12 Days of Christmas Scorn: Day 7 -- A Circus of Horrors, Carny Row Edition

There isn't really such a person, is there?

by Noah

1. THE ORLY TAITZ BIRF CERTIFICATE AWARD

This can only go to the person for whom it is named. My first reaction to this creature was that she was really someone who had wandered off the set of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Certainly it’s possible. She could be Tim Curry’s sister, or she could be Tim Curry. But the more I dwelled on it, and after taking in the Carny Row factor, I realized exactly who she is: the Chicken Lady from Kids in the Hall.

Whatever this person Taitz is, it was the ultimate in nonsense, yet the media put her and her crackpot version of history on camera, repeatedly. Orly, if what you wanted was attention, you really succeeded. My question: Would you have done the same thing if Panama-born Cranky McCain had been elected? (Of course you would have been just as wrong.) Just between us, though. Orly: You're not a third-grader anymore, are you?

And do something about those loose feathers.


2. THE ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST AWARD

To the U.S. Citizens Association. There are lots of wingnut organizations like this one, but rather than list them all, I decided to pick out one of the more visible ones, with the idea of having one representative one.

I first came upon this Republikook organization, not in a local paper where the ad at this link
has been running for months, but on a Long Island TV station. The ad forcefully tries to cram in every Repug-Fox News talking point it can into one page or 30 seconds of air time. It’s a Drudge wet dream. It’s bizarre enough when you see the print version, but seeing and hearing it on TV, it comes across as vintage SNL fake ad material, or better yet, MADtv. They’re out there (in more ways than one), and they are serious. The ad also runs in a daily fish wrapper called USA Today, in lieu of a comics section. The USCA is reportedly based in Akron, Ohio, a town that is probably most famous for tire factories and the rock band Devo (“Whip It, Whip It Good”). Once you factor in Devo, it all starts to make sense somehow.

The same folks also run some alternate-universe bizarre-world anti-healthcare reform ads on several TV networks. Someone has a lot of money, or maybe the ads are some sort of weird social-engineering experiment being run by a super-secret think tank or intelligence group.


3. THE MY GOD IS A BIG GAY GOD AWARD

This award, inspired by a certain late-night TV advertisement for some “Awesome God” pop music, is given to the Repug who best exemplifies the combination of religious hypocrisy, homophobia, and an unfounded yet firm belief that he/she is so important that God would even bother to talk to him/her. What an ego! And the winner is . . . Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California (and Miss USA runner-up) and anorexia poster girl, the gift that just keeps on giving. I guess she’s just so pretty that God couldn’t resist trying for a chat-up. Hey, it worked with Mary!



“God made me criticize gay marriage.” Man, talk about not accepting responsibility for your actions! How Republican!


4. THE TUCKER CARLSON MEMORIAL MISTER TWEETER AWARD

To Ron “I’ll Say or Do Anything for a Prom Date with My Repug Masters Christie. You know how if you photocopy something and then phtocopy each copy in turn, each is less refined and less detailed, a cheap knockoff facsimile of the original? For those who don’t know who this clown is, because of his ever-dwindling face time on TV, Ron Christie is a former Darth Cheney aide and Repug Party-owned operative and attack bitch. He is, stylistically, a mediocre at best knockoff of Tucker Carlson (seen at left in his full polka-dots-on-stripes sartorial splendor). Like Carlson (but without the bowtie), Christite just oozes the rationale of a spoiled six-year-old, who can’t deal with the fact that reality isn’t the way his mommy told him it was, and that he won’t always be first in line for ice cream. He’s the kid in the first grade that goes up to the teacher and tattles on someone at least five times a day. His sense of right and wrong and who’s entitled is too misshapen to squeeze back into his narrow little box of a mind.

Christie’s one real talent, other than tsk-tsking like some little old lady complaining about the length of the skirts on the girls who walk by the house, is, like Carlson, the ability to quickly twist the statements of those he fears and judges undeserving of his precious respect, and fire back childish, reality-defying inanities. For instance, about the controversy surrounding the infamously racist “Harold, Call me” ad that was run against Harold Ford in Tennessee, Christie, with a straight face, whined “Why is it racist to have a white blonde woman say that she met Harold Ford? Where’s the racism?”


"I think the Republicans have been caricatured as being a white, Southern, religious party. We're more than that, but clearly we did not get our message out." Clearly, Ron.

Trying so hard to be a typical elitist, Christie also likes to interrupt anyone who starts to offer a reality-based opinion that doesn’t fit his worldview and then turn around and whine, “I didn’t interrupt you!” For this kind of behavior, TV programs actually pay him money. On the surface, that makes sense. TV producers know full well that people like to watch a car crash. The problem has been that Christie has all of the annoying qualities of Carlson but little of the smarts. Plus, a certain number of viewers found Tucker physically attractive. Sorry, but that’s TV. Christie just isn’t working out. Christie not only manages the seemingly impossible, becoming even more irritating than Carlson, he overplays it in such a dumbed-down way that he has the special quality of driving viewers to reach for the remote. That’s a no-no in TV land.

At least when Carlson got the boot, he could still make a few bucks dancing around a pole. Christie has fewer options. Waitress, let’s have some drinks!


5. THE REVISIONIST AWARD

To so-called President Bush’s press flak Dana Perino. Press secretaries used to be intelligent, knowledgeable human beings. Such spokespersons are a rapidly disappearing species. The darkly farcical GWB administration called the Iraq War for Oil “mission accomplished” years ago. Then they campaigned on keeping us safe from terrorists when they did anything but. The attacks had happened on their watch, but apparently a lot of people bought the charade. From almost the beginning of the Bush darkness, their failings, including not “reading the memo,” were blamed on Bill Clinton. Everything was Clinton’s fault, right down to the weather.

With Repugs, it’s always someone else’s fault. I’m no fan of Clinton, but the last thing Clinton did was warn Chimpy about bin Laden. Bush thought Terry Schiavo was worth leaving the fake ranch and flying back to Washington for, but not the dire warnings of impending terror attacks. ‘Nuff said.

Now the Bush concern is his legacy, his place in history, and, they are trying to doctor the story as fast as they can. Recently, in an ultimate example of Bush revisionism, Perino kicked the current Bush line up a notch. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the most high-profile time, when she went on Sean Insanity’s bizarro-world TV show and, with a straight face and no shame, claimed that there had been no terror attacks during the Bush years. Did Hannity bother to correct her? What do you think?



The fiction continues. The fiction grows. Dana is out there working the Bush storyline every day, and, no doubt, sanding her nose down to human size with a power sander every night. Next thing you know, if the Bush Museum ever gets built, it will contain a wing that celebrates the Texas Rangers baseball team’s ten consecutive world championships under Dubya’s leadership. Mission accomplished.


6. THE TERRI SCHIAVO AWARD

To all those in Congress who have opposed healthcare reform and insurance reform with all their cold, dead hearts. We pay for the healthcare of those in our government who oppose giving us healthcare. They live on our tax dollars. No one in our society lives on more welfare than our members of Congress. The same slime went bonkers -- with media help-- over “saving Terri Schiavo,” strictly for political points, but when it comes to saving anyone else? Hell, so-called President Bush even volunteered (probably the only time he ever volunteered for anything) to undergo vacationus interuptus and got on Air Force One (another taxpayer expense) to fly from his fake ranch back to D.C. to “save Terri Schiavo.”

Just because someone claims that they are “pro-life” doesn’t mean they are pro-your life. You also gotta wonder about politicians and media hacks who block health care and insurance reform while saying that they don’t want a government plan while their own parents are benefiting from a government plan called Medicare. The Repug ones even want to dismantle Medicare. Now, that's bumping off Grandma!


7. THE SMOOTH DUDE AWARD

Mark and Jenny Sanford

To SC Gov. Mark Sanford for his treatment of the wifey. (Kudos to Jenny Sanford for movin’ out.) And dumping the mistress. And saying God wanted him to stay in office. Once, it was Larry Craig and his exhibition of closed-space tap-dancing. This year, it was Sanford and Miss Don’t Cry For Me Argentina and I’m just headed down the old Appalachian Trail of love.

What, oh what will it be in 2010? I wait with great anticipation! What could it be? A naked Congressman running down Connecticut Avenue with a stack of Tiger Woods Mistress Calendars during rush hour? Sheep dressed in little elephant costumes in the $enate Office Building? The C Street Boys, naked except for crosses as they chant and dance around the Washington Monument at midnight?


8. THE MILITANT IGNORANCE AWARD

Or possibly not even one "lanaguage"?

To the 1.7 million, er, make that 65,000 Teabaggers who showed up on the Mall in Washington with their misspelled signage. The above is just a sample of the wonders you'll find here.

These are the people who, in medieval times, gathered in town squares yelling about witches. You can feel their hatred based on both received misinformation (heaped upon them by media hacks that play them for fools) and on their own fermented stew of bigotries. Perhaps the most glaring example of what these lowlifes are is the treatment they recently gave a woman at a Chicago-area town-hall meeting when she stood up to tell the story of her pregnant sister’s death and how insurance would have save both the sister and the baby. They laughed. They jeered. They shouted her down. Nice folks.


TOMORROW: Day 8 -- Utter Freak Show Edition

1. The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart Carload o' Porn Award
2. The Gift That Keeps On Giving Award
3. The Sen. David "Diapers" Vitter Golden Diaper Award
4. The Adolf Eichmann Award
5. The Joe McCarthy "I Have a List" Award
6. The Pitter-Patter of Little Feet Award
7. The Very Special, Special Loon Award
8. The Why Do You Hate Americans? Award
9. The Why Do You Hate the Bible? Award


THE SERIES SO FAR

Day 1: Con Men, Grifters, and Outlaws Edition
Day 2: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same Edition
Day 3: Media Manipulators and Seditionistas Edition
Day 4: Teabaggers Edition
Day 5: A Circus of Horrors
Day 6: Toys in the Attic Edition