John Gibson -- Wurlitzer Prize of the Week for Wingnuttery™

What kind of cretin savages a dead actor by mocking him and disseminating homophobic speech?

This week John Gibson added more droppings to his mound of wingnut ordure.

The passing of 28-year-old Heath Ledger on Tuesday, Jan. 22, gave the screeching vulture of Faux News an opportunity to whittle his beak on the bones of a fictional character -- it's make-believe, John! -- maligning the late actor's role as a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. Yes, America, there are lunatics among us, the kind that deserve a psychiatric evaluation. Instead, ruthless network executives reward them with broadcast careers. One wonders if recruitment personnel at Faux News receive incentives to find the most despicable, slimiest dregs of humanity.

What did John Gibson do? From Think Progress:

Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by [Gibson's] own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

As Gibson's show continued, he discussed events of the week and again derided Ledger by implying that his "suicide" -- an unsubstantiated claim -- was due to a "downturn in the world stock markets." Gibson jabbed at the Clinton-Obama debate saying that watching it may have caused Ledger's death.

Can Gibson act more foolish and behave more heartlessly? Oh, yes, the vulture most certainly can.

[Keep reading...more wingnuttery and video after the jump.]


From tcampbell76, a video of John Gibson on Heath Ledger's death.

What a classless ass! With a puss that could scare the bejesus out of a she-vulture. Maybe that's what got his waddle in a twit... baring his claws, slicing jealously into a handsome lad who had died prematurely.

Dan Abrams of MSNBC (video of Courtney Hazlett, Peter Beinart, and Abrams) read a release from a hate group that stated:

Heath Ledger thought it was great fun defying God Almighty and His plain word ... God hates the sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit known as 'Brokeback Mountain' - and He hates all persons having anything whatsoever to do with it.

The hate group announced plans to picket Ledger's funeral. You know who the wingnut clan was that spewed that pus, doncha? We don't have to tell you. Abrams went on to read other bigoted messages from blogs and message boards excoriating Ledger before airing a clip of Gibson's mockery -- all during the same segment. Bravo, John! Yes, Gibson can cavort with the El Cuckoos of Topeka, where he can roost as a preening turkey vulture, the state bird of Wingnutsylvania.

Beyond his Heath Ledger hissy fit of this week, Gibson had already proved he was a honoree of the worst of wingnuttery:

On the October 10, 2007, broadcast of his radio show, while discussing 14-year-old Asa H. Coon, who, earlier that day, had shot four people at his Cleveland high school before killing himself, Gibson asserted that "because the school is very heavily African-American, I did leap to a conclusion" that "the shooter might have been African-American." ... "I know the shooter was white. I knew it as soon as he shot himself. Hip-hoppers don't do that. They shoot and move on to shoot again." After a commercial break, Gibson repeated his assertion: "All right, it turns out, though, the kid in Cleveland who did the shooting today -- three teachers, three students -- white." Gibson added: "And I could tell right away 'cause he killed himself. Black shooters don't do that; they shoot and move on."

On the September 21, 2007, broadcast of his radio show, while discussing recent events surrounding the so-called Jena Six with the show's executive producer, known on air as "Angry Rich," Gibson asserted that the demonstrators who gathered in Jena, Louisiana, only "wanna fight the white devil." Gibson aired news coverage of the Jena Six protests and challenged protesters' claims that the incidents in Jena are representative of ongoing racism in this country, stating: "[W]hat they're worried about is a mirage of 1950s-style American segregation, racism from the South. They wanna fight the white devil. ... [T]here's no -- can't go fight the black devil. Black devils stalking their streets every night gunning down their own people -- can't go fight that. That would be snitchin'."...

...On the August 3, 2007, edition of Gibson's radio program, Angry Rich claimed Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards "whored his wife's cancer as a fundraising gimmick." He also went on to call him "a fraud" and "a pansy." During the segment, Gibson referred to Edwards as "the Breck Girl," "Silky," and "the biggest fraud running for president." Angry Rich later acknowledged having made "a poor choice of words," but went on to say of Edwards: "That doesn't mean he's not duplicitous, which he is."

You can read more from the foul-mouthed vulture's show at the link.

For his remorseless exploit in picking the bones of Heath Ledger and flapping his homophobic wings, the vulture can swoop down and snatch this week's prize with his grubby claws. Just watch out for Gibson's droppings.

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Jonah Goldberg - Wurlitzer Prize for Wingnuttery™

The deserved brouhaha over Tweety spilled into this week. But we turned our attention to wingnuttery masquerading as "informed" punditry.

NRO editor-at-large, Jonah Goldberg aka the Doughy Pantload -- a nickname assigned during his feud with Juan Cole -- invaded media outlets this week to hawk his literary misadventure, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. What a nasty clump of Coultergeist. What passes for innovation in the Chernobyl of a wingnut's mind provides plenty of comic material to lampoon.

Admittedly, we have not read the book nor will we, having no need to consume a stale pretzel fashioned by a useful idiot. A handsome critique from a reliable source sufficed in specifically grasping that Goldberg is "a loyal foot soldier in the Republican Noise Machine" with a lowbrow goal -- "slap a bunch of shit together that'll piss off liberals, generate buzz, and then maybe conservatives will buy the book.... cynicism, pure and true." The best we can recommend -- enjoy a hearty chuckle at the book's cover, a parody that could have been coined by those wicked pranksters at The Onion. Thanks for the yuck, DP, now scram.

Unrelenting, a churlish character desperately seeking hossana, Jonah kept plugging his lapsed assery this week. Along the way, a swath of toilet paper tenaciously clamped onto his shoe, trailing him unacknowledged, straggling from behind. Cue up the laugh track.

[Keep reading...video and more wingnuttery after the jump.]

For pure hilarity, enjoy the whiny machinations of the Doughy Pantload attempting to persuade the host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, that the premise of his book has merit, a fig newton of his imagination. (kudos TP).



WTF, indeed! Oh, Jonah's cluelessness is... priceless.

Last week on MSNBC's Morning Joe, the Doughy Pantload staggered blindfolded and careening, reached out to pin the tail on the donkey [with emphasis added]:

...Benito Mussolini is tied to the American liberal movement because he "was a socialist" and that "[t]he Nazis were the National Socialists" who "ran as socialists" and "said over and over again, 'We are socialists.' " Goldberg added that "in the 1920s, American progressives like at The New Republic, still around today, were objectively pro-Mussolini" and that "[y]ou had the founder of The New Republic defending Mussolini against his critics." Scarborough then asked Goldberg: "But you're not suggesting in this book though that you can draw a line from Mussolini to [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] or Mussolini to [Sen.] Barack Obama [D-IL], are you?" Goldberg then replied: "Well, I'm saying you can draw a line, but it's not a straight one. It goes all sorts of different places. I'm not saying that today's liberalism is the son of Nazism or the son of Italian fascism. I'm saying it's sort of like the great-grandniece once removed." Goldberg added, "They have some common DNA, some common themes, some family resemblances that come up."

Bravo! Breathless wingnuttery! Goldberg can stretch a point far enough to scratch his own back.

Perhaps Jonah is unaware or conveniently ignores that he can draw a straight line from conservatives -- under the wacky aegis of Ronnie Raygun followed by Poppy Bush -- to support for the regime of Saddam Hussein and the CIA-training of Osama bin Laden and the mujaheddin. Shall we call these former pooh bahs of the free world, "terrorist appeasers," ringleaders of death and mayhem, financiers of rogue dictatorships? Such is recent Republican history under two U.S. presidencies, one that spawned the current Dauphin and his "reign of error" (props to Blue Girl). What odd trivia the DP entertains, something he appropriates to play a shell game, to obscure the political peanut under his nose.

Again, this week on Morning Joe, a love machine enraptured by wingnut infatuation, Jonah attacked Hillary:

Jonah Goldberg stated: "[Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] is essentially like the agricultural minister from the Soviet Politburo in 1976. She's sort of, you know, the product of a sort of bureaucratic, Walter Mondale machine, 'check off the right constituencies' kind of thing." Scarborough later said: "You know, I love Jonah Goldberg."

Jon Stewart delivered a more appropriate response to Jonah's claptrap -- "I don’t know what you’re saying."

Like so many in the wingnut goon squad, attributing falsehoods to Hillary has been a favorite boondoggle:

Referring to comments Clinton made at an August 23 [2007] house party in New Hampshire, Goldberg wrote: "You've claimed that you are the Democrat best able to 'deal' with the Republicans' natural advantage if there is another terrorist attack. Why is it wrong for Republicans to say they're tougher on terrorism than Democrats, but O.K. for you to say so?"

Say so? That's not what Hillary said [with emphasis added]:

Clinton, however, did not say Republicans are "tougher on terrorism than Democrats." ...[she] criticized Republicans for their handling of terrorism. Clinton said: "It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world."

Quite the difference apparently lost in Goldberg translation. As James Wolcott noted, Jonah "speaks fluent Simpsons, which is why he's so popular with campus conservatives as he goes about entertaining and mentoring the maroons of tomorrow."

More lard-filled, heart-stopping DP moments are available here and a cache to peruse here.

Pay little attention to the Doughy Pantload's book, columns, or statements. He cannot discern good sense from a Tower of Babel.

We considered wrapping the award in a sheet of tinfoil before its presentation, but Jonah does not deserve the extra energy. However... he certainly earned this week's prize.

UPDATE Jan. 25: A definitive, well-researched read, David Neiwert eviserated the Doughy Pantload's swill. (Props to Sadly, No! via Avedon.)

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Chris Matthews -- Wurlitzer Prize for Wingnuttery™

Hacktacular! ...It's Tweety's Imus moment! ...His stunning performance as a bag of hammers was brilliantly clueless!

UPDATED BELOW

The reviews poured in. A 2007 recipient from our top 10, Chris Matthews wins an encore nomination with his premier appearance this week in a psycho-drama role. A review of his NH primary commentary garnered * * * * stars, the most the reality-based academy can bestow.

How a tee-vee pundit can proudly crown himself with the allure of sexism as if he had bought his piffle-whacked tiara at Tiffany's speaks ill of NBC's brainless hubris in keeping Tweety on its roster. Loathing Hillary doesn't excuse his lengthy misogynistic history shown here and beyond Clinton here. A sample of clips:

Clinton gave a "barn-burner speech, which is harder to give for a woman; it can grate on some men when they listen to it -- fingernails on a blackboard." [Nov. 6, 2006]

After questioning Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) position on entitlement reforms, he then asked Dodd, "Do you find it difficult to debate a woman?" Dodd, not surprisingly, said, "[N]ot at all." [Sept. 26, 2007]

...Matthews asked Financial Times U.S. managing editor Chrystia Freeland: "[A]ren't you appalled at the willingness of these people to become castratos in the eunuch chorus here or whatever they are?" [Dec. 17, 2007]

Someone, please, make him stop! Compiling a contact list of Hardball's advertisers to deluge with complaints might do the trick. Sponsoring Tweety's cage-liner act is like stamping the Imus Seal of Bigotry on an advertiser's brand. Perhaps the newly-inspired blog, whose title and efforts we whole-heartedly applaud, can alert us to sources. A letter-writing enterprise would surely grab a network ad veep's attention and TPTB.

But would Tweety get the message? What a laughable proposition! A Freudian two-by-four smacked across his Olympic-sized ego would dislodge not one iota of self-awareness or ignite a solitary synapse to fire up any idea associated with an honest apology. A mea culpa that sticks? Don't make us snort! He demonstrated his incapacity for mea culpa within hours after Tom Brokaw tweaked his beak and the Village elders for pissing on the HRC campaign when voters proved them hacktacularly wrong. Courtesy TPM, relive Tweety's headliner flop in living color....



Bravo! What sensational wingnuttery! Other critics raved this week with equally damning praise -- He's a prince among the Media Misogynists! You can't deny he's assholish, a legend in his own "warped mind." Heeeeeee's back "speaking for voters again," oblivious to what a "ding-dong" he is along with "other angry male pundits," who motivated women to the polls in Hillary's defense.

[Keep reading ... more stunning videos and reviews after the jump]

Via Atrios, Air America's Rachel Maddox informed Matthews that his political theatrics in the Hillary Bash-a-thon helped tilt the election....



And just when you prayed that the curtain would drop on Tweety's unseemly burlesque, add another star to the Media Walk of Shame for his lead in the remake of The Bradley Effect. Digby's critique:

That's a very hot accusation in a Democratic primary to suggest that the women who voted for Hillary didn't do it as a matter of affinity but rather did it because they couldn't vote for an African American and had earlier lied to pollsters about it. (That's what the Bradley Effect is.) ...a provocative accusation about a specific group of voters in the Democratic coalition.

Bob Somerby (with emphasis):

Matthews ran as fast as he could to accuse large numbers of New Hampshire Dems of lying on account of race. As far as we know, there’s no evidence that anything like that occurred; we’d have to say that, in our view, Matthews’ conjecture makes little real sense. But Matthews is a deeply irresponsible man—a slightly cleaned-up Joseph McCarthy. That’s why Jack Welch so loved this tool’s soul....

Tweety must blame someone, something to deflect the notion that prima donnas like him can't divine an election no more than howlers auditioning for Scream MMVIII. Mark Halperin of Time conceded mainstream press bias during Charlie Rose's coverage of the primary. We don't know what got into him (someone may say he's a Clinton plant), but here's the video....



How dare he! Don't expect Halperin's "we're not fair" confession to get much traction especially with the likes of Matthews.

Will Tweety continue to hog the spotlight cluelessly out of touch with an audience shrinking to the size of his credibility? Perhaps, in a world where the Nyuk Nyuk Times rewards the "wrongest wingnut of all," Bill Kristol, with a headline gig, Matthews could make a comeback even if he repeatedly bombs.

Dragging Tweety off center stage would thrill critics, but his dramatic reprisals may serve to disrupt Big Media's influence on an electorate determined to think for themselves. Some might fault how voters react, but waving their middle fingers at the media establishment earns our applause.

Give it up for Tweety's well-deserved award.

Check next Saturday when we award another Wurlitzer Prize for Wingnuttery™. Leave your nominations for next week's winner in comments.

UPDATE: Also check Jamison Foser's excellent column, "MSNBC's Chris Matthews problem," which includes an insightful snippet from Christy Hardin Smith of FireDogLake.

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