Program Note (And Call For Nominations)
It's going to be a light week here at the site, folks. But it'll be a week of quality if not quantity. For two reasons. We have an announcement to make for the first, and an invitation for nominations for the second.
Media Announcement
The first is because we have a media announcement to make: I'll be interviewed this Thursday morning on the "Uprising" radio show on the Pacifica Network. The interview will be conducted by Sonali Kolhatkar, the host of the show, from her home station of KPFK in Los Angeles. I'll be on during "drive time," from 8:15 onwards (although the "Uprising" show may be on at a different time, if you are within range of one of the Pacifica radio stations, so check your local listings).
I'll be discussing my recent "If We're Going To Tax The Rich, Let's Tax The Rich" article, as well as the fiscal cliff deal which appears to be nearing completion. Hopefully, after the show's over I'll be able to post either a sound file of the interview here, or at the very least a link so you can listen if you don't catch it live.
Info: check the "Uprising" show's site for info, which airs on the Pacifica Network, where you can check their extensive list of stations (which also has a nice map). You can also check the KPFK station's website, where you likely will be able to tune in, at 8:15 A.M. Pacific time.
Call For Nominations
What this all means, however, is no new column today, and no new column Thursday. I've had to do some research for both the interview and for our upcoming two end-of-the-year columns (which we'll be putting together Thursday, so the first one can appear on schedule on Friday).
Which means today is an open call for nominations for our annual two-part "My McLaughlin Awards" columns. There are numerous categories to choose from, so anyone truly deserving of some sort of award this year can likely be accommodated. I use McLaughlin's categories because they are so wide-reaching, and because there are several categories with significant overlap to shuffle people around between (such as "Boldest Political Tactic" and "Most Defining Political Moment," for instance).
Whether you're new to these year-end wrapup columns or just need your memory refreshed, take a look at Part 1 and Part 2 of last year's awards, to see the full list of categories available. Then take a moment to suggest any nominees which pop into your mind, in the comments below. I'll be checking the comments here for the next few days, to see what other folks come up with.
So who do you think deserves an award this year? Let me know....
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
CW: well, you know i have a bias against "collective" awards, since they tend to sound like a cop-out non-decision. but i'll suggest what i can.
winner: obama (duh)
loser: romney (a.k.a. that 47% guy...)
best pol: bill clinton, "secretary of explaining stuff" - pounded the pavement all election, and gave a killer convention speech. nobody else deserves more credit for obama's re-election, except perhaps mitt romney.
worst pol: todd "legitimate rape" akin - this would have been an eminently winnable senate seat for the GOP.
moment: the roberts court upholds obamacare, with the mandate redefined as a tax. long after fox has corrected their own wishful thinking, CNN continues to report that the law was overturned.
turncoat: former senator chris dodd, lobbying for SOPA/PIPA. *gag*
boring: the olympics. too boring to even discuss.
charismatic: Herman Cain. his personal and political failings notwithstanding, cain maintained a more humorous and upbeat outlook than any politician in recent memory.
bum rap: chicago teachers union. real educators took over union leadership, not "union boss" types. party brass on both sides of the aisle laid into them hard, but at least for this union it was never really about the money.
fair rap: newt gingrich. a lesser politician (see above) defeated him in the primary using the same media tactics he himself pioneered in the 90's. some might call it poetic justice.
comeback: liz warren (bringing liberal back into fashion)
original: tammy baldwin, first openly gay u.s. senator.
stagnant: boehner. but... but... the ultra-wealthy NEED to keep getting even more wealthy!
best photo-op: big bird on SNL's 'weekend update' segment
http://images.hitfix.com/photos/2363219/BigBirdSNL2012_article_story_main.jpg
worst photo-op: probably paul ryan at the youngstown soup kitchen. i'm not faulting the candidate for being a candidate, but the campaign should have done a better job of screening locations. dubya's handlers would have made sure to find a soup kitchen run by someone more friendly to his cause.
enough!: rahm emanuel. we thought we'd seen the last of rahm on the national stage after he was booted from the white house for his confrontational style. now he's picking on teachers, daring CTU to strike, throwing a major democratic costituency under the bus and putting the president in an impossible position right before the election. i really dislike this guy.
worst lie: "There is no war on women" - there has been an ongoing attempt to control women's minds and bodies since well before the nineteenth amendment was passed. some folks just can't deal with the fact that most women now do what they feel like instead of what they're told.
capitalist: mark zuckerberg - facebook shares rise, then go public, then fall.
honorable mention: gaby giffords (self-explanatory)
person of the year: google inc.
destined for political stardom: chris christie. at the most political moment possible, he put partisanship aside to help citizens of NJ. i seriously disagree with both his politics and his attitude toward dissent, but there is no doubting the guy's sincerity.
destined for political oblivion: joe leiberman is departing the senate, and not a nanosecond too soon. perhaps this is just wishful thinking, since he's nearly certain to show up as a defense or health insurance lobbyist. hopefully we at least won't have to see him lying on television anymore.
~joshua
dang, herman cain already won most charismatic last year. whooooops.
best political theater was the presidential debates. obama got walloped in the first one, the second was essentially a draw, and he seemed to take a slight advantage in the last one. i don't know if that had any impact on voters, but i found it interesting in any case.
worst political theater has to be this fiscal cliff thing. everybody knows it's just a dance around not taxing the ultra-rich, or taxing them temporarily in such a way that they eventually recoup twice as much as they pay from the rest of us.
Joshua -
Good suggestions, all! I particularly liked Dodd. I was watching (gag...) Lieberman being interviewed on the NewsHour tonight (he's doing every interview he can, on his way out of town), and was saying "he'll return as a lobbyist for Israel or for defense contractors soon," and was thinking of Dodd saying he wasn't going to ever lobby... until Hollywood waved a bunch of money under his nose.
Good call on Cain, too, nobody said you can't win the same award twice in a row!
Nice one on Big Bird, too, he's gotta get some kind of award for that performance...
Interesting take on Christie, I was thinking E. Warren for that one...
Lieberman. See above. My guess is AIPAC lobbyist or (as you said) defense contractor lobbyist.
These are all good nominations. I will ponder them, I promise.
Anyone else?
-CW
Update
The interview is up on KPFK's site at
http://archive.kpfk.org/
Click on "Uprising" for 12/20/12. Interview starts at about 15 minutes in and lasts for about a half an hour.
-CW