Thanks to the good folk who found my last diary and gave me their favorites to add to the ones I slated in this race, I have a modest roster of candidates for the Molly Ivins Memorial Chicken Award:
Douglas Feith, for being the "f*@%ing stupidest man on the planet" ™; Donald Rumsfeld for browbeating the military and subjecting us all to his outrageous statements; and Dick Cheney, who I've realized is the source of all evil in this Administration; Lieberman for voting against the debate resolution and for so much more that I’ll be typing all damn day if I enumerate all his manifest inadequacies; Mitch McConnell, for blocking the Iraq war anti-surge resolution in the Senate and then whining that the minority has a right to shape debate – a right he was never willing to grant the Democratic Senators over the last 12 years; Arlen Specter, for playing a non-partisan for the cameras and then caving in to White House pressure for six loooooooong years (BUT, give him credit for voting Saturday to have the debate!); Barbara Bush "for not taking contraceptives" – not really, they weren’t available back in the late 1940s, but for her "Let them eat cake" statements about the Katrina refugees; John McCain, for turning into a waffler, doublespeaker, and all-round disappointment; Bill "falafel" O'Reilly, for trying to deny all the rotten things he’s ever said on the air; "Pastor" Mac Hammond, of the Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park, MN, for being just as vile as Bill Donohue; Michael Chertoff and Michael Brown, who richly deserve having their noses shoved into the Katrina-New Orleans debacle for all time.
I am also adding a few whose recent antics since the Request For Candidates went out merit my unilateral nomination. Some of these are no-brainers, but let’s rehash here for the record anyway: Bill Donohue, natch; Brit Hume, for questioning Murtha’s sanity; Michelle Malkin, for Amanda and Melissa and for her disregard of the Bill of Rights; Texas state Rep. Warren Chisum and Georgia state Rep. Ben D. Bridges Jr. for introducing laws that would mandate teaching the kind of science that was rejected as the dumbest stuff ever thought over two hundred years ago; Steve Doocy for trying to steal Helen Thomas’ chair in the White House press briefing room (for shame!); Frank Gaffney for putting words in Abraham Lincoln’s mouth in an editorial at the Washington Times and calling for the hanging of US Senators and any and all other dissenters to the great Bushco way; Rep. Don Young (R-AK) for repeating this vicious line on the floor of the House; and Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) for spewing the most ridiculous Islamophobic garbage on the floor of the House.
Important: I've had to team some of these nominees together, because there simply are not enough slots in the poll for everyone to have their own. Furthermore, these teams are guilty of the same egregious behavior. They are grouped together by political sin, so pick according to the actions you most deplore.
A couple of these nominees are going to be controversial with many Kossacks, but these were presented by a commenter. I did promise to present all comers, and while you can diss me for including them, I am, after much thought, going to live up to my word on this and include them in one slot: Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel. I would not have thought of these two individuals myself, but as samddoberman reminded me, they did act in ways during the past election cycle that at least merit a pair of raised eyebrows, a schoolmarm scowl, and a couple of nights in the doghouse with the winner of the dead chicken:
Schumer who is going around taking credit for winning the Senate when one of his "majority" is Lieberman. He said that it was his recruiting of great candidates that got Dems the win and talked about how he picked Tester and Webb.
And he tells of how he was talking to the governor of Penn about who to run there. As Schumer tells it, he said the gov said I've got a great candidate but you won't like him; the dems won't accept him; he's pro-life. Schumer then relates he said 'We want him, the Democrats don't have a litmus test anymore - those days are past and so Bob Casey went on to win.'
Rahm 'the Pimp" Emanuel, who trid to populate his string with members who would be loyal to HIM for their elections. He cherry picked the 22 lowest lying fruit then pressured out anyone who was against prolonging the war - (in Illinois it took 1 million $ to get rid of Christine Cegelis in a primary) then sabotaged his own candidates when they came out for stopping the war. He then took his spare cash to some other races where strong anti-war candidates looked set to win (see Charlie Brown's heartbreaker in CA) and did his best to sabotage them.
Let me comment on this further: Casey probably would have won the primary in PA anyway, and once that happened Santorum was toast, and rightly so. My first impressions as a constituent, now that he’s in the Senate, are favorable. He did come out against the war, and that made it possible for me to vote for him (although his anti-choice stance still makes me very unhappy). But I’ll confess I was not comfortable with the way the primary appeared to be pre-determined. It felt more like a coronation, not an election. And trying to sabotage anti-war candidates was just plain low, and what with the recent poll numbers on public opinion of the war, I hope Rahm feels suitably sheepish. Their ultimate, bedrock sin is that they appear to be claiming a greater share than seems reasonable of the glory in the November Democratic sweep, when that distinction belongs to the voters, and the candidates themselves. Edit: in order to take into account DemocraticLuntz's comment below, I've modified that last, marked in italics, to reflect the information given below. But I do think that the successes claimed for Schumer really had little to do ultimately with him. It had everything to do with how voters saw those candidates in comparison to their opponents. Money and endorsements only went so far -- this time.
Again, I would not have thought of these two, but I did say I would post a poll listing everyone’s favorites. I’ll not have my word thrown back into my face, so please do not give me a hard time.
Now then, it’s time to vote! Let’s (figuratively) wire a dead chicken around someone’s neck!