The 2009 Muckmaker Awards

Welcome to the 1st Annual 2009 Muckmaker Awards, where we will dishonor the worst people, organizations, businesses, and ideologies of 2008. For the last few months, we’ve blogged about the most horrible people on earth, detailing again and again how these scumbags have been flushing our planet right down the toilet. So to shit on the best of the worst, we’ve made these wonderful toilet trophies to present them as a constant reminder of their muckmaking. If we could afford to actually craft these statues, we would, but it seems that these are the only people with the actual money to pay for something like that. The Muckmaker Award is given to one candidate (or a group, when applicable) in each of the following 10 categories, each with a runner-up, except for the final award:
Worst Newcomer
Worst Pundit
Worst Blog
Worst News Source
Worst Corporation
Worst Religious Leader
Worst Religion
Worst Politician
Worst Businessman
Worst Muckmaker

Enjoy our picks for 2008, and check our blog daily for more of the same.

Worst Newcomer: Sarah Palin
I know how everyone on the internet claims to be an expert on everything, especially when it comes to politics, but even the most wiki-educated blogger couldn’t have predicted the rise of Sarah Palin. She seemed to just come out of nowhere. Obama may have seemingly come out of left field, but at least his name popped up now and again as that senator with the weird-ass name. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was hidden quietly in a secret underground bunker disguised as an igloo in the middle of Wasilla, Alaska, being trained by a top-notch Republican Brain Trust to derail the Democrat’s Hope and Change Train and seize the White House with a sniper rifle in one hand and a Biden pelt in the other. Just kidding – she fucked it all up because the Repubs picked her at the last minute and didn’t realize how fucking stupid she was. Or maybe they did and thought they could cover it up like they did with Bush until his election, but that worked out about as well as a Katie Couric interview. She didn’t like to read, she couldn’t speak without uttering some idiotic catchphrase, and all of her political positions were decided for her by her religion or her party…so half of America related to her immediately. While most of us were left wondering what anyone could see in this Fargo extra, the hillbillies and hockey moms (apparently no longer dubbed “soccer moms”) came out of the woodwork to show up at her campaign stops, which quickly began to resemble KKK rallies. Like Bush, Palin was able to bring out the worst in this country – the racists, the Bible-beaters, and most importantly, the anti-intellectuals. It’s like the Republicans run these candidates purely to insult the intelligence of the American people; right now, they’re probably placing bets on if they could get away with running a talking horse in 2012 or not. I mean, if Tina Fey, star of such cinematic gems as Baby Mama, is your biggest detractor and she’s actually able to damage your public image, you’ve seriously got to start reading at least one newspaper. As we inaugurate our first black president, Sarah Palin is a painful reminder that as far as we think we’ve come as a nation, we’re still just a bunch of nasty, self-righteous, fear-mongering, superstitious, ignorant trash at heart. Vote Palin/Talking Horse in 2012!
Runner-Up: Joe the Plumber
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher’s just another asshole who doesn’t know that his five minutes should have been up ten minutes ago. Much like Larry the Cable Guy, Joe the Plumber’s whole shtick was completely fabricated to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and it’s these bottom-feeders that’ll keep this moron’s career going by listening to his misinformed garbage and buying his ghostwritten books. I’m sure all those unread copies will make great coffee table books – they’ll hold up that lopsided end pretty well. He’s so full of shit that I’m sure he’d make one hell of a plumber…he just has to get that pesky old license first. If you’re an “average Joe” and this guy actually represents your viewpoint, do me a favor and slap your mother hard for letting you develop beyond a cumstain in her panties…although I’m sure the other stains could out-debate you.

Worst Pundit: Michelle Malkin
While Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Shepard Smith, and Sean Hannity continue to hog the media spotlight with their verbal filth, there’s another, even more obnoxious pundit gaining much more ground with her own brand of hate-filled spew – Michelle Malkin. Whereas her white Barbie counterpart, Ann Coulter, slowly fades into the background until she has a book to sell, Michelle Malkin has focused less on her TV career and more on a medium that truly appreciates unbridled, fact-free vitriol – the internets. What makes her much more intriguing than all the aforementioned screaming heads is that she’s not some overprivileged white guy (Ann included) – she’s a small Filipino-American woman who’s married to one. Like many conservatives, she’s a whole list of “Do as I say, not as I do,” contradictions. She was born the daughter of two Filipino immigrants who were here on student visas, yet she wrote a bestselling book arguing that the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was completely justified and another on how our borders need to be much tighter. She’s a woman, yet she’s about as far from a feminist as a woman can get without having her feet bound. She’s an ethnic minority, yet all she does in her columns is rail against all those lazy, self-serving minorities and their hate-filled cultures. Out of a white guy’s mouth, her opinions would be condemned publicly while agreed upon privately, but because of her own race and gender card, she’s considered a visionary. You would think that this walking joke would eventually wear out her welcome as the political sideshow attraction that she is, but instead, she’s opened up a second website (aptly named Hot Air) and gained a steadily increasing following of epic (fail) proportions. Both Hot Air and her personal blog have grown over the past few years into two of the most popular and widely-read conservative blogs on the intrawebs, but Michelle doesn’t simply win this prestigious award because I disagree with her on practically every issue imaginable. She wins for the Dunkin Donuts/Rachel Ray scarf incident, or should I call it “a jihadi chic keffiyeh”? What started out as a stupid piece of hipster wardrobe in a Dunkin Donuts ad became the talk of the blogosphere (as you can see in the trackbacks underneath her post), the same blogosphere that constantly accuses the mainstream media of focusing on ridiculous non-issues like this one. This one article is a great representative of what this woman gets away with posting every single day – fictional controversies and fabricated issues sprinkled with outrageous wingnut screeching that hopes to mask the utter hollowness of each and every “story.” Her readers mistake her snide attitude for “in-depth analysis” because they couldn’t dissect an issue on their own if it was broken down for them monosyllabically, and the best part is, if you criticize her, her right-wing choir of commenters will quickly label you a sexist, a racist, or a foaming-at-the-mouth liberal, so she never really has to answer to anyone any time she sounds like a broken record of buzzwords like “terrorist,” “liberal,” “jihad,” and “Yes, master.” That last one’s just a guess, as I assume she repeats that readily and often to her husband before shuffling backwards into the kitchen to fetch him another drink. Must be nice to never have to work again because your wife gets paid to be an internet troll. And by the way, Michelle – wearing a dead mink in the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute calendar didn’t make you look “tough” in front of all those “liberal pussies,” nor did it make me want to fuck you, as if your appearance should have any relevance to being an “effective conservative leader.” Although, if sticking my dick in your mouth is the only way to get you to shut the fuck up, I’d gladly go balls deep.
Runner-Up: Chris Matthews
While Michelle Malkin scores the win because she’s dangerous, Chris Matthews has the honor of runner-up for being just the opposite – he’s about as harmless as Richard Simmons in a bare-knuckle fight to the death. This guy’s just out in space somewhere, doped up on whatever makes him brave enough to get in front of a camera every day, and he just spews the most worthless, inane commentary on current events imaginable. He’s the equivalent of a sports commentator declaring, “That guy just threw the ball! And I think it went pretty far! Some other guy caught it! He must be a good player. I like that guy for doing that thing he did there.” He hosts a show called Hardball, but all he ever does is pitch a slow underhand to every politician he can find a clip of. When it was popular to support Bush, he declared Dubya a “hero” during his “Mission Accomplished” speech. When the honeymoon was over and public opinion turned, Chris abandoned that rhetoric and latched on to liberals like Obama for no valid reason other than it seemed like that was what everyone else was doing. No matter how high he likes to raise his voice, the man essentially says nothing and stands for nothing, and his powers of observation are clearly about as honed as his verbal skills. Somebody please stop paying this guy to ramble into a camera lens…we’ve got enough pussies in the media that are a lot less obvious about the knob slobbering.

Worst Blog: Atlas Shrugs
This was really a tough choice, as every conservative blog was on fire this past year, furiously spreading any lie they could propagate on Barack Obama, mostly derived from McCain’s campaign ads. They dug and dug but just couldn’t find the skeletons in Obama’s closet that they were looking for (nothing as appalling as the Keating Five, a divorce and second marriage almost purely for money, a wife with a drug problem, a hotheaded temper, a complete reversal on many of his former political positions, or strong ties to an utter failure of a president), so instead of attacking his ideas, they simply attacked his name, his parents, his church, his wife, people he served on boards with – whatever made him sound like a secret Muslim terrorist. The very people that spent the last two elections convincing us what a great man George W. Bush was, defending every bullheaded and misguided move he made, were now trying to convince us to vote for John McCain because he wouldn’t be anything like him! They studied their Rovian politics well, relying on fear, ignorance, and outright lies to spread tall tales of a man named Hussein(!) with connections to Islam and terrorism who faked his own birth certificate for the chance to infiltrate our government and enslave the white race and harvest their children for cannibalistic consumption and ritual sacrifice…or something along those lines. Instead of admitting the faults of their own candidate, they simply did their best to make him look like the better candidate until after he lost the election. Now you’ll find most of them admitting McCain was a poor choice for president and consoling poor Sarah Palin, giving her a knowing wink that when she runs in 2012, they’ll be there to lie for her too. Nobody did all that better than Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs. If you actually get to the content in that eyesore of a layout, you’ll find childish tirades and exclamations in all caps in so many different colors that you’ll wish you were colorblind. Once you actually read said content, you’ll just wish yourself blind. When she’s not emphasizing Barack HUSSEIN Obama (a joke that wasn’t clever the first 500 times) and his agenda of terror, she’s bashing Islam with such seething hatred that she often sounds like…a fanatical religious fundamentalist. As she’s Jewish, I totally understand the animosity, and I don’t necessarily disagree with her on how truly fucked that religion is (see the winner for Worst Religion), but where is the equivalent loathing for every other corrupt religion of the world? It seems to me that if you’re going to refer to yourself as a “citizen journalist” in your byline, you might want to be a bit more objective and consistent in your criticism. Religious fundamentalism is a threat to peace, freedom, and equality worldwide, but it’s certainly not something that the Muslims have a monopoly on. I also can’t help but notice another obsession on her website – herself. Even bloggers with their own TV shows promote themselves with less audaciousness. There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance, and Pam not only crosses that line, she stomps all over it in high heels. When she’s not posting her own picture in every other blog post, she’s vlogging from her bedroom or the beach, laid out seductively (at least she thinks) in a bikini, tanning as she spews verbal diarrhea that’d give Rush Limbaugh a run for his money. You really have to watch one of her video blogs for yourself – she seems just as concerned about her tan as she does current events, ranting in that thick New York Jewish accent, snapping her fingers and bobbing her head back and forth, looking to her camerawoman for constant affirmation every time she makes a “point.” At first, I could only assume Ms. Geller was a Colbert-like parody, a character actor satirizing so many focal points of annoyance that it made my head spin harder than her opinions, but after reading her blog, I realized how truly nasty and self-centered she actually was. You may call yourself a “diva,” Pam, but we all know that’s just another word for “bitch.” Spend less time photoshopping your picture all over your site and more time on your content and you may find yourself becoming part of the solution as opposed to part of the problem.
Runner-Up: McCain Blogette
Man, the women are really tearing up the list this year, especially the web-based part. I think the main reason may be because each of them relied on their gender and appearance to get their voices heard, and then they squandered the opportunity by simply screeching like sirens about “evil liberals” without addressing any real issues or offering any reasonable solutions. While Meghan McCain didn’t exactly go off on the lib-hating tirades that the other women on this list did, she did jump ship from being a “socially liberal Kerry voter” to support her father, which is sweet and all, but extremely disingenuous. She’s certainly her father’s daughter, considering John did the very same thing to score the nomination, but we all know the real reason this blog was created – to market a crusty old white man to a crowd that would better appreciate a sexy bubblegum pop princess. Like or hate Obama, he didn’t pimp his kids out to media so shamelessly, trying to keep them in the spotlight as little as humanly possible. I’m not sure if you know this, Meghan, but blogs are supposed to offer people an alternative to the corporate media, not become an arm of its propaganda. “I make no excuses for the state of politics today. But I want everyone to know that my dad is more than ready to be the President this country needs right now,” she said in a post last October. Way to offer us an unbiased perspective you spoiled little shit.

Worst News Source: Fox News
Do I really need to justify this one? Maybe they should receive some sort of permanent toilet trophy, because I can’t imagine anyone else even coming close to winning this award next year, or any year after. Hell, I’d send them a life-sized replica – that dung-catcher would be more useful than any shit they’ve offered as “fair and balanced” news. Sean Hannity, Shepard Smith, Bill O’Reilly…were these guys birthed from Rupert Murdoch’s asshole and raised in incubators where they were nourished on a steady diet of vinegar and Reagan speeches until the ripe old age of 40? I don’t understand how any bright, rational person could get their news from such lying hypocrites…oh wait, that’s right – they don’t. Red states and old people do. It’s pretty pathetic when a giant news corporation like Fox has to regularly attack cable comedy shows like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” because they speak more truth than their journalists do. What do they have to fear from a bunch of comedians other than being called out on lying through their teeth to further an increasingly obvious political agenda? Whether they were simultaneously calling Obama a Nazi, a Muslim, and a communist or referring to Michelle as Barack’s “baby mama,” Fox seemed to work hand-in-hand with the McCain campaign in smearing the candidate without ever actually discussing, in honest terms, his policies as they relate to real issues. I’m not one to swing off any politician’s sack, as I have my own issues with our President-elect, but seriously, your job’s not that hard. You watch something occur, you film it, and you write down what happened. Some douchebag reads these words off a teleprompter while you replay the tape. Do this on loop for 24 hours. Repeat. That’s what the news is. That’s what “fair and balanced” is. Fox needs to stick to what they’re good at – ruining superhero franchises. First, the X-Men. Next, the Fantastic Four. And now, Watchmen. As a diehard comic book fan, I will give you our fictional characters to do with what you will (Sony would just ruin them anyway) if you’ll just leave real life alone, at least for a little while…just long enough so your viewers will actually get off their fat asses and go outside for five minutes to realize for themselves that the world isn’t as bad as you make it out to be. Or at least as stupid.
Runner-Up: C-SPAN
Man is it fucking boring. Yep, that’s it. It’s boring. I don’t think anyone in the world, even Ben Stein, has watched it for more than ten minutes. You never really learn anything from it because every time you turn the fucker on (usually as you’re reaching the end of your channel list, realizing there’s still nothing on), it looks like the cameraman just left his camera on the tripod in some official-looking room and went to lunch or to jerk off or to stick dirty needles in his eyes…whatever seemed more appealing at the time. People would rather watch Mike Huckabee’s new show on Fox…alright, that was low for even me. My apologies, C-SPAN.

Worst Corporation: Lehman Brothers
AIG definitely pulled some ridiculous shit to earn this spot, but the Lehman Brothers won out for three reasons:
1. They managed to set the record for the largest bankruptcy filed in U.S. history, hitting the economy pretty fucking hard.
2. Richard Fuld, Jr.’s wallet didn’t quite feel the same sting.
3. For all the money we’ve lost, we want a real show, and we’ll probably never get it.
Symbolically, they represent everything that we hate about Wall Street. Financial and business analysts can argue all day long over whether or not Fuld was at fault or simply a victim, left to fend for himself while other businesses were bailed out, but the absolute truth of the matter is that while $75 billion of potential value for creditors was wiped out over the last year, Fuld openly admitted at his hearing in Congress that he had taken over $300 million in pay and bonuses over the last eight years, although the House oversight committee’s estimate was closer to $480 million. Democrat Henry Waxman really laid into him, asking, “Your company is now bankrupt and our country is in a state of crisis. You get to keep $480m. I have a very basic question – is that fair?” When “Dick” tried to defend his generous compensation and put himself in the same boat with all his investors, Waxman was quick to bring up his vacation house in a private ski resort in Sun Valley, Idaho and his $14m ocean-front villa in Florida. Fuld’s personal art collection alone is worth millions of dollars. “You made all this money taking risks with other peoples’ money,” Waxman added. For the first time in his career, “The Gorilla” couldn’t monkey his way out with smooth talk, poor excuses, complicated financial jargon, or even pleas for sympathy. Republican John Mica quipped, “If you haven’t discovered your role, you’re the villain today. You’ve got to act like a villain.” But that’s where my number three kicks in. Yes, we got this amazing show with our Congressmen actually growing some balls and giving it quite bluntly to this slimeball, but that’s it…he got a tongue lashing. This villain isn’t going to get beaten to a pulp by any superhero, and James Bond isn’t going to blow this mogul up or toss him off a cliff. The Lehman Brothers story ends like most of these financial collapse stories – the little guys are left penniless standing in breadlines and Fuld will simply retire with his fortune. Sure, he’s being investigated and all that, but we all know that our government not only encourages white collar crime, it’s also an integral part of it. The dog and pony show was very entertaining, but without that final scene of Richard getting ass raped in prison or putting the gun in his mouth to finally end the indescribable guilt, this movie’s just another bomb…one that hit us (and the world) harder financially than even September 11th did.
Runner-Up: The Big Three American Car Companies
Like Richard Fuld, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler wouldn’t admit any faults in their business practices just a few short years ago. Now that they’re looking for money, sympathy, or both, these guys have become as honest as tycoons can probably ever get. GM admitted in a recent ad that they had “disappointed” and “betrayed” American consumers. “While we’re still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you. At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs became lackluster.” That’s quite the shift from the “Be a man! Buy a bigger fucking vehicle you pussy!” commercials that used to frequent the airwaves. You’d think the oil companies, so reliant on their success, would be the ones bailing them out, but no, it’s up to the people who actually have to drive their pieces of shit to work every day. Not all of us have a fleet of private corporate jets at our disposal.

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