2009 News Dive Awards

Another year has come and gone. As with most years, we look back at 2009 and say, "good riddance." Some good things happened, sure, and in your life, I hope the good outweighed the bad. And here's hoping that the worse thing that happens to you this year is that you keep writing "2009" on your checks for a little while (you know you're going to).

But in the world of current events, things never seem to go well. And this is generally because of those who've dedicated their lives to making sure that things don't go swimmingly. These are the people who go out of their way to build the bumps in the road, who toss monkey wrenches in the gears, and generally make nuisances of themselves. For these people, we have the 2009 News Dive Awards.


Worst Social Media Troll:
This isn't a very competitive field, but as social media becomes more popular, it's becoming easier for trolls to mess up our culture with lies, attacks, and general dumbassery.

And no one is better at all three than former McCain running mate and current Queen of the Wingnuts Sarah Palin. Her use of Facebook to forgo the media and their pesky fact-checkers wins Sarah the gold this year. And this award isn't the only coveted award Sarah's Facebook page has won; she also takes home Politifact's Lie of the Year for her "death panels" claim regarding healthcare reform legislation.

No one deserves both awards more.


Biggest Prick
Always a very competitive field, but Sen. Joe Lieberman takes this one in a walk. Serial betrayer, obstructionist, and all around jerkwad, Joe takes this award mainly for his ever-shifting reasons for blocking healthcare reform. It quickly became obvious that Joe was irrational, driven only by a grudge against progressives who opposed his re-election.

Joe's reasons for blocking the legislation switched between stupid and dishonest so often that you sometimes wondered if he wasn't Sarah Palin in disguise. If Democrats don't physically pick him up and throw him out of their caucus in 2010, he's just going to continue being the whiny little traitor he is now. It's not even 2010 yet and Joe's already contending for the same award in the coming year.


Biggest Herd of Morons
Without a doubt, this one goes to the Teabaggers. Convinced that everything under the sun is a Communist plot by President Obama -- who's a Marxist, like Hitler -- tea party protesters proved that there's nothing so stupid and historically ignorant that some group of lunatics won't take it as gospel.

These are the people who Sarah Palin's Facebook trollery is aimed at, so that gives us a measure as to just how dumb these people are -- they're routinely fooled by Sarah Palin. They freaked out at town halls, brought guns to protests, and accomplished absolutely nothing.

Well, other than making public asses of themselves.


"How Can We Miss You If You Won't Go Away" Award
After the disaster that was the Bush administration, you'd expect the Bushies to slink off in disgrace. But that would require some amount of shame and former Vice President Dick Cheney is fresh out.

After spending eight years arguing that no one should criticize the president in a time of war, Dick's spent a lot of time criticizing the president in a time of war. Dick was widely considered the real brains of the operation that was the Bush White House, so the big flaming wreck that is the years 2001-2009 can safely be laid on his shoulders.

Yeah, let's listen to this moron...


It's Wasn't All Bad
After all, we elected Barack Obama, the first African-American President in US history. After enjoying near-universal approval at the beginning, his ratings fell to more normal levels in recent days and many liberals have expressed disappointment.

Still, consider the alternative... Yeah, so shut up. You've got it sweet, comparatively.

-Wisco


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