Two times you picked me to be your president.  And two times I presidented things the best way I know how.  I did what we call in Texas “a real good job”.  But now I’m retired, and I will leave it to history to decide if I am more like Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill, and then I will wear one of those powdered wigs and be on the million dollar bill.  Meantime, I will host these here Golden Winger awards.

I’m Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  When The Editors asked me to abandon my responsibilities and play second fiddle to an unpopular, corrupt ex-President for this nonsense awards post, I said “No!  No!  A thousand times no!”  For if one does not have principles and the courage of one’s convictions, then one has nothing at all.  And that’s the story of how I came to vice-host this awards post.  Let’s see some winners.

A man has to fight.  But you don’t just fight with your fists or guns or bombs or those giant robots made of robot lions.  Sometimes you fight by sitting in safety and saying “bring it on” while other people get blown up and crippled and show 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 thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.

As a thrilling postscript to this boast, I heard some crickets chirpin’.  But just you wait.  For the cicadias.

I’ll do this one, too, Popcorn Guy.  You look like that TV popcorn guy, so that’s my name for you.  I’m pretty clever like that.  This award is called the Fluffy, and it’s for appreciating excellence.  Usually, the winners would appreciate my excellence, but now that’s history’s job.  The winner is Rich Lowry, who I call “Pert Plus”, for seeing Starbursts:

A very wise TV executive [sic] once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It’s one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O’Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. 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.

I feel like that about 9/11.  I’m not tryin’ to tell history how to do its job, but do you remember how 9/11 happened, and then, later, it didn’t happen?  That second part was all me.

The Purple Teardrop with Clutched Pearls Cluster honors those who have had their tiny, precious feelings hurt, especially by unnamed parties, especially on the internets, and extra-especially involving bad words which have certainly never before passed your virginal lips or earholes.  The winner is Jonah Goldberg, Noted Scholar, for his complaint that “the white man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism.”  Awesome.

The Creamy Baileys No-Bell Peace Prize for Science celebrates outstanding advances in making everybody listen to the time you were watching the ST:TNG box set and pulling hits off the gravity bong and you figured out how Tantric quantum mechanics proves global warming is fake and fuck Al Gore.  The winner is Gregg Easterbrook, for reasons I don’t even want to fucking talk about anymore, and who also wins the Matt Millen Award for Theoretical Footballistics.

I’m all about capitulating to whatever the ex-President wants, but some people like to team up to advance some kind of agenda.  Different strokes.  You can also team up to make unbelieveable fucking assholes out of yourselves, and that is what the Soggy Biscuit is all about.  There was a whole lotta circle jerkin’ this election season, but the runaway winner is the “controversy” about Obama’s birth certificate, because seriously.  Seriously.

The Golden Winger Award for Wank of the Year is what we call in Texas “a real big deal.”  It’s real amazing how many unmemorable phrases you’ve heard a billion times and didn’t care are unique products of texas culture, and I like to share them with you almost as much as I like to share my jokes which aren’t jokes.  Heh, heh, heh.  The winner is Jonah Goldberg for Liberal Fascism.

When I found out I was nominated for the Coveted Palme d’Haire, celebating a full year’s worth of chafing in service of wankery, I said then and there that, come hell or high water, I would not settle for second place.  So I got third place.  This is the kind of hard-nosed negotiating position I took when defending Democratic ideals in the Senate, which is why I am so respected.  The winner is the amazingly embarrassing and ignorant Sarah Palin, who is sort of like George W. Bush, if George W. Bush was a girl, didn’t spend the first 4 decades of his life shitfaced, and had actually acheived any of his dubious accomplishments himself, rather than just coasting by on his family connections.  So, sort of like a much, much more impressive and qualified George W. Bush.  Losers as big as the outgoing President only come along once in a lifetime, and I speak for many, many, many prominant and influential Americans when I say how proud I am to have cowered before him for the past eight years.  Sarah Palin brings home the trophy this year, but we all wank on.

Part I

Me and a bunch of friends met up at a bar in the West Village called Fiddlesticks a few weeks back [I know what you're thinking: West Village, Fiddlesticks, we know what kind of bar THAT is - not that there's anything wrong with it. And you're right of course: it was lousy with the Irish].

So we’re all busy getting our tipsy on and making merry, as the season warrants, when a block of unabashed, unapologetic 80′s music finds its way on to the bar’s playlist.  Swept up by the synthy majesty, my brother [yes, I include family in my list of friends because, well, the list would otherwise be pathetically anemic] and my friend Neil [not related to the best of my knowledge] start swinging their arms back and forth and gyrating their lower extremeties in an exaggerated 80′s dance [think Boy George, only more flamboyant].

It was a real crowd pleaser – at least to us – although there was palpable hostility bubbling up from some of the other patrons, and had it gone on too long, I imagine we might have had one of those bar stool bashing Hollywood bar fights on our hands. 

But then, right after the dancing duos’ arms tired out, forcing them to cease prancing about and dab at the sweat forming on their respective brows, the goodly bar wench came over and tapped my brother on the shoulder, leaned in and said something to him that I couldn’t quite make out above the din.

After relaying her message, she pointed across the bar to some middle aged dude with a receding hairline grinning ear to ear, staring at my brother and doing his own rendition of the same 80′s dance.  It was awful, forced and the spectacle of it all caused an uncomfortable feeling to rise in the pit of my gullet. 

My brother – feeling compassionate [he's better than me] and in an attempt to ameliorate the uncouthness of the whole situation – made a go at reciprocating the dance moves from across the room.  But his compassion has limits [sort of like a centrist Democrat] and you could tell his heart wasn’t really in it.  As the two dancers - separated by the rest of the room - locked eyes and carried on their long distance choreography (one with unbridled enthusiasm, the other with a perfunctory politeness), the awkwardness was increasing in intensity, not waning, as awkwardness is wont to do in such circumstances. 

So in an attempt to disentangle himself from this uninvited and undesired coupling, my brother performed the kinetic version of trailing off mid sentence, offered a nod, a smile and then turned around to grope his pint.

Glancing back nervously at the dance-stalker, my brother said, “Hey, he kind of looks like Kiefer Sutherland.”  And without really looking myself [my brother is blind as a bat and prone to exaggerate], I’m all, “Yeah, he totally does.  Haha” [kind of laugh you offer ROFLMAO Richard Cohen out of pity, which has led to a profound self-misoverestimation, but that's another story]. 

Later I went out to have a smoke take in the night air because I totally don’t smoke cigarettes [shhh, my mom could be reading this. She loves this blog.  Mom says: "I like it when The Editors does the kitten porn! But does he have to be so mean to that Jonah Goldberg man.  You shouldn't pick on the mentally handicapped."  And I respond: "It is the task that God assigned The Editors mom.  He is a reluctant warrior." But lucky for me she won't read anything in brackets or italics - it has something to do with the Pope warning that literary asides are as much a threat to humanity as global warming, which doesn't exist because Ron Burgundy said so.  Or something.  I'm terrible with the theology stuff].

So where was I?  Oh yeah, outside for an invigorating bit of NYC air, I look over and see the creepy dance stalker guy and…it’s fucking Kiefer Sutherland.  Without a doubt.  In the flesh.  Smoking a fucking cigarette as if he just had coitus.  With my brother.  In a sense.

I’ll say this about the man, though, despite his filthy smoking habit, the guy is all class: he actually came up to my brother and apologized for intruding on his night, which is totally the right thing to do, if a bit too little too late.  More appropriately, he could make it up to him by turning my brother into a rich and famous movie star, like, overnight.  I’m betting Kiefer [yeah, we're on a first name basis now - that's how we roll bitchez] is working on it. 

He’s that awesome.

… THE EDITORS adds: Keifer’s dance moves, artist’s recreation -

Audience reaction, artist’s recreation:

Previous winners:

2005 - Barbara Bush – “Katrina worked out really well for poor people”

2006 - Dan Reihl, ”Neighbors With Attitude“*

* Decided by the Ghost of William Rehnquist

Hello, I’m Kip Winger. You may remember me from such classic songs as “(She’s Only) Seventeen” and “(She’s Only) Seventeen (Unplugged)”. When I heard that The Editors wanted me to host the nominations for the Wank of the Year, I knew that was an opportunity that only comes around once in lifetime, so I put on my Magical Crown of Wingnuttery and transformed myself into a SOLID GOLD JPEG so I could be more easily uploaded to this weblog. For such is the Kipmas magic which comes in every bottle of Pert Plus!

Lots of wanks embarrass the wanker; but, for Wank of the Year, that’s not enough. A truly outstanding wank should humiliate the audience, shame the human race, and really raise some serious questions about whether this whole “Big Bang” enterprise was really such a hot idea. And of all this wanks which wankers have wunk, only one will be awarded me, The Golden Winger, the most storied prize in all of Wingnuttia!

(LEGAL DISCLAIMER: all Golden Winger selections are subject to review at any time by Ghosts of Kipmas Past.)

The Nominees for the 2008 Golden Winger for Wank of the Year:

1. Pam Atlas, “Malcolm X was Obama’s dad“

After winning the 2006 Palme D’Haire, she should really be disqualified from future prizes.  Also, she’s clearly insane, and making fun of her is like poking sticks through the bars at Bellvue.  So why is she nominated?  FOR I, KIP WINGER, HAVE DECREED IT SO!  So thrill to the majesty of Pam’s 30,000 page opus explaining how Google can prove that Barack Obama is the illegitimate child of Scary Sixties Black Dude Malcolm X.  Or, if you don’t want to waste a week and give yourself a brain tumor, just admire the wanktoitiveness required to make such an idiot of yourself.  Even on the internets, she is something special.

2. Jonah Golberg, Liberal Fascism

The Doughy Pantload.  The Jonanist.  Doughbob Loadpants. 4-Way Dough Cube.  By whatever name you know him, Jonah Goldberg proved in 2008 that his runaway 2005 Chickenhawk of the Year win was no fluke.  His long-delayed masterpiece was praised to the stars by critics, provided these critics were wearing Jonah Goldberg’s ample pants.  Conservatives turned away in disgrace, liberals pointed and laughed, monkeys peed in their mouths, and Jonah defended himself from this abuse with hilarious self-abuse.  Wanktastic.

3. Fred Hiatt, “The Intelligence Committee says whatever I says it says“

Fred Hiatt.  Editorial page editor of the Washington Post.  Utter wanker.  Here, he combats the scourge of mean bumper stickers by pretending that the  Select Committee on Intelligence’s “Phase 2” report on the use of intelligence to sell the Iraq War completely exhonerates the Bush Administration, when, in fact, anyone who looked at it for five minutes could see it did exactly the opposite.  Not as creative as Pam What’s-Her-Name, but as brazen a wank as you are ever likely to see.

4. Larry Johnson, The Whitey Album

Michelle Obama blames everything on “Whitey” at a secret Black Panther meeting hosted by OJ Simpson and Louis Farrakhan and Fitty Cent!  Video here!

5. Sarah Palin, “Disagreeing with me is unconstitutional!“

Here is how a free press should vet a Vice-President:

• The high point: probably having my insane suggestion that Joe Biden was not upset by the death of his wife and child picked up by the wingnut blog Flopping Aces.  In their defense: I was selling it pretty hard.  In not their defense: how insane it is, and also everything.
• The low point: having Jonah Goldberg not print my mostly glowing review of Liberal Fascism, despite the fact that I emailed it to him and name-checked a bunch of smarter right-wing intellectuals who I also pretended to have read.   Which brings us too:
• The depressing points, comprising all the other points: realizing that there is no amount of crazy crap you can say which is crazier than what your average wingnut is prepared to believe.  Consider, for example, this quite wacky “story the MSM won’t tell you,” weaving together in a glorious tapestry Barack Obama’s terrorist financiers, his secret mistress, ACORN, teh ghey, Saul Alinksy, the Marxist Illuminati who run the world, and liberal media conspiracy cover-ups.  (A tapestry made entirely out of the whole cloth found at the Sean Hannity message boards, if you’re wondering.)  The response to this masterpiece: everybody jumps on the big scoop from 419ScamNews.myspace.com that Michelle Obama totally admitted that Barack is a pan-Africanist Manchurian candidate with a fake birth certificate and a crazy wife.  Perhaps I will have more success with my new enterprise, Newcastle Coal Importation, Ltd.
• Is that CAPS ROCK, man?  WELL TURN IT UP, MAN!!  CAPS LOCK is cruise control for credibility.

The good news from this failure and waste is that wingnuts seem keen to do make every doomed romantic gesture I’d hope they might, from worshipping Lobotomized Paris Hilton to literally taking the birth certificate shit to the Supreme Fucking Court.  I guess I could encourage them to call the editors of API as expert witnesses, but, really, what is left to do?  It’s a rodentine gang bang up in this piece, son.

Lessons learned:

1. It is financially cheaper than running your own paid media mini-campaign, although it will cost you time and slivers of your soul.  I guess it depends how you value these things; my landlady, for example, takes cash.

2. It is less soul-destroying than phone banking, in my opinion, although my own aversion to the telephone, strangers, and human contact generally must be factored in to this assessment.  It’s usefulness is probably less measurable, although my suspicion is that sowing discontent and craziness in wingnuttia does more good than street demonstrations, or the other avenues of activism open to folks of limited resources.  And it may yield lulz.

3. I can’t recommend the purity troll/instigator persona, as the market is flooded, but the world needs concern trolls.  Also: doctors.  Plans borne of desperation tend not to be the soundest, so spending time online as a cross between Jane Goodall and Lori Drew may just be a fucking stupid idea.  I don’t know.  Doowutchyalike.

Many others have written in with eminently fair and gracious and typically thoughtful comments. This is one of my favorites:

Hi The Editors,

I just finished reading your book, and it has changed my life forever. I have ordered 50,000 copies of your book to stock a new library I am building with my life’s savings, a library which will contain nothing but your book. The library will be called The Liberal Fascism Library, and will be built of 50,000 bricks, where by ‘bricks’ I mean ‘more copies of your book’. And no one will be allowed to borrow a book from this library because they should buy their own copies, as well as one for everyone they know, as well as a few backups in case of flood or fire or Rapture.

Your book did, however, imply one important point, which I didn’t see you address directly, and I wondered what you had to say about it. You argue very persuasively that liberalism is in many ways the modern re-imagining of fascism. This would imply that today’s so-called ‘liberals’ are, in fact, the modern version of fascists. However, Jonah Goldberg has argued equally persuasively that George W. Bush, the leader of the country, is quite clearly a liberal. Now, if a liberal is like a fascist, and a liberal leader is therefore like a fascist leader, doesn’t that imply that George W. Bush is like Hitler? I await your thoughts.

Bonah Joldberg

Yes, indeed. Now, why can’t my liberal critics put together sophisticated arguments like this instead of being a bunch of a leftwing remoras attaching themselves to my whale of a book?