Please pour yourselves a little glass of your preferred beverage of relaxation, get out the popcorn, if you like, sit back and enjoy the show.
First, the ground rules: Jackass awards are not exclusive to the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh or propagandists for right wing and conservative thought. A jackass is viewed as one who is either arrogant or stupid enough to believe he/she can get away with fooling, lying to and/or willfully misleading others. In other words, any person who holds a position of influence whether one is a politician, elected official, community, or business leader, and this includes all media pundits, anchors and spokespersons for all of the above, who arrogantly or stupidly insults the intelligence of those they do, or hope to influence, is a jackass.
A jackass is also one who refuses to accept or lies about certain realities such as:
The simplest explanation for why America's reality got so distorted is the economic imbalance that Barack Obama now wants to remedy with policies that his critics deride as "socialist" ("fascist" can't be far behind): the obscene widening of income inequality between the very rich and everyone else since the 1970s. "There is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few," the president said in his budget message. He was calling for fundamental fairness, not class warfare. America hasn't seen such gaping inequality since the Gilded Age and 1920s boom that preceded the Great Depression.
This inequity was compounded by Bush tax policy and by lawmakers and regulators of both parties who enabled and protected the banking scam artists who fled with their bonuses and left us holding the toxic remains. The fantasy of easy money at the top of the economic pyramid trickled down to the masses, who piled up debt by leveraging their homes much as their '20s predecessors once floated stock purchases "on margin." Our culture, meanwhile, painted halos over celebrity C.E.O.'s, turning the fundamentalist gospel of the market into a national religion that further accelerated the country's wholesale flight from reality.
Finally, a jackass is also one who wants to revert to the same old failed and stupid policies that got us into this economic meltdown in the first place.
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With all of the above in mind, I introduce the first round of jackass award winners.
This week's first place jackass awards will be distributed among Republicans who groveled and crawled their way back into Party Boss Limbaugh's good graces; The Boss himself; Republicans who added earmarks to the stimulus bill all railed against; and cable TV's financial pundits who revealed how clownishly clueless they are about the past, current and future states of the U.S. economy.
In the farcical realm of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh has clearly emerged as the Party's leader. It is now common knowledge that any Republican politician who has the audacity to criticize Boss Rush or any of his ideologies or beliefs, will provoke an on-the-air, prolonged wrathful tongue-lashing and scorching fury. Those who dare to venture too far astray from Boss Limbaugh and his ideology do so at great risk to their political careers. Jeesh, Rushie seems rather Talibanesque.
It is interesting to learn, given the newly installed Rush Reign of Terror embraced by petrified Republican lawmakers, that The Boss Himself could very well be assigning to himself more influence than he actually has. According to an article in the Washington Post, there are no scientific measurements in place to specifically define the number of Boss's audience. Rush The Boss's interpretations of his number of listeners, in other words, is based on fuzzy math.
George W. Bush and the right wing arm of the GOP worked hard to woo Boss Limbaugh & Co. into its tent in 2000. Now it seems that the only Republicans inside are those who reside in Boss's uber conservative whacko world.
The jackasses invited into the tent receive second prize awards for believing in an ideology that has clearly and catastrophically failed. Exemplary recognition goes to all jackasses inside and outside the tent who pulled off the current catastrophe.
Uh oh. I just used up a lot of plaques and trophies.
Next up, the mainstream media, especially TV cable news, receive jackasses-of-the-week acknowledgment for its exhaustive obsession with the Boss Limbaugh/GOP show for an entire news week. Admittedly high wire clown acts are amusing political theater for political junkies, politicos and pundits. I am not ashamed to admit that I have enjoyed viewing a few snippets of the circus myself. But given the dire and desperate time in which we live, it seems, at the very least, far more appropriate and responsible reporting is in order from the national cable media.
Fortunately not all of the TV cable chatter obsessed on The Boss Limbaugh/GOP acts. CNN's Jack Cafferty had some straight talking to do when promoting his book.
Exemplary jackass recognition is bestowed upon all U.S. Republicans who added earmarks to the stimulus budget that they so passionately railed against, in self-righteous indication while slamming and pounding on the House or Senate podium. Hopefully none of the lecterns were damaged during these faux outbursts because we-the-taxpayer will get stuck with the repair bills for all things broken by our elected leaders who, no doubt, work tirelessly 24/7 on behalf of their constituents.
Thankfully Claire McCaskill let the award winning jackasses have it. There are a lot of Republican jackass awards tonight since every single member of its leadership smuggled in earmarks.
So much for wasteful spending, Rushies. Beaver management and parking lot programs!?
The next category of award winning jackasses goes to the CNBC pundits (many of whom scream day in and day out about everything and nothing) who are apparently dazed and altogether confused about the state of our economy. Jon Stewart said it all.
T. Boone Pickens sweeps the jackass awards by winning two: a trophy and a plaque. Boonie earns the gold trophy for putting millions of his dollars into smear campaigns against Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. Pickens wins the bronze plaque for insulting our intelligence. He does so by assuming that we will buy into his noble, and completely altruistic motivation for domestic, cleaner fuel. Worse, Boonie's message is shrouded in Bush/Rovian fear. Dependence upon foreign oil is a threat to our national security. Yeah, right. So what else is new Boonie?
It seems that I've run out of award plaques and trophies, folks. I know there are many other very deserving jackasses to recognize and I therefore promise to do my very best to ensure that no jackass will go unnoticed.
If readers should have a nominee for the next award posting, please enter your candidate's name, brief bio, and why this person deserves such renowned recognition.
