It’s been a dirty, scandalous, generally muck-drenched year here at TPMmuckraker.
2009 began with “black and bitter” and ends with Hooters. We’ll always look back with fondness on Tom DeLay’s tall tale of quadriplegic protesters and Mark Sanford’s painfully awkward love e-mails (“I love … the erotic beauty of you holding yourself”). And that’s not even mentioning the ongoing sagas of John Murtha, Bernie Madoff, and John Ensign.
In past years, we’ve compiled grand lists of scandalized officials, but the Obama Administration isn’t there yet.
We have our own favorite stories of the year, but more important are the posts that you, our readers, loved. So without further ado, here’s our countdown of TPMmuckraker’s top 10 most popular posts of the year.
10. Imaginary Muslim Hijackers Thwarted
A NASA diver by the name of Tedd Petruna fabricates a story of a heroic fight against porno-watching hijackers on an Atlanta airport runway, in the process spawning his very own Twitter hashtag. Petruna was crowned an American Hero by right-wing bloggers.
9. Family Values Pol Cops To Intern Sex
Republican Tennessee state senator Paul Stanley, who sponsored a bill to block adoptions for gay couples, reportedly admits to having sex with a 22-year-old intern, and to taking nude pictures of the woman, after the intern’s boyfriend tried to blackmail Stanley.
8. Praying For Obama To Die
Fundamentalist pastor Steven Anderson, who preaches out of a storefront church in Phoenix, confirms that he prayed for President Obama to die just one day before one of his parishioners famously brought an assault rifle and a pistol to an Obama event. “I don’t obey Barack Obama. And I’d like Barack Obama to melt like a snail tonight,” Anderson says, while denying in an interview that he advocates vigilantism.
7. Birthermercial Debuts
The Birther movement bypasses the national media filter with this informercial running in seven states. For just $30, viewers are promised a “got a birth certificate?” bumper sticker.
6. Jindal Spins Katrina Tale
After Bobby Jindal delivers the GOP response to Obama’s address to Congress, the Louisiana governor’s office tries to spin its way out of Jindal’s factually challenged story, which put him at the center of an inspiring rescue during Hurricane Katrina. Politico assists.
5. ‘Hot Mike’ Duvall Resigns
“I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly,” says Mike Duvall, the conservative California state rep who was caught on a hot mic bragging of sex with two different women.
4. Obama The Witch Doctor
A prominent Florida neurosurgeon and avid tea-partier guffaws as he forwards a racist image of President Obama as a scantily clad witch doctor. It warns of ObamaCare, spelled with a hammer and sickle.
3. American Police Force Comes To Hardin
The private security company — which was later revealed to be a complete fraud — inks a deal with Hardin, Montana, to take over the impoverished town’s empty jail, stirring up the fears of the Black Helicopter crowd. APF’s Web site offered services including harbor patrol threat interdiction, cheating spouse investigations, polygraph testing, and weapons sales including “Nuclear/Biological/Chemical (WMD).”
2. ‘She Wears Little Eye-Patch Underwear’
54-year-old Mike Duvall sits in the California assembly and boasts to a colleague about his sexual conquests as he is unknowingly recorded by a microphone. Naturally, the married father of two had been active in the fight against gay marriage and scored top marks from a family values group.
And, the number one TPMmuckraker post of the year is …
1. Jindal Admits Katrina Story Is Bogus
Responding to Obama’s February speech to Congress, Jindal claims on national television that he helped thwart a government bureaucrat who was delaying a rescue mission during Hurricane Katrina. A few days later, his office admits that Jindal didn’t play the role he said he did.
