Top 10 worst Americans list
So there's been an American blog response to the recently posted BBC Top 10 Worst Britons of All Time list. See more on the lists here and here. I thought we could at least come up with a Worst Americans of 2005 list. Here's mine...
10. Tom Cruise- Easily the most annoying rich twerp on the planet, can find nothing better to do with his $1 million-an-hour time than make a complete ass of himself and everyone remotely connected with him. Sure, there are more unjust Americans out there, but Cruise is a stand-in here for all ridiculously self-absorbed, self-important, criminally overpaid Hollywood marionettes.
9. Ramsey Clark, Saddam's Lawyer- I'm not saying that it's a crime to represent Saddam, but Clark needs to learn how to pick his battles. When you've provided counsel for Nazis, David Koresh, and Slobodan over the years, you're just giving Americans and even lawyers a bad name.
8. John Yoo- The jury's still out on what Berkeley law professor John Yoo really thinks about torture and executive privilege, but we can all read the memos and formulate our own opinions. Along with Alberto Gonzalez one of the principle architects of all things screwy having to do with POW's and domestic spying. More here.
7. Noam Chomsky- I used to laugh at the notion that a tool like Chomsky could possibly influence that many people. But Prospect Magazine's Top 100 Intellectuals readers poll put him at number one with a bullet--he received almost twice as many votes as #2, Umberto Eco (?!) This is a hard one for me because I do admire Chomsky's eagerness to point out US hypocrisy. The only problem is that the US simply isn't a fascist continuation of the Third Reich, as he is wont to insinuate. For that, he is numero siete.
6. Bill Kristol- I don't expect to agree with Bill Kristol on anything. But I can't condone shameless excuse-making and blind, ra-ra cheerleading whenever Bush so much as changes his toilet paper roll. He's had a few intellectually honest moments in the past few years (calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, sticking by true conservative principles during the Myers nomination), but by and large he's a torture-approving, NSA-championing creep.
5. The Rev. James Dobson- There's a special place in my spleen reserved for the Religious Right, and the good Reverend has done more this year to deserve his place there than any other, and that's including Jesus-fellating loony Pat Robertson. Lessee--stem cell research, gay marriage, "curing" homosexuality, collapsing church and state, phone chatting with Karl Rove, opposing women's lib, attacking Spongebob Squarepants--this guy is a caricature of superstitious buffoonery and small-minded exurb tendencies; the only problem is, people fucking listen to him, including many of our highest elected officials.
4. Stanley Tookie Williams- Here's where the shit starts. I should state that I 1) oppose the death penalty and 2) appreciate what Williams did for educating children about gangs and ending gang violence after his change of heart. I guess more than anything I'm disgusted by the sense of cause celebre and apologetics that sprang up around this case. Williams killed four innocent people and started one of the most violent gangs in America. He deserved the utmost punishment, albeit not capital punishment. If you want to oppose his death, fine; if you want to support his life, his whole life, you have problems. His funeral was a disgrace, with gang members hobnobbing with rappers and other celebrities. I doubt that Williams himself would have appreciate the gang signs being thrown around in the wake of his death. What a fucking debacle for everyone involved.
3. Karl Rove- For all the usual reasons.
2. Jack Abramoff- This man's life reads like a ridiculous movie script, but he has somehow actually accomplished the astounding amount of scandal attributed to him. 1) Op-ed payola 2) DeLay connections and international golfing trips 3) SunCruz casino and the murder of "Gus" Boulis, the previous owner 4) Indictment for bank fraud 5) the Indian ("monkeys," "morons," "troglodytes") Reservation scandal 6) Connections with DeLay, Rove, Grover Norquist, Bob Ney, John Doolittle, Conrad Burns, all of whom will likely be fucked by Abramoff's plea bargain. 2006 will see who goes under thanks to this one lobbyist.
1. It's a tie! The entire Bush Cabinet! For Rumsfeld consistently shortchanging troops and distorting war costs, for Cheney fighting McCain to the end to allow for CIA tortue, for Condoleezza Rice and her embarrassing comments on rendition in Europe, for Alberto Gonzalez and his ankle-grabbing kowtowing to Bush's every whim, and to the Commander-in-Chief himself, for running the most opaque, misleading, religious-right-pandering, insular, wanton, treaty-flauting administration of our short lives, and probably of all time, or at least since Nixon, hallelujah and amen. (As a liberal, I'm not sure that I've ever given myself over to that kind of rhetoric, but it feels pretty good doing it just once.)
Thank you and goodnight.
10. Tom Cruise- Easily the most annoying rich twerp on the planet, can find nothing better to do with his $1 million-an-hour time than make a complete ass of himself and everyone remotely connected with him. Sure, there are more unjust Americans out there, but Cruise is a stand-in here for all ridiculously self-absorbed, self-important, criminally overpaid Hollywood marionettes.
9. Ramsey Clark, Saddam's Lawyer- I'm not saying that it's a crime to represent Saddam, but Clark needs to learn how to pick his battles. When you've provided counsel for Nazis, David Koresh, and Slobodan over the years, you're just giving Americans and even lawyers a bad name.
8. John Yoo- The jury's still out on what Berkeley law professor John Yoo really thinks about torture and executive privilege, but we can all read the memos and formulate our own opinions. Along with Alberto Gonzalez one of the principle architects of all things screwy having to do with POW's and domestic spying. More here.
7. Noam Chomsky- I used to laugh at the notion that a tool like Chomsky could possibly influence that many people. But Prospect Magazine's Top 100 Intellectuals readers poll put him at number one with a bullet--he received almost twice as many votes as #2, Umberto Eco (?!) This is a hard one for me because I do admire Chomsky's eagerness to point out US hypocrisy. The only problem is that the US simply isn't a fascist continuation of the Third Reich, as he is wont to insinuate. For that, he is numero siete.
6. Bill Kristol- I don't expect to agree with Bill Kristol on anything. But I can't condone shameless excuse-making and blind, ra-ra cheerleading whenever Bush so much as changes his toilet paper roll. He's had a few intellectually honest moments in the past few years (calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, sticking by true conservative principles during the Myers nomination), but by and large he's a torture-approving, NSA-championing creep.
5. The Rev. James Dobson- There's a special place in my spleen reserved for the Religious Right, and the good Reverend has done more this year to deserve his place there than any other, and that's including Jesus-fellating loony Pat Robertson. Lessee--stem cell research, gay marriage, "curing" homosexuality, collapsing church and state, phone chatting with Karl Rove, opposing women's lib, attacking Spongebob Squarepants--this guy is a caricature of superstitious buffoonery and small-minded exurb tendencies; the only problem is, people fucking listen to him, including many of our highest elected officials.
4. Stanley Tookie Williams- Here's where the shit starts. I should state that I 1) oppose the death penalty and 2) appreciate what Williams did for educating children about gangs and ending gang violence after his change of heart. I guess more than anything I'm disgusted by the sense of cause celebre and apologetics that sprang up around this case. Williams killed four innocent people and started one of the most violent gangs in America. He deserved the utmost punishment, albeit not capital punishment. If you want to oppose his death, fine; if you want to support his life, his whole life, you have problems. His funeral was a disgrace, with gang members hobnobbing with rappers and other celebrities. I doubt that Williams himself would have appreciate the gang signs being thrown around in the wake of his death. What a fucking debacle for everyone involved.
3. Karl Rove- For all the usual reasons.
2. Jack Abramoff- This man's life reads like a ridiculous movie script, but he has somehow actually accomplished the astounding amount of scandal attributed to him. 1) Op-ed payola 2) DeLay connections and international golfing trips 3) SunCruz casino and the murder of "Gus" Boulis, the previous owner 4) Indictment for bank fraud 5) the Indian ("monkeys," "morons," "troglodytes") Reservation scandal 6) Connections with DeLay, Rove, Grover Norquist, Bob Ney, John Doolittle, Conrad Burns, all of whom will likely be fucked by Abramoff's plea bargain. 2006 will see who goes under thanks to this one lobbyist.
1. It's a tie! The entire Bush Cabinet! For Rumsfeld consistently shortchanging troops and distorting war costs, for Cheney fighting McCain to the end to allow for CIA tortue, for Condoleezza Rice and her embarrassing comments on rendition in Europe, for Alberto Gonzalez and his ankle-grabbing kowtowing to Bush's every whim, and to the Commander-in-Chief himself, for running the most opaque, misleading, religious-right-pandering, insular, wanton, treaty-flauting administration of our short lives, and probably of all time, or at least since Nixon, hallelujah and amen. (As a liberal, I'm not sure that I've ever given myself over to that kind of rhetoric, but it feels pretty good doing it just once.)
Thank you and goodnight.
posted by to scranton at 9:05 PM
2 Comments:
I might like to add Dan Brown, for making that many more Americans seem that much dumber, and yet think themselves that much smarter.
And who can forget Michael Brown, the defunct leader of FEMA? What a fucking disaster. Check out the article in this months Rolling Stone entitled "Looting Homeland Security," it's pretty well done and handles most of the complaints that I'm too lazy to summarize here.
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