Speaking of 2011

   Once again this year, the USA Today-Gallup Poll declared President Obama the most admired American man and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the most admired woman.
  George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and Oprah and the first lady finished second and third in their respective gender categories.
  This is like Hillary’s upteenth time being tapped as most admired female. But there is no truth to the rumor that Meryl Streep’s next starring role will have her playing Hillary in a film tentatively called “The Pant-Suit Lady.”
  GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney didn’t fare so well on the list of most admired, so naturally he slammed it as being some kind of entitlement program. You can almost hear him now: “This president has failed at being admired. They may say he’s admired but the country isn’t admired. I’ve been admired in the private sector and as governor of Massachussets. I can do admired.”
  Poor Willard, he can put the list down because he was down on the list —- just below Alex Trebek and right above the slick car salesman who tried to sell you a used Volvo.
  On the female side, GOP contender Michele Bachmann ranked low on the list as well. She came in just behind Flo the Progressive Insurance lady, and a notch above Snooki.
  2011 was the year of the Republican candidates running for president. It started out with eight, seven men and one woman. So it was sort of like Lilly White and the Seven Dorks.
  And everyone had their 15 minutes of fame as the frontrunner, but soon fell out of favor as flavor of the month. Was that because of something they may have said? You bet’cha!
  Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s “Oops” moment from a debate where he couldn’t remember the three departments he’d cut will most likely be the most memorable, because it is, after all, one word.
  The candidates and media darlings used more than one word to get their foots in their mouths. Here are the Top Ten:
   10. Before there was “Oops,” Rick Perry called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.” Way to alienate the old folk who actually turn out in droves to vote, cowboy.
    9. History for and by Dummies: While on her “Look, it’s Me!” bus tour over the summer, Princess Photo Op Palin reminded the people in Boston that it was Paul Revere who warned the British that we were coming. Not to be outdone, Michele Bachmann told the crowd that the founding fathers put an end to slavery. And while on the stump in New Hampshire, she told the crowd that its folk should be proud of the battles fought in the Granite State like those of Lexington and Concord.
    Sorry, but thanks for playing the game, those battles were fought in Massachussets. 
    The two of them ought to team up with Rick Perry, who told a crowd about the founding fathers writing the Constitution in the 16th century.
    This is “Jeopardy!” Let’s meet today’s players: She’s a nitwit from Alaska who sees Russian leaders’ heads floating in airspace. He’s a gun-totin’ dimwit who can’t think in threes. And she’s our returning champion, a moron who met her husband when they were both helping men who like show tunes pray away the gay…
    8. Herman Cain couldn’t (and you couldn’t either) name the leader of “Ubeki-beki-beki-stan” because he had “too many things floatin’ around in my head.”
    7. Newt Gingrich’s carte blanche deal with Tiffany’s got him to thinking that poor kids could make money by working as janitors in their own schools after class. To accomplish this, fire all the union janitors and just keep one on to supervise. That’s what America needs, a president who can think of ways to put people who have families out of work. Newt Gingrich: Go to the back of the class, Eraserhead.
    6. Princess Photo-Op is back. This time with her “blood libel” flatulence while going on national TV and making Gabby Giffords getting shot all about herself. Pitiful.
    5. Bach, uh, back to Bachmann: She got her John Wayne and serial murderer John Wayne Gacy birthplaces mixed up when she was on the stump in Waterloo, Iowa, the birthplace of the killer, not the Duke. Later that summer, Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Vote. Take that, pilgrim.
    But she wasn’t done confusing great American superstars: She got a crowd all riled up, hootin’ and hollerin’ by getting them to wish Elvis a happy birthday. On the anniversary of his death. A-hunk-a-hunk-a-burnin’ brain cells…
    Numbers 4, 3 and 2 belong to frontrunner Willard Mitt Romney:
    4. Mitt joking with a group of unemployed people at a diner in Florida that, hey, he’s unemployed, too.
    3. The quote that will dog Mutt, uh, Mitt, for as long as he’s running this year: “Corporations are people, too.”
    2. And let’s not forget Man of the Middle-Class Mitt casually making a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry during the debate. Romney has a tough time coming off as honest, but this time you could win a bet by betting he had that much on him that night.
    And the number one quote from a Republican in 2011 came in just recently — made it just under the wire.
    And the quote is the recipient of the John McCain “the fundamentals of the economy are still strong” award.
    This year’s winner is House Speaker John Boehner, who, after finally caving in under pressure from his own party in the Senate, finally gave in to a two-month extension to the payroll tax cut.
    We shall always remember him pulling a Boehner when he said “Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing.”
    2012 couldn’t get here fast enough.
    It’s gonna be fun. Set your BS meters on warp speed, space cadets.