful all at the same time. Life can be hard, it says, and we don’t always get what we want, but even as we long for things we may never have, we draw succor from the reassurances of those we love. Sure, it’s ridiculous that what the cat is yearning for is a cheeseburger. But the cheeseburger is not really a cheeseburger — it’s a symbol," – Jay Dixit, Salon.

Malkin Award Nominee

"Women want to be her. Men want to be with her and not just because she is very attractive. Guys feel comfortable with her, rather than threatened by her. She could hang with them all day watching football on TV and it would feel genuine. Contrast this with Hillary Clinton. Guys would expect Mrs. Clinton to lunge for the remote and turn on some man-bashing, made-for-TV movie on one of those men-hating channels," – Mark Hyman, explaining why Sarah Palin is so appealing to him.

Malkin Award Nominee

"I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion," – Newt Gingrich, referring to the 18,000 married couples just forced apart after a Mormon-funded campaign against equal rights in California.

Hewitt Award Nominee

"Nationally-syndicated talk show host Michael Savage is set to interview former German member of the Hitler Youth, Hilmar von Campe this Tuesday, November 18. The program will focus on similarities, which von Campe sees between the rise of totalitarianism under Hitler and the current social and political trends inside the United States. "Every day brings this nation closer to a Nazi-style totalitarian abyss," writes von Campe, now a U.S. citizen, and author of ‘Defeating the Totalitarian Lie: A Former Hitler Youth Warns America,’" – from the press release for the extremely popular "conservative" talkshow host, Michael Savage.