~VOTING IS NOW OPEN~
Previous winners:
2005 - Jonah Goldberg, “I can’t join the army because I have a life“
2006 - Hugh Hewitt, “My office is the front line of the War on Terror“
Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
So said Winston Churchill, who was sort of the George W. Bush of 1938. Churchill faced utter annihilation at the hands of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis – sort of like the Barack Obama and the Daily Kos of the early 1940′s – and yet, despite every setback, never wavered in his determination to persevere and triumph. If any two characteristics define our nominees for Chickenhawk of the Year, it is their boundless enthusiasm, and their boundless failure. If I had to name a third, it would be “picked last for kickball”, but that’s not what we are talking about. We are talking about rhetorical courage, the puffed-chest bravado and keyboard-rattling grandiloquence from which true heros are made. Whether they are warning off the Moorish hordes, threatening to start a civil war if they don’t get their way, fearlessly yelling racial slurs from behind a pseudonym on the internet, or steadfastly proclaiming their indominable will to continue blabbing on about all the super-butch things they’d do if only they hadn’t already made plans to play Starcraft, these Warriors of Words are truly our last line of defense against not having to listen to them. Consider: if time ran backwards, Winston Churchill would be quoting them when talking about the true meaning of courage. Quoting them backwards. Think about it.
The Nominees for the 2008 Chickenhawk of the Year:
- Orson Scott Card, “If gays get married, I’m resuming the Civil War“
- Modern Conservative, “SPARTANS!!!!!!“
- Instapunk (feat. Oldpunk), “Only I have the courage to pseudonomously call black people “niggers” on the internet“
- Keith Arnold, “I am John Galt!“
- Ben Shapiro, “Enough of Radical Islam”
December 23, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I dunno if Modern Conservative has killed any leftists yet – and I mean hardcore leftists like anyone who likes Bill Clinton – but if he hasn’t he takes the title, because if the following is correct his pike should have something hideous at the top of it other than underwear.
December 23, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Shapiro’s money shot:
December 23, 2008 at 9:18 pm
What happened to 2007?
December 23, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Shapiro’d be my number two: action’s overdue except that he has to empty the lint trap or something.
December 23, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Card, because of his willing bloodthirstiness dating to roughly the same afternoon his own draft eligibility expired. Lifetime achievement has to count for something.
December 23, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I vacillated between Modern Conservative’s “Tip of the Spear” chickenhawkery and Arnold’s “I run the world” version.
In my mind, this year’s Chickenhawk should not go to the most egregious example (of so, Card has it in the bag), but the most manic-induced.
That’s why I settled on either M.C. or Arnold. They both believe in their ridiculous superpowers: that they can stop radical Islam and the cogs of industry, respectively.
Undoubtably, M.C. and Arnold are some mid-level management tool or service industry employee or fat suburbanite, and yet they harbor these manic delusions of grandeur. Neither can they bring the modern economic engine to a halt or single-handedly stop radical Islam. But they think they can.
Even worse (better?), they think that they can convince us they we can as well, by either drawing parallels to comic books or shitty, contrarian-authored fiction.
Anyways, I couldn’t decide. I voted Arnold, because my hate for Randian anything supercedes my hate for graphic— comic books, so there.
December 23, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Here, let me reproduce Arnold’s entry in it’s entirely. I know it’s linked, but it deserves to be here:
December 23, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I voted for Shapiro because of the exact ‘graph that dougie smooth quotes. That level of indignant bloodthirstiness, from a kid who’s only previous “combat experience” was likely a schoolyard slap-fight in the 5th grade, it’s almost too precious to ignore. Having said that, Modern Conservative’s “I Am Leonides”, with it’s near-perfect blend of frenzied outrage, McCarthy-ite paranoia, and Walter Mitty-esque fantasy projection, well…what can one say? Damn fine work. Somewhere in this country, right now, a therapist’s children’s college fund is being built.
As I write, I see Keith Arnold is in the lead. Too bad he’s probably already gone Galt on us, and headed for the hills; At least he won’t have to suffer seeing us parasites enjoy the fruit of his labors. Fare the well, O poor put-upon Objectivist! Hoard thy seed well, for the rest of us are sure to starve to death in no more than eight years, and this good Earth ain’t gonna re-populate itself.
December 23, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Also, I can’t in good conscience endorse the Instapunk entry.
It’s clearly troll. Instapunk’s obviously a fake-poster/lifer. I mean, who names themselves “Instapunk” and then goes and posts something entitled “Old Guy Perspective?”
Only the most heartfelt and sincere posts should even be in the running for a Kippie.
Just sayin’.
December 23, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Also, I fully intend to clear my cookies and Freep this poll.
Okay, that’s my last post.
December 23, 2008 at 10:56 pm
The John Galt thing just isn’t bloodthirsty enough for a true coward.
December 23, 2008 at 11:17 pm
[...] with rude nails of Naughty Words – such a Passion would break lesser mortals. But, as the bold Chickenhawk is invincible in battle, the wounded wingnut is unbroken in defeat. Stoically putting down his [...]
December 23, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Right! This calls for immediate discussion!
December 24, 2008 at 1:41 am
Instapunk really should be disqualified for attempting to troll up support for his own nomination in the previous post.
December 24, 2008 at 7:39 am
Has to be Keith Arnold. Chickenhawking on The War On Terror is so 2006.
This year, it’s all about chickenhawking on domestic tactical economic warfare!
December 24, 2008 at 10:03 am
That was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.
December 24, 2008 at 10:11 am
Orson, because I still have all those fucking Ender’s Game books collecting dust on my bookshelf and now they make we want to read George R.R.Martin or something as equally terrible like Glen Cook’s The Black Company.
December 24, 2008 at 10:53 am
I won’t vote in this category, because you left out all the manly winger posts about how victims of mass shootings are total pussies for getting shot.
December 24, 2008 at 10:59 am
A fine selection, but in the end I had to go with Arnold.
First, because I myself, of my own free will, am reading Atlas Shrugged (current page: 342), and so know first-hand just how…is “idiotic” too harsh?–idiotic its fans must be.
Second, because while Shapiro’s entry has merit, in the end it exhausts itself in overly-literary posturing. Card’s–terse, concise, insane, yummy with wingnut goodness–strikes me as too parochial. Gay Marriage as a casus belli? Puh-leeze. Get OVER yourself, Mary.
I couldn’t be bothered to read the others. Because, I mean, Jeebus.
December 24, 2008 at 11:01 am
Even though nobody makes me squirm in disgust like Orson Scott “Behold My Mighty Swinging Pen” Card, since the award is for Chickenhawk of the Year, it has to go to Shapiro. He’s of perfect military age, and could easily schlep down to the local recruiter who be more than happy to give Benjy his chance to “avenge his brothers blood” with a little bloodletting of his own.
Cpl. Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan was the same age as Shapiro, but this MUSLIM kid from New Jersey waited until he was barely old enough to enlist, and joined the Army to go to Iraq and serve the country he loved. He was killed there by an IED and is buried in Arlington.
http://joemax93.blogspot.com/2008/10/american-muslim-soldier.html
What are you waiting for, young Ben? Kareem’s blood is crying out from the ground…
December 24, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Modern Conservative, because “300″ as a political rallying cry has not been mocked nearly enough, nor could it ever be.
December 24, 2008 at 1:49 pm
laym…nice….now they have “Spirit” I suppose. I’m for Shapiro just because I don’t buy his cred as an adult. I cannot, however, discount both “Yid with Lid” or the Atlas Shrugs for Senator campaigns.
December 24, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I voted for The Virgin Ben.
As of now, it’s very close, but Orson Scott Card is winning, presumably because of his ballot position.
Who put this poll together, the Minnesota Supreme Court?!?!?!?
December 24, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Decisions, decisions. It came down to a tie between Card and Arnold. Who is more deserving, the bad writer or the fan of the bad writer? I finally went with Arnold, because Card gets paid to write his crap, while Arnold reads Ayn Rand for free, which is far more pathetic.
December 27, 2008 at 2:05 pm
[...] Chickenhawk of the Year: Instapunk. This one is really close folks, but it shouldn’t be. As far as I’m concerned, Card and MC shouldn’t even be in the running, much less leading. Arnold’s screed, while classic monologue, wears thin and tips toward insipid. It really belongs in the wanker category where it would stand alone. Shapiro’s piece is really just his interpretation of a medley of hits from ought four-to-six, origionally sung by such greats as Lowry, Kagen and Kristol. To my mind, Instapunk should run away with this for the sheer brazeness of his couched racism and passive-aggressive violence. The Fluffy: Hindrocet almost got my vote for the reason that, coming as late as it did in the season it was such a blatant attempt to skew the voting and win another Winger, I thought to myself, “damn, anyone fluffing THAT hard really deserves this statue.” But in the end, it was the performance that really won me over: It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can’t be learned; it’s either something you have or you don’t, and man, she’s got it. [...]
December 27, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Shapiro deserves a special award for services to bad taste, for his ability to hear messages from the various spilt body fluids of his relatives. Essentially he’s reviving an old folklore motif of “innocent blood calls out for vengeance in some occult manner”, which turns up a lot in association with the blood libel, usually as the excuse for a pogrom. So what Shapiro is showing is not so much chickenhawkery, and more a special kind of moral tone-deafness.
December 29, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I’ll probably go with Shapiro, but am dissappointed that Sarah Palin isn’t here, since she is fending off Vlad Putin with a hockey stick all by herself.
December 31, 2008 at 10:19 am
Like the NFL announcing Pro Bowl participants during week 14 of the season, the Kippies are fatally compromised by closing their nominations before the calendar year is done. Can we get an emergency late nominee? Albert “I can’t recall” Gonzalez is writing a book to set the record straight and is complaining about how unfair it is that people regard him as something of moral abomination, just because he obliterated the constitution to create a secret global network of torture prisons and record every American’s phone calls and emails.
From today’s WSJ: During a lunch meeting two blocks from the White House, where he served under his longtime friend, President George W. Bush, Mr. Gonzales said that “for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.”
Once again, he said: “I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.”
January 21, 2009 at 11:02 pm
[...] up for work. That’s a real good quote. Now I will “bring on” the winner of Chickenhawk of the Year. Heh heh heh. It’s Orson Scott Card: How long before married people answer the dictators [...]
January 21, 2009 at 11:47 pm
“Consider: if time ran backwards, Winston Churchill would be quoting them when talking about the true meaning of courage. Quoting them backwards. Think about it.”
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