Category: Awards

Moore Award Nominee

“Yes, Syria has undoubtedly used chemical weapons on its own people. Maybe it was the government; maybe it was the opposition; maybe you [President Obama] know for sure. But here’s what I know for sure: We are no better. We have been using chemical weapons on our own children – and ourselves – for decades, the chemical weapons we use in agriculture to win the war on pests, weeds, and the false need for ever greater yields. While the effects of these “legal” chemical weapons might not be immediate and direct, they are no less deadly. … We’ve been trying to tell you for years that chemical companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, DuPont, Bayer Crops Sciences, and others are poisoning our children and our environment with your support and even, it seems, your encouragement. Just because their bodies aren’t lined up wrapped in sheets on the front pages of the newspapers around the world doesn’t mean it’s not true,” – Maria Rodale, CEO of Rodale, “the world’s leading health-and-wellness publisher,” and “the granddaughter of the founder of the organic movement in America.”

Hewitt Award Nominee

“Where will [Obama] get his ‘national police’? The NaPo will be recruited from “young out-of-work urban men” and it will be hailed as a cure for the economic malaise of the inner cities. In other words, Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama’s enemies. Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people “trying to escape” — people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama,” – Orson Scott Card, in an “experiment in fictional thinking” that “sure sounds plausible.” Award glossary here.

Yglesias Award Nominee

“I understand that congressmen say stupid things from time to time. And I understand that Mr. Farenthold is an obscure back-bencher who doesn’t speak for most of his colleagues. Still, the fact that a member of the House of Representatives would treat lunatic theories as serious is a problem. It does reflect poorly not only on Farenthold but the party he represents. And what he said is damaging, since it will confirm in the minds of rational people that at least among some of its elected representatives, the Republican Party is comprised of conspiratorial nuts,” – Pete Wehner, Commentary.

Hewitt Award Nominee

“What I need from you is to know what you can do, you and your fellow non-communist colleagues in the lower House, what you can do to stop these communist tyrannical executive orders laid down by this foreign-born, America-hating communist despot?” – an Alabama tea-party supporter to congresswoman Martha Roby at a town hall meeting. (Awards glossary here.)

Roby did not refute the questioner’s lunatic question, and in fact followed up with a list of her oversight activities.

Yglesias Award Nominee

“I’d be leading the charge [for defunding Obamacare] if I thought this would work. But it will not work … You’re going to set an expectation among the conservatives in our party that we can achieve something that we’re not able to achieve. It’s not an achievable strategy. It’s creating the false impression that you can do something when you can’t. And it’s dishonest … You’re not going to stop the funding, but what you will do is shut down the government. Among that group of senators that has been considering this, I was the only one who was here for that. The president is never going to sign a bill defunding Obamacare. Do you think he’s going to cave? The strategy that has been laid out is a good way for Republicans to lose the House,” – Tom Coburn.

Bonus:

There’s some small shred of sanity left, it seems. Combined with Behner’s slapdown of Steve King, lets hope it gains more steam.

Dick Morris Award Nominee

“Yes, I realize that the nursery photo in The New York Times Magazine’s recent cover story about Anthony Weiner’s rehabilitation was staged. Yes, I know that the disgraced former congressman was always “weighing” a run for mayor, and was never just a stay-at-home dad facilitating the political ascendance of his wife, Huma Abedin (he earned a hefty sum last year as a corporate consultant). But I can’t help it; I believe that Anthony Weiner, who once thought chicks would dig it if he tweeted them a picture of his namesake, is a changed man,” – Hanna Rosin, June 19, 2013.

A glossary of Dish awards can be found here.

Malkin Award Nominee

“I see those six ladies in the jury putting themselves on that rainy night, in that housing complex that has just been burglarized by three or four different groups of black youngsters from the adjacent community. So it’s a dark night, a 6-foot-2-inch hoodie-wearing stranger is in the immediate housing complex. How would the ladies of that jury have reacted? I submit that if they were armed, they would have shot and killed Trayvon Martin a lot sooner than George Zimmerman did. This is self-defense,” – Geraldo Rivera, Fox News.

That’s a staggering statement, effectively giving white people the right to kill anyone above 6′ 2″ in a hoodie. I haven’t been able to watch the cable coverage of this, but readers tell me that Fox is race-baiting in hysterical, reckless fashion. If Rivera’s understanding of “self-defense” is correct, then it’s open, hunting season on African-American men.