Category: Awards

Among talk radio hosts, Hugh Hewitt has distinguished himself by responding to the Arizona shooting with a thoughtful column that makes an earnest attempt to grapple with the subject of violence in politics.

"Reaching out to new allies is a worthy goal, but not at the cost of driving a deep wedge in the movement that was unified to bring change to Washington this fall. Some of our friends have criticized FRC's decision by drawing the scriptural parallel of Jesus eating with sinners. But this isn't Jesus eating with sinners–it's Jesus partnering with them to open a restaurant!" – FRC's blog, defending their refusal to participate in CPAC because of a handful of gay conservatives are officially attending.

"Allowing for the possibility of redemption and rehabilitation, [Tucker Carlson] said, “there is a line of several million rehabilitated people I’d like to see the President congratulate before he congratulates Michael Vick.” But Obama didn’t congratulate Vick, exactly: He just cited his second chance as a high-profile example of the kind of opportunity that “many people who serve time” deserve once they’re released from prison, and all-too-rarely get," – Ross Douthat.

"It was, I think, as smart a speech as I've seen a politician give — in part because it was savvy about what it didn't say, which is a rare virtue in Washington. Of course, the speech is the easy part … Many speakers before Boehner have entered the House promising more openness and cooperation and given up on those promises when they began to conflict with more action. And Boehner himself has not always been able to "disagree without being disagreeable." It's when the going gets tough that speakers turn hard.

So we'll see. But thus far, Boehner's political instincts have been quite impressive. The White House may have a more able opponent in him than they thought," – Ezra Klein.

"I would like to believe that Palin values her right to be shallow in public sufficiently to cast aside any presidential ambitions. But it's more likely that she regards what I consider evidence of her shallow thinking as evidence of the common sense that makes her fit to be president," – Paul Mirengoff of Powerline.

She calls Charles Krauthammer "hoity toity" and an entire pundit army rises up against her.

“This is a ticking time bomb for the conservative community. An influence operation is contributing materially to the defeat of our country, supporting a stealthy effort to bring Shariah here. Grover Norquist is credentialing the perpetrators of this Muslim Brotherood influence operation. This is part of tradecraft, to get people who have standing in a community to give it to people who lack it, so they can do what they’re assigned to do in terms of subversion. We are in a war, and he has been working with the enemy for over a decade,” – Frank Gaffney, context below.

"Brinksmanship works. So does shutting down the government," – Erick Erickson.

"As we sadly learned with all the sound and fury that attended the Republican Revolution of 1994, the real risk isn't that a tidal wave of right-wing kookery will wash over the land. The greater likelihood is that the GOP rebels will quickly lose their reformist spirit after a few fizzled confrontations with the bipartisan Beltway establishment and end up governing much like the Democrats they replaced," – W. James Antle III, The American Spectator

by Patrick Appel

[Re-posted from earlier today]

Malkin Award: With over a 1,700 votes, Roger Ailes of Fox News takes the prize for this comment: 

"[NPR executives] are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda"

Mental Health Break Of The Year: Goes to Radiolab and NPR for their breath-taking visual poem:

Yglesias Award: With around a thousand votes, Joe Scarborough wins highest honors for calling out Newt Gingrich: 

"The same politician who once saw himself as a latter-day Winston Churchill — sent by God to save Western civilization — now gets rich off political hate speech. These days, Newt Gingrich’s modus operandi is to smear any public figure who fails to share his worldview. His insults are so overblown and outrageous that after the rhetorical dust settles, the reputation most damaged is his own. The former speaker seems oblivious to that fact. Or maybe he knows that in a political landscape driven by talk shows, their childish insults resonate in Washington as nowhere else. In a recent New York Magazine cover story called 'Cable Ugly', Gabriel Sherman noted that among most prime-time cable hosts, 'schoolyard rules rule."

Face Of The Year: 

 

Frederika, Sacha Goldberger's super-hero grandmother, won with around a quarter of the vote. An explanation of the project:

A few years ago, French photographer Sacha Goldberger found his 91-year-old Hungarian grandmother Frederika feeling lonely and depressed. To cheer her up, he suggested that they shoot a series of outrageous photographs in unusual costumes, poses, and locations. Grandma reluctantly agreed, but once they got rolling, she couldn't stop smiling.

Moore Award: After asking his readers to vote for him, TBogg of Firedoglake managed more than 1,600 votes for a come-from-behind victory. The winning quote:

"[A] traumatized America that, up until [9/11], thought it was “all that” was easily manipulated into being the blunt instrument of war that Bill Kristol and his chickenhawk buddies at PNAC had their hearts set on since the late 90’s. To them, the attack on 9/11 was the greatest fucking day of their lives because it gave them the causus belli fantasy that they had been masturbating to for years… [Kristol should] just fuck off and die, you evil piece of shit."

Chart Of The Year: 

With more than a quarter of the vote, Aaron Carroll's chart showing just how few Canadians use the US health care system exploded a talking point and took the prize. His original comment on the winning pie chart:

I’m not denying that some people with means might come to the United States for care.  If I needed a heart/lung transplant, there’s no place I’d rather be.  But for the vast, vast majority of people, that’s not happening.  You shouldn’t use the anecdote to describe things at a population level.  This study showed you three different methodologies, all with solid rationales behind them, all showing that this meme is mostly apocryphal.

Hewitt Award: Dinesh D'Souza won handedly – earning almost half the vote for his nutty Forbes article on Obama. The quote we selected:

"Obama supports the Ground Zero mosque because to him 9/11 is the event that unleashed the American bogey and pushed us into Iraq and Afghanistan. He views some of the Muslims who are fighting against America abroad as resisters of U.S. imperialism. Certainly that is the way the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi portrayed himself at his trial. Obama's perception of him as an anticolonial resister would explain why he gave tacit approval for this murderer of hundreds of Americans to be released from captivity.

… Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son." 

Shut Up And Sing: Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder share the award for the "the smuggest, most pretentious pop song in history":

Von Hoffmann Award: With nearly 40 percent of the vote, Clifford Stoll won easily. He was nominated for this very, very wrong prediction from 1995:

"Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic. Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works."

Hathos Alert: And last, and perhaps least, it should come as no surprise that Bristol Palin and The Situation's teen sex discussion was voted the Hathos Alert of the year: