Top Ten Turkeys of the Year

  That great American Benjamin Frankin is one of the most respected figures throughout our nation’s history. But even he had his off days —- like when he proposed that America’s symbol not be the eagle, but rather the turkey.
  To quote Rick Perry: “Oops.”
  The turkey makes for a great family feast on Thanksgiving, but it’s a lousy image for our great nation.
  In fact, calling somebody a turkey is quite the insult.
  Every year there are turkeys that walk among us. They grab headlines by either making dubious remarks or by flaunting their bad behavior, or both. They are usually obsessed with media coverage, and more often than not the media acts like the rats to these pied pipers.
  And so, here is this year’s list of the Top Ten Turkeys of 2011:
 
  10. Sarah Palin: Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Princess Photo-Op can’t even manage to get above tenth place on a turkey list. Face it, Mama Grizzly had a bad year. Her descent started with her self-righteous and shamless rant after Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot. The Princess tried to make it all about herself. Her rehearsed video was not only an insult to the victims of the Tucson shooting rampage, but to an America that is never ashamed to show compassion. Palin was finally exposed for what many of us have known all along: a pathetic self-promoting brainless twit.
   9. Mitch McConnell: The Republican Senate Minority Leader from Kentucky said that his party’s top priority was to make sure Barack Obama was a one-term president. Not to put Americans back to work or turn the economy around. This turkey with the brain of a glazed yam is more concerned about an election a year off and will let the economy continue to sink deeper into the abyss. Makes sense, since his party designed the blueprint that got us there in the first place.
   8. Ahh-nold: The former gov of California fathered a child 11 years ago out of wedlock with a maid he kept on his payroll as a domestic for him and his wife Maria Shriver. All the time the little terminator was running around the Schwarzeneggar household. Shriver ended up divorcing the governator after apparently never realizing that the kid was a dead ringer for the Kindergarten Cop. Ahh-nold never fessed up to this while in office. The fact that he had the glockenspiels to parade his gapped-toothed spawn around the household with all the other kinders makes him a turkey with all the dressing.
   7. Pepper spraying cops: The gestapo tactics of real police officers in New York and campus cops using pepper spray on Occupy Wall Street protesters who have the right to assembly foreshadows what will happen if the radical right wing-nuts get control of the House, Senate and White House. Welcome to the Deep South of 1963. Still, the most radical use of pepper spraying college coeds didn’t take place in Mississippi, Alabama or any other of the many militia states in the Union. It took place on the campus of UC Davis, in the bastion of liberalism, Northern California. Pelosi territory. Irony, what a concept.
   6. Audiences at Republican presidential debates: They applauded the number of executions during Rick Perry’s tenure as governor of Texas, they booed a serviceman on the frontlines in Iraq after he told the audience he was gay, they said “let him die” when responding to a hypothetical question about a young man dying who doesn’t have health insurance, and they hooted and hollered when candidates said they would bring back waterboarding. No white or dark meat for these cannibals, just raw red meat.
   5. The Super Committee: They failed just in time to make the turkey list. Democrats and Republicans who were supposed to use their super powers to agree on deficit reduction. They couldn’t agree on what to have for lunch if their lives depended on it. Their failing was as predictable as pumpkin pie for dessert. But in their case, they acted more like Jell-O. They couldn’t care less if by this time next year more Americans will be spending Thanksgiving on the breadlines. They should all be toast when they seek re-election.
   4. Fox News: OK, this “news organization” deserves the Lifetime Turkey Achievement Award for at least being consistent with its fear-mongering fascism. This year they were at their anti-American best by not giving President Obama any credit for getting bin Laden. In fact, the Foxholes mocked him by suggesting he’s probably going to “run around doing victory laps” (no doubt while draped in George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner.) One wonders if Fox was not upset that it was Obama who got bin Laden or if bin Laden was killed at all.
   3. Anthony Weiner: It took two weeks for this weasel of a Democratic congressman from New York to resign because he was sending lewd pictures of himself to women over the InterWeb. Late-night comics had a Weiner roast for weeks. Even the media couldn’t keep a straight face because his last name and his sexting scandal was a matched set. Weiner is the first lawmaker to resign because he, uh, did himself in by way of abusing social media. Anthony Weiner, a real wishbonehead.
   2. Charlie Sheen: Sorry, Charlie, only second place. The media loves covering a famous person self-destructing in plain sight, and famous whackaloons like Sheen love taking the media and viewers along for the ride that could only result in a collision course. Sheen showed us all why Middle America hates Hollywood’s spoiled brats who have it all and still want more. If this is “winning” then it’s a bad call and even instant replay got it wrong. Sheen was the highest paid actor on network TV but he gouged himself at his own feast, this turkey basting in his own dazed and confused stupor.
   1. Donald Trump: The Buffoon Tycoon gave Sheen a run for his money and came out on top of the turkey marathon. No contest: The Donald was the most over-covered blowhard media manipulator of the year. He flirted with a run for the Republican presidential nomination. The scary part was that for a short time he led the pack —– which foreshadowed all the flavors of the month that have come and gone after Republicans polled took the taste test. Meanwhile, a turkey drumstick assist award to the GOP presidential contenders who dined with the Donald as if they were going to the top of the mountain (Trump Towers) to receive sage advice on how to reach the promised land. As if he was Billy Graham with an outrageous expense account. And bad hair.