~VOTING IS NOW OPEN~
Previous winners:
2006 - The Wankosphere, Jamilgate
Whether putting out rigorous position papers in the competative, results-oriented world of a right-wing think tank; crafting powerful rhetoric for a WSJ editorial or National Review feature article; or spending hours rehashing the finer points of Vince Foster’s “suicide” on the SeanHannity.com forums; the John Galts of wingnuttia know that – while rugged individualists – they are all part of something bigger than themselves. An Army of Davids, a Fraternity of Fact-Checkers. And, like any fraternity, they know that even the most solitary, individualistic, and shameful pursuit is that much better when done as a team. Working together, even lending a helping hand when one teammate is too grossed-out or cramped to go on, they can make the merely risible into something truly disgusting. The Soggy Biscuit is awarded in honor of the biggest circle-jerk of the year.
The Nominees for the 2008 Soggy Biscuit:
- The Jingosphere, “Ayers ghost-wrote Obama’s book!“
- The Jingosphere, “10-year-old Obama seduced child molesters!!“
- The Washington Press Corps, 2008 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner
- The Jingosphere, “Obama’s birth certificate is a fake!“
- The Jingosphere, African Press International’s big scoop
December 25, 2008 at 1:34 pm
It has got to be the API “scoop.”
The 08WHPCA dinner – what was the kerfuffle there? I must have missed that one.
All the other stories involve wingnuts pursuing Barack Obama in high dudgeon, which is hilarious but not unexpected. The dude’s gonna be a Democratic President, after all. This is like the wolf chasing the rabbit – savage and absurd upon reflection, but not unnatural. There is an internal logic to their behavior.
However, the API story involves wingnuts going after Michelle Obama in a slobbering, biscuit-moistening rage, intent on exposing her as a Black Panther relic from the hated 70s. Which she isn’t. And even if she was, nobody except wingnuts and bigots would care, so their circle-jerk nets them nothing. That kind of clueless, unrelenting wanking is exactly what the Soggy Biscuit is designed to recognize, if I am not mistaking.
December 25, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Mistaken! If I am not mistaken. Merry Christmas, Internet.
December 25, 2008 at 2:56 pm
No nomination for “my best friend’s cousin’s wife’s sister totally has seen the Michelle Obama ‘whitey’ video” from Larry Johnson, et al? J’Accuse!
December 25, 2008 at 3:13 pm
API in a walk. It was such an obvious scam, and wingers and PUMAs were so desperate to believe in it, that the results were pure amusement to watch play out.
The birth certificate kerning truthers came close (particularly given that even if Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia or the Bottle City of Kandor, his mom’s still a US citizen, making him a natural-born citizen, no matter what), and their unwillingness to give up is to their deranged credit.
The others were just too loopy (Ayers wrote his book? He’s Malcolm X’s love child? Child molesters?) or too dull (WHPC dinner) to make the cut.
December 25, 2008 at 3:30 pm
so their circle-jerk nets them nothing
Cyrano nails it. What’s striking about so much rightwing wanking this past year is that it has lacked even the potential for a happy ending. It bears a resemblance to drug addiction–even when the fix doesn’t get you high any more, the fix itself becomes the whole point.
December 25, 2008 at 4:14 pm
the fix itself becomes the whole point
Well, don’t forget the cookie.
December 25, 2008 at 6:51 pm
API wins for its sheer, unhinged irrelevance and obvious falsity.
I don’t understand why the birth certificate nonsense is currently leading. It’s both boring and obvious.
I do think a case can be made for the Ayers ghost-writing story, especially since it encouraged a rich vein of pseudo scholarship about nautical metaphors. Did Ayers also write The Old Man and the Sea?
December 25, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I agree with you that, for my money, API was the stupidest shit of the year, if not ever. However, the birth certificate was literally made into a Supreme Court case. Like, you know how you say “well, why don’t you just make a Supreme Court case out of it, asshole”? They literally made a Supreme Court case out of it. That’s wingnutty as hell. Not my personal favorite, but a worthy choice, IMO.
December 25, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I had to vote for the Washington press corps’ horrible 2008 circle-jerk dinner. Comparing and contrasting it with the 2006 affair — where Stephen Colbert and Helen Thomas ripped big gaping holes in the smug wrongness of CelebCorps — is most instructive.
Froomkin, as usual, nails it right in the opening graf:
As the Bush presidency staggers to an end, it’s hard to say who has less to brag about: the president or the journalists who cover him. So it’s fitting that the last White House Correspondents’ Association dinner of the Bush era — the ultimate celebration of chumminess between the most powerful people in the world and those who are supposed to hold them accountable — was a dispiriting, mostly humorless affair.
Froomkin. One. Of. Us.
December 25, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I vote for the one that features ME!
December 25, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Hell, given the current composition of the Federal courts it’s not surprising the birth certificate makes it all the way to the Court; what’s more surprising is that none of the other Jingosphere stories did.
So, the Press Corps, for showing it was afraid to kick Bush’s dog even when he was out of town and/or too sick too sit up. It’s the blueprint for the new “this next time we’ll be tough” routine.
December 25, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Editors, the Obama birth certificate was my second choice – they did make a Supreme Court case out of it, after all, as you point out.
But then again, they also made an impeachment out of a blowjob and a five-year-and-running war out of jingoism and some papier-mache. Somehow, scale of wanking just doesn’t wow me as much as it used to.
December 25, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I am writing in “Obama is Malcolm X’s secret son.”
December 25, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I had to think a bit on this one. Yes, the API thing was annoying, but it redeemed itself by being funny. Who knows how much wingnut welfare “Chief Editor Korir” raked in with the scam? This was just comedic relief – it didn’t have enough reach to really catch on.
By dint of staying power and by virtue of recruiting the largest and most diverse “team”, the birth certificate nonsense has to be the winner. They’ve taken the shit to the Supreme Court – twice (or is it three times?) They’ve gotten the media arm to wank it on talk radio. They’ve taken out ads in newspapers to wank it publicly. And online, the wank is unceasing. This one’s got to be the biggest circle-jerk of the year.
December 25, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Look, the API thing is definitely the whackiest but the press corps in general deserve recognition for the group circle jerk they’ve been engaged in for the last eight years. Compared to the media bukkake we’ve had to endure, a handful of bloggers going nuts over some fake new agency is a pretty trivial issue, even if its entertainment value is much, much higher.
December 25, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I implore the Academy of Wingnut Arts and Sciences to recognise the transcendency of Pam’s post with an honorary award.
December 25, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I had to go with the API choice in recognition of the sheer entertainment value it provided.
December 26, 2008 at 6:43 am
I have to cast another write-in vote for the “Obama is Malcolm X’s secret love child” story. The API story, while amusing, was just a bunch of rubes getting hustled by, in the end, a rather unimaginative 419 scam.
I mean, the biscuit is definitely soggy and all, but it just lacks the originality of the Hussein X story or the “10 year old Obama ‘seduces’ pederast” one. Stupid people get suckered by confidence men all the time. It’s not every day that Pam Atlas has an original idea.
I suppose the desperate, endemic, furious circle-jerking involved means the AFI story is more in keeping with the strict definition of the award, but I think Hussein X wins on style points — such an exhibition of creatardity from people who were born with a 30 IQ and think they hit a triple is something to be truly celebrated and recognized.
December 26, 2008 at 7:28 am
Man, it’s a tough choice between the last two wanks. For me, the two deciding factors are (1) the aggregate amount of time they spend wanking, and (2) how much comic material it provides the rest of us. The API definitely wins on comedy (although Jesse Taylor squeezed something good out of the birth certificate).
The birth certificate wank seemed to last all year, if not longer. And to take it all the way to the Supreme Court — that’s dedication! So it gets my vote.
December 26, 2008 at 8:55 am
I feel compelled to lend my voice to API. As Farley points out, this shit is still going on. While all of these wanks were great while they lasted, API is literally neverending. If you believe, like I do, that this site was not organic wignuttery, but rather the work of someone dedicated to fucking with the right wing, this might be the single greatest troll in the history of the internet.
I know the birth certificate is popular now, but handing it the Biscuit would be like giving Forrest Gump the Oscar. History will not judge you kindly. Reognize greatness when you see it.
December 26, 2008 at 9:30 am
At first I thought: Press Corps, because their dereliction of duty was so wounding to me. But a circle jerk isn’t “about” bad behavior or doing your job poorly.
It’s about group fantasizing and mutual arousal and a closed round of let’s-pretend among close, close colleagues. Or so I’m told.
So I’m for the API.
And thanks–having to reason this out has grown me as a person.
December 26, 2008 at 10:19 am
API all the way. Even OMG REPUBLICAN LADY MUTILATED BY SCARY BROWN OBAMABOT couldn’t get close.
The Obama as seducer of pedophiles, while disgusting, never got much traction and belongs in another contest all together. The “Ya’ll are Some Sick Sorry SOBs,” Award perhaps.
December 26, 2008 at 12:16 pm
The Editors Says:
December 25, 2008 at 7:51 pm
API wins for its sheer, unhinged irrelevance and obvious falsity.
I don’t understand why the birth certificate nonsense is currently leading.
I agree with you that, for my money, API was the stupidest shit of the year, if not ever. However, the birth certificate was literally made into a Supreme Court case. Like, you know how you say “well, why don’t you just make a Supreme Court case out of it, asshole”? They literally made a Supreme Court case out of it. That’s wingnutty as hell. Not my personal favorite, but a worthy choice, IMO.
The fact that it wasn’t just an internet wankathon, but that they actually writ of jerkshiori’d it into the chambers of the highest court of the land and had actual Supreme Court justices (even if it was Clarence Thomas, who’s known for his wanking)fevershily working the weasel in the direction of pastery puts the birth certificate thing into the exosphere of self-abuse.
I mean that’s the most impresseve wank of the decade in my eyes.
December 26, 2008 at 12:39 pm
The Obama as seducer of pedophiles, while disgusting, never got much traction and belongs in another contest all together. The “Ya’ll are Some Sick Sorry SOBs,” Award perhaps.
Um, the Great Jew Porn Dragon Award, perhaps?
[and yeah, the pedophile meme was my favorite wank of the year, and I'm kind of bummed I can't vote for it somewhere proper.]
December 26, 2008 at 3:15 pm
[...] Morris @ Dec 26th 2008 14:15 – Category: Unfiled The Soggy Biscuit is awarded in honor of the biggest circle-jerk of the [...]
December 26, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Remember, folks, the soggy biscuit is the award for group wanking. One ambulatory psychotic yanking his wang, no matter how enthusiastically (even onto the point of chafing), does not a circle jerk make: thus Pam Atlas doesn’t even come close to qualifying.
And thus, as day follows night, the birth certificate story takes this one in a walk. By the time Clarence Thomas added his spent seed onto it, the biscuit wasn’t so much ‘soggy’ as ‘dissolved into a vast slurry comprised of 1% baked goods and 99% creamy ejaculate.’ You just can’t stop the slurry.
(Although I still think that the “whitey video” wank deserved at least a nomination here…)
December 27, 2008 at 7:12 am
[...] year awards up for you to vote on, but I might suggest that there needs to be a late entry to the Soggy Biscuit Category. Apparently, Obama visited the troops in Hawaii, and due to one sentence in the ABC write-up, our [...]
December 27, 2008 at 8:41 am
I had to go with the birth certificate story just based on its zombie-like indestructibility and the “bipartisan” appeal. There are still lunatics pushing it.
December 27, 2008 at 10:54 am
I think Whitey tape deserves something. Even democrats were worried about that one. Most dems didn’t fall for the API or the BC thing at all. But I ended up voting for the BC, even if API is a close second.
December 27, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Which is why Larry Sinclair and the Limo O’ BJs isn’t on the list, alas.
Man, that one had everything, down to the kilt wearing lawyer.
December 27, 2008 at 5:10 pm
wingnuts pursuing Barack Obama in high dudgeon
I understand that a High Dudgeon can get up to 90 km/hour in a straight line, but they tend to roll when cornering.
December 28, 2008 at 10:19 am
By virtue of its staying power and eventual trip to the Supreme Court, I find it difficult to deny this one to the Fake Birth Certificate, which is, remarkably, both the least and most idiotic story of all. It is the one entry that would have automatically denied Obama the presidency (had it been true), without the need for anyone to make a judgment call. As such, it is easy to imagine how invested in it many of Obama’s delusional opponents must have become.
I have a warm spot in my heart for the Ayer’s as author entry, if only because it is so silly (a quality it shares with so much 2008 election reportage), while fitting so neatly with the Wingnuts’ need to vilify Obama for everything under the sun. It also fits comfortably within the “Big Lie” theory of politics, but in the end it may have been more absurd than audacious and not really important enough to earn an award.
(Honorable mention to the Whitey Video.)
December 28, 2008 at 1:32 pm
And thanks–having to reason this out has grown me as a person.
ITYM “embiggened”.
December 28, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Oh yeah, and damn you to hell for eternity, The Editors, for making me look up “soggy biscuit”. That one will haunt me for the rest of my life.
December 29, 2008 at 10:22 am
If the birth certificate wank wins, based on my nomination, it will truly be the most glorious and meaningful accomplishment of my life.
Who am I kidding? Simply getting it included in the nominees is the most glorious and meaningful accomplishment of my life. What do you folks think?: Would “The Poor Man Institute” or simply “The ‘Tute” seem more impressive on a resume?
December 29, 2008 at 8:32 pm
“…dissolved into a vast slurry comprised of 1% baked goods and 99% creamy ejaculate.”
What? No xanthan gum? Buncha creme puffs.