2006 Awards
Time to look back before we move forward. Here we go.
Biggest Loser: George Allen, who macacas his way out of an easy win, blowing any future run for President and handing the Senate over to the Dems.
Biggest Winner: Barack Obama, suddenly a frontrunner for '08. Imagine what'll happen if he actually does something.
Biggest Loser and Winner: Joe Lieberman, long-time Senator who couldn't even get his party's nomination, but still won his seat back anyway (while his party licked his boots).
Lamest Duck: George W. Bush.
Story Of The Year: The Democrats take back Congress. Caused mostly by the second-biggest story, the continuing violence in Iraq.
Biggest Non-Story: Everyone was waiting for another big hurricane. Nothing.
Best Non-Story: Still no major terrorist attacks inside America.
Biggest Story No One Cares About: All in all, the economy continues to do fairly well.
Funniest Near Tragedy: Cheney shoots a hunting buddy in the face.
Would Be Funny If It Weren't A Tragedy: Death in the aftermath of the Danish cartoons.
Biggest Comeback: Arnold Schwarzenegger. After being destroyed by the unions last year, he changes (i.e., becomes an unofficial Democrat) and easily wins reelection.
Biggest Continuing Non-Issue: Everyone talks about illegal immigration, but no one does anything about it.
Most Overrated Person: Nancy Pelosi. I don't think she led her party to victory so much as watched her opponents self-destruct. Her trouble with committee assignments right after the election doesn't bode well.
No Longer A Wedge Issue Award: Gay marrige. It has some play left in it, but it's not what it was.
Best Traction For A Relatively Trivial Scandal: Mark Foley and his emails.
Turn Around And Bite You On The Ass Award: Relentlessly going after the Duke students, no matter what the evidence showed, made Mike Nifong the most despised prosecutor in the country.
Biggest Celebrity Meltdown: Gotta be Mel Gibson, though he had some serious competition from Michael Richards and Britney Spears, as well as Rosie and The Donald.
Most Reliable Nutjob Leader: Stop looking at South America (or Washington D.C., for that matter), it's not even close. Ahmadinejad.
Person We'll Miss The Most Award: So many, so many. I guess I'll go with Milton Friedman.
Worst Political Move: Almost everything the Republicans did before the elections.
Stealth Bomb: Justice Alito. The explosion will detonate in a few months.
Worst Dead Dictator (aka the Good Riddance Award): Sorry Milosevic, sorry Pinochet, but neither of you can touch Hussein.
Biggest Flop Controversy: The Flying Imams.
Technical Loser Of the Year: Compact Discs. It seems like just a while ago you were the future, now you're on the way out.
Foot In Mouth Award: Pope Benedict XVI. What he said may have been an invitation to dialogue, but what did he expect?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:16 AM
3 Comments:
Great except for Schwarzenegger- this year he's been strictly a left coast phenomenon.
I agree almost completely!
My only hesitations:
* Fifty years from now, will 2006 be the year that the Democrats took Congress, or will 2006 (and perhaps 2007 as well) simply be the years that the Bush administration imploded? Historically, if a presidency implodes (1950, 1974) the opposition party does indeed take over Congress, but that's just a side-effect and not the main action that historians focus on.
* Alito: what are you foreseeing here? I have no idea.
* The Benedict thing: I completely agree with you, and remain mystified about the original speech. Despite the claims of some friends of mine, I think that the Byzantine quote was not a subtle manuever but was a true miscalculation. I think his attempts to be very conciliatory in Turkey indicate that he wishes he hadn't said the line in the first place.
* Why isn't O.J. getting an award? Or at least Regan?
Maybe Governor of California is a local thing, but if Arnold weren't disqualified, he'd be his party's front-runner for President.
Regarding Alito, perhaps it will become clearer what I mean when I make my predictions for 2007 in a few days.
OJ deserves some kind of reward, though for what? Chutzpah?
Post a Comment
<< Home