Top 10 of 2007 -- Wurlitzer Prize for Wingnuttery™

Since we started awarding the prize late in 2007, we added two deserving recipients who are standard bearers from the past week to our Top 10 countdown of exemplary honorees. Who is No. 1 in all of Wingnuttia? We think you will applaud but let's start with...

No. 10: I see nutheeng! -- One of two recipients from the Heritage Foundation, Nina Owcharenko can face the problem of uninsured children, and without batting an eyelash, obfuscate the situation. Nina trotted out the fallacy that the government program to cover uninsured children is expanding in order to -- gasp with us in horror -- drive children from private insurance! Oh, what an affront to the profits of the insurance industry! "The truth is various states have been pushing for an expansion of SCHIP precisely because, faced with spiraling increases in health insurance premiums, more and more employers are electing to drop dependent coverage and more and more middle class parents, confronted with the same price spiral, are unable to pay for private insurance." The parental nightmare: choose between paying for their children's health coverage or the mortgage. But, pish posh, neighs Nina. She canters on, her award teetering on her ideological rump, leaving a trail of road apples for the kiddies.

No. 9: The poor couldn't possibly be really poor -- That's what an elite fellow of the Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector, explained, wagging his finger at us little people. When "one in eight" Americans lack "enough money for the food, shelter, and clothing they need," caught in a daily "struggle with incredible poverty," Rector pulled out his scented hankie, dabbed his pursed lips before opining, Let them eat dirt. Rector's award for excellence in denying the truth about Americans living in poverty earns him a special booby prize in addition to the award -- a miniature guillotine designed to trim his lengthy aristocratic claws.

No. 8: I'm a useful idiot -- Bill Sammon of the Washington Examiner knows how to lobe a softball to Bush during a WH press briefing so the pResident Evil can chortle, "Now, watch this drive." Sammon's question, ”Mr. President, what did you think of the MoveOn ad?” With that, aWol launched into a tirade against the "Democrat" Party. “I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. military....[blah, blah, blah]." For Sammon's efforts, he gets a brass-plated Kool-Aid sippycup inscribed with "D.C. Stenographer" to accompany his award.

No. 7: Wiping the ass of the GOP -- Home to the rants of crotchety white man Lou Dobbs, stenographer Malveaux, and groveling Wolf, the Cowardly News Network proves once again that liberal media is an extinct creature of mythical lore. In homage to their GOP favoritism during the presidential debates, the award comes with a magic CNN eightball that when shaken, always answers, "Carry water for Republicans or God will getcha!" They take the admonition Seriously.

No. 6: Harangutan Glenn Beck -- When Southern California burned, ravaging the homes of Republican-leaning Orange County and San Diego, a place where active duty and retired military also live, the right-wing nutjob of CNN poisoned with venom for the blue state -- and absent of fact-checking to whom he would spew his obscenities -- delighted in the inferno by announcing that "people who hate America are losing their homes today." A perpetual fountain of animosity toward liberals, environmentalists, Anyone Not A Wingnut™, Beck's bigotry earned him an award wrapped in a brownshirt for outstanding achievement in smearing non-Christians.

[Read on... the countdown continues after the jump!]

No. 5: War on Christmas kerfuffle -- Faux News & Friends hosted a curious holiday segment with the Catholic League's Bill Donohue as guest to kvetch about Huckabee's holiday campaign ad that "displayed an image of a white cross floating in the background behind the Huckster's head." WTF? Didn't the Flared Nostril realize there was a war on Xmas? How could he quibble with a cross, for chrissakes?! His "hypocrisy, partisan bias, and bullying are legion.... Donohue's hyperbolic media whoring and Judas act to progressives, Catholic Democrats, gays, Muslims, Wiccans, and Jews" tickles him pinko. "He excoriates or discounts anyone who disturbs his unbridled wingnuttery" and "Big Media, having given him a bully pulpit, turn a blind eye to his hypocrisy." For his yuletide performance and to complement his award, we bestow a super-size kazoo to play along off-key with the noise machine.

No. 4: O'shilling is me middle name -- NBC's Tim Russert never encountered a fact he couldn't dismiss or distort on behalf of his BFF, the Greedy Old Phonies. Describing Huck's victory in Iowa, he said that "the Republicans [were] embracing someone whose message was populist, and in terms of foreign policy, anti-George W. Bush." Wait a minute. That's not what Huck said: "I love the president. I've been with him on the war. I've been with him on the surge when Mitt Romney wasn't. So it's absurd to say that I'm against the president." Typical of Russert, his Meet The Press dog-and-pony show demonstrates an exercise in disregarding his buddies' misleading statements, allowing propaganda to flourish, and dissing Democrats every chance he can insert an attack. In special recognition, he receives a GOP-monogrammed chamois to polish his award along with the turds he serves up as journalism. Maybe he can use it to buff his brown nose, too.

No. 3: He's a Muslim (wink, wink) but I'm a slut -- He'll criticize others for spreading innuendo but when Chris Matthews does the same thing, he's oblivious to his brazen double standard. As a bona fide Hillary-hater, Tweety makes millions trashing Big Major Dems and he doesn't mind stooping to sexism to do it. He's been dissembling a long, long time. Ah, but he can't seem to cure his complusion 'cause he's in love! Republican he-men, Mr. 9/11, the Codpiece-in-Chief, and "Big Handsome" Fred Thompson make him swoon. We've re-engineered the Wurlitzer prize to accommodate a hidden compartment where Tweety can keep a bottle of smelling salts to use when he's overcome with the vapors. Should we toss in a hand towel for his, um, sweaty palms?

No. 2: Who can top Rudy!? Only Rudy Giuliani, a constant source of wingnuttery, can soar beyond himself like Icarus lifting on the thermal of 9/11 (video). He was for "socialized medicine" before he was against it, but Rudy's never liked facts much. He can out-howl the dogs of war louder than any banshee and he can scare little children and big people alike with terror, terror, terror. Oh, Rudy! "The serial exaggerator can't help himself." But when will he drop out of the race for the WH? His Wurlitzer prize comes rigged with a oscillating white flag. Maybe he will get the hint.

No. 1: Who's the wrongest wingnut of all? -- Taking the top slot, William "The Bloody" Kristol reigns as the King of Crap. For being spectacularly wrong as a pundit, the Gray Lady added him to her "stable of neocon stooges." I kid you not! With Bloody Bill "on board, the Nyuk Nyuk Times can whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop it up with the phoniest stooge of all. The infotainment value that a weekly dose of Bloody Bill can bring to Serious Punditry will surely elevate the laughing stock of the paper in the marketplace of Opinion as it bolts in the opposite direction of the nation's move toward progressive ideas. Who's next to [dis]grace its editorial pages? Ann Coultergeist? N'yaaah-ah-ah!" For such an colossal misstep, the sound of mailbox flaps banging shut on cancelled subscription letters lends a raspberry-induced a cappella to both the Times and Kristol's Wurlitzer Prize for Wingnuttery™.

Stay tuned for next Saturday's award to kick off the first honoree of 2008.

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Wurlitzer Prize of the Week for Wingnuttery™ - Special Yuletide Achievement

'Tis the season for a puzzling brouhaha over GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's holiday campaign ad that displayed an image of a white cross floating in the background behind the Huckster's head. Was it a bookcase or a window pane? Was the cross intentional, a subliminal seed to be planted in the minds of evangelical voters and religious conservatives to wonder, "Are you the one?" Serious News Organizations sucked on the story like a sugar plum dancing in their heads. WH contender Ron Paul (R-TX) jumped into the media frenzy to quote Sinclair Lewis' famous comment about "fascism... ...carrying a cross." Who could top that?

Enter Fox, er, Faux News, the dedicated propaganda network for the three R's -- radical, Republican and rightwing -- where the Huckster was criticized for wearing his religion on his sleeve. The lead attack dog and paragon of pious contradictions, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, said that Huck went too far. Really? Doesn't the self-appointed Flared Nostril repulsed by the alleged secular assault on God Almighty know there's a War on Christmas?!! That Christians in America suffer persecution in having been banished from the public square? Poor things have been forced to display nativity scenes in their own front yards and on church properties. Genuflect and gasp with us, "Oh, the injustice!"

But hark! During the yuletide season, comes God's candidate advertising a holiday message with the ubiquitous symbol that unites all Christianists. So why did Donohue kvetch?

More confusing still, when did rightwing pandering to religiosity become gauche? Unpopular? Verbotten? And fodder for another religious panderer like Donohue? His primary objection:

"The whole idea is to give the appearance of a cross," he said, "and this is just injecting religion into politics even too far for guys like me."

Asked if the ad was "too much," Donahue said it was.

"Because there's a pattern here," he added. "Every other word out of [Huckabee's] mouth is that 'I'm Christian.' He's calling into question Romney's Mormonism...let people talk about [their] faith, but don't sell it on your sleeve."

And with that, Donohue pronounced, "Sell yourself on your issues, not on what your religion is." Harumph-ity dump!

[Read on... video and more righteous wingnuttery after the jump.]


FOX & Friends discuss Huckabee ad with Bill Donohue via ThinkerHA

During the Faux News video, Donohue referred twice to anti-Catholic staffers at Huck's campaign, a legit complaint and what probably sharpened Bill's axe head. Corpus Juris raised the anti-Catholic issue earlier this week in remembering JFK and addressed the Donohue-Huckabee ad problem directly. Here's just a snip:

...it wasn't long ago when good Protestant Americans wouldn't vote for a "papist." The marriage between Catholics and evangelicals over pro-life issues is a shotgun marriage at best.... ...Some of Huckabee's fellow "Christians" deeply believe Catholics are also members of a dirty anti-Christian "cult."

Unlike Corpus Juris, the Catholic League president didn't express this troublesome Christianist relationship fairly or honestly. Au contraire! The Flared Nostril inhaled crazy snuff and accused Huck of the same tactic he himself has employed in the past -- "injecting religion into politics."

The record of Donohue's hypocrisy, partisan bias, and bullying are legion.

In February, Bill attacked the John Edwards campaign for hiring two bloggers whom he denounced as anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots. The AP, NYTimes, MSNBC, and CNN interviewed Donohue over the high-blown controversy or helped spread Bill's vitriol without once challenging his bigoted history or anti-Democratic motives. Yet, when Jerome Corsi, "one of the ringleaders of the smear campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)," spewed anti-Catholic harangues in 2004, Donohue stayed conveniently quiet. He uttered not a word in defense of the character assassination of a fellow Catholic. In fact, he later piled on Kerry. Neither did he deride Corsi for his "anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking" bigotry.

Over time, the mainstream press has permitted Donohue to advance a religious rightwing agenda never questioning his hypocritical double standard. In August last year, Bill responded to actor Mel Gibson's anti-Jewish rant with the excuse, "There's a lot of people who have made comments which are bigoted who are not necessarily bigots." Oh, but Mel is a strict Traditionalist Catholic and favorite son of conservatives. No tongue lashing for Gibson! See how Bill operates?

And there's Donohue's own vulgarities and religious bigotry jumbled in with politics:

* "People don't trust the Muslims when it comes to liberty." [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 2/9/06]

* "Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style." [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 2/27/04]

* "The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done." [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 4/11/05]

* Addressing former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in a press release, Donohue said: "[W]hy didn't you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn't allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?" [10/4/06]

* "I'm saying if a Catholic votes for Kerry because they support him on abortion rights, that is to cooperate in evil." [MSNBC's Hardball, 10/21/04]

* "We've already won. Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost." [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 12/8/04]

* "Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn't care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face." [MSNBC's Scarborough Country, 2/9/06]

Are we to take the rants of Bill Donohue seriously? He's the same crackpot who besmirched a devout Catholic artist for sculpting a chocolate Jesus for Easter. Let's see... Easter, chocolate, Jesus... what's so out of the stratosphere about a sweet Jesus? Lucky for the artist, Donohue sarcastically consoled, the slightest puff of fire and brimstone streaming from his nose, "I'm not like the Taliban, because you would lose more than your head." Unfortunately, Bill pressured the exhibit venue to ban the sculptor's work by threatening to bankrupt them financially. Adding further injury during his interview on CNN, Donohue called sculptor Cosimo Cavallaro a "loser", "morally bankrupt", "disingenuous", and a liar. Insults offer a fine example of Christ-like behavior during Lent, don't they?

While the media has remained content to let Donohue strew his toxic aspersions -- to conjure controversy and lap the limelight with a flick of his tongue -- other Catholics have been paying attention:

Mark Silk, director of the Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College said, "He's a thug. He reverts to bullying because he thinks that's what the job entails."

Rev. Mark Massa, a Jesuit priest and co-director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University, accused Donohue of being unable to differentiate between healthy debate and real religious bigotry. "Not everyone who criticizes the church is anti-Catholic," he said.

The editors at the Catholic weekly magazine America seem to agree. In 2000, they chastised Donohue for denouncing movies he hadn't even watched. "While being first may increase one's chances of attracting media attention, there is a danger that the Catholic League reinforces the stereotype that the Catholic Church is at best unreflective and at worst unfairly biased and paranoid," wrote Rev. James Martin. "In the long run, this may do more harm to the church's reputation than a short-lived movie or play."

During this week's Donohue tirade over Huckabee's "subliminal cross" ad, Faux News Friend Alisyn Camerota, astonished at his grumbling, could only retort, "Bill, you are a complicated man! You don't like Huckabee's Christmas ad, yet though, you don't like the War on Christmas. Very interesting."

No, Alisyn, Donohue isn't complicated. He's deceitful, vain, and crass, and you've succumbed to Bill's gaslighting in not exposing his thuggery. Journalism much? It's simple. Donohue's hyperbolic media whoring and Judas act to progressives, Catholic Democrats, gays, Muslims, Wiccans, and Jews pleases him. He excoriates or discounts anyone who disturbs his unbridled wingnuttery. Big Media, having given him a bully pulpit, turn a blind eye to his hypocrisy. He's just another kazoo in the noise machine.

That's why the Flared Nostril, who can turn the Mighty Wurlitzer up with a single snort like Santa ascending a chimney, gets the award for this week's yuletide achievement.

Happy holidays, Bill Donohue.

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