Alex Pareene Votes: The 2010 Golden Duke Award Winners

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Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Before that, he did so for Gawker. And before that, he was the youngest editor of Wonkette in history. The man knows his scandal, although not his appletinis. [Picture via allyzay on Flickr.]

Meritorious Achievement in The Crazy

Louie Gohmert: Sure, he’s not a witch and he never stomped on anyone’s head. But a story like “terror babies” comes along so rarely that it must be cherished and its author celebrated. It sounds like the plot to some awful/amazing ’90s thriller that you catch at 2 a.m. on one of the lesser Showtime channels, and halfway through you’re just like, “wait, why didn’t they just recruit an adult with terrorist sympathies instead of training a baby?” But at that point, the adult terror baby (Dylan McDermott) is already betraying his terror-trainers and turning himself in to the grizzled CIA agent whom no one believed (Gary Cole), after a spirited game of cat-and-mouse.

Gohmert just seems truly, tragically dumb, and I like to imagine that none of the other members of Congress like him. (My favorite bit of Gohmert arcana is that Heath Shuler called him a “gutless chickenshit thief” for stealing a sign from Shuler’s office.)

Unrefudiated Champion of Tea Party Wackiness

Sharron Angle: It was such a treat that the nation got to meet this formerly obscure former Nevada state legislator, and that she almost beat the Senate Majority Leader. The woman who in 1993 was writing long crank letters to Reid with bits that were in all-caps almost took his job, a few short years later.

I mean she was opposed to the fluoridation of drinking water. She supported that crank Scientology drug treatment program. I’m sad that she so successfully avoided the press, because I always wanted to ask her if she thought vaccines cause autism. I’m sure she did! (Though she also put the word “autism” in scare quotes at a rally, so maybe she doesn’t believe in autism?)

As much as I love Carl Paladino and his baseball bat, he never claimed that some random Texas city has been secretly taken over by Muslims.

Most Outrageous Election Season Fib Issued By A Politician

Jan Bewer: Angle’s a close runner-up for me, because claiming that she wants people to be scared of Canadians is classic, but Jan Brewer deserves some love for convincing the world that her state, under her governance, is an apocalyptic desert hellhole littered with headless human corpses. This was her pitch, to voters, to remain in office: Under Jan Brewer’s watch, there are bodies “just lying out there.” Without heads.

Also, seriously, making up the headless bodies thing was great, but she also made up that her dad died fighting the Nazis, which is incredible. Who makes that up?

Nominees For Most Over-The-Top Campaign Ad

The Vitter Ad: Demon Sheep is too aware of its goofiness. It’s self-consciously viral. Taliban Dan and Manchin shooting the bill are slightly generic, like TV parodies of a campaign ads (opponents quoted out of context, folksy candidate shooting things in a folksy fashion).

The Vitter ad is just insane, though. It’s like a dream. A hysterical, racist dream. (Look, here’s a check for “A LOT OF TAXPAYER MONEY.” But how will “ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS” even deposit this comically oversized check?) And Louisiana does not even border another country! Is that fence up to keep Texans out? Are these illegal aliens from the Gulf? I don’t know, but it makes me as mad as those cops that are there for some reason, even though they’re not allowed to arrest anymore.

The George Allen Honors For Best Tracker-Captured Freak-Out

Phil Davison: PHIL DAVISON. PHIL DAVISON ISSUED ONE OF MY MOST FAVORITE QUOTES IN THE HISTORY OF THE SHOUTED WORD.

Davison’s speech was the finest six minutes of filmed anything of the year 2010. It is better than the Kanye album. TELL YOUR FRIENDS. TELL RANDY GONZALES.

Best Scandal — Sex and Generalized Carnality

Eric Massa

The Massa affair touched on every single major political trend of the year, from gays in the military to Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago-style deep-dish thuggery to Glenn Beck’s operatic insanity to the year’s seemingly endless series of national humiliations for various New York politicians. And despite that lovely vastness, it was also simple: The man enjoyed tickle-fights. His birthday party went terribly wrong.

The Reker thing was one of those incredibly satisfying sex scandals, where some professional opponent of the homosexualist agenda is revealed to have spent his life fighting his own homosexualist desires, but Reker never got Glenn Beck to apologize for wasting my time, so point Massa. (And as entertaining as the Haley thing was, she got elected regardless! A proper scandal needs to cost someone a job.)

Best Scandal — Local Venue

The Bell City Council scandal is the sort of scam where you sorta wish you had been in on it before it all went south. Who doesn’t want a six-figure part-time job? Plus, the terrible brokenness of California in general was big this year.

I also like that there was one council member who wasn’t in on it, but it was only because he didn’t know about it.

Best Scandal — General Interest

The Republican National Committee reimbursing donors for bottle service at some god-awful LA fake-lesbian simulated sex-club is classic Michael Steele. And the fact that the whole thing was apparently the fault of those ridiculous caricatures of entitlement called the Young Eagles was great as well. (The RNC FEC filings were a goldmine, honestly. They spent $2,424 at the Reagan museum the same day as the nightclub trip.)

Honestly, the fact that we’ve made it to the end of the year 2010 and Michael Steele is still the head of the RNC is inspiring. There’s hope for us all!

[Click here to read Sara Benincasa’s votes…]

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