The 2008 Turkey Awards

An annual tradition for over a decade! This is my list of ridiculous people from 2008 (so far). Pass me one of those rolls, please:

• The Greasy Gravy Award for oily publicity that makes the main dish inedible goes to the reprehensible soon-to-be-former Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Her ad speaks all too loudly for itself. Unfortunately, her opponent took the bait and responded that she (Sen.-elect Kay Hagan) is herself a godly Christian... so she gets a dollop of lumpy gravy poured on her overpriced business suit, too. Just what we need: More religious bigotry when we're supposedly threatened by radical Islam.
• The Red-Tide Oyster Stuffing Award for carelessly poisoning an otherwise tasty dish goes to The Author's [sic] Guild, for its pathetically misconceived three-year-old lawsuit against the Google Library Project... and its disingenuous proposed settlement of that lawsuit. And a few shrimp from the same tide go to the lawyers.
• The Broken Wishbone Award for shattering dreams goes to every vanity press out there... but especially to those that try to claim they're "different" (last bullet point).
• The Golden Gristle Award for assertions far too difficult to digest (and usually stuck in one's teeth) goes to the wide range of people — many of whom should know better — who are advocating early release of convicted corrupt politician George Ryan from federal prison. It's not so much that I think Ryan "deserves" to continue in the slammer as it is my disdain for their seeking special treatment for their politician buddy who didn't fall afoul of the crack/powder cocaine discrepancy... and wasn't treated as a career criminal because he didn't get caught early enough.
• The Crabapple Pie Award for marketing something sour as something sweet goes to Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and everyone else — at this time, almost uniformly on the far right — who questions whether anyone who disagrees with them is a "real American."
• The Brussels Sprout Award for stinky, slimy, overcooked, gentrified little cabbages goes to the various partisan activists who have refused to accept that the South lost the Second American Civil War.
• The Dried-Out Breastmeat Award for overcooking the books goes to the entire financial services industry. Sorry, guys, but "variability of actual return from median return" is not the same thing as "risk," or even a reasonable proxy for it. And in the meantime, blithely allowing these leviathans to acquire each other doesn't solve the problem — it just delays it.
• The Rancid Drumstick Award for something that should be edible, but isn't, goes to everyone who was eligible to vote, but chose note to... especially hawks and fatcats who managed to fly the flag on Veterans' Day, yet probably did not themselves serve (sort of like, say, the Romney family).