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John Hawkins of Right Wing News likes to compile lists such as the Top 15 Hottest Conservative Women Who Haven’t Filed For A Restraining Order…. Yet. or the Top Ten Reasons Your Sucky Blog Is Worse Than My Sucky Blog. Lordy, lordy, John certainly likes his lists because they get him lots of linky love and attention of the kind you usually have to pay 50 bucks for downtown. But then last week John made the mistake of inviting a bunch of fellow knuckldraggers, bedwetters, and Professor Bainbridge (who really should should know better) to select the 20 Worst Americans of All Time. The results were sad and hilarious, but mostly sad in a hilariously sad kind of way.
To his credit, John has owned up to his very-dumb not-so-bright what-the-fuck-were-you-thinking mistake:
Last week, I did a conservative blogger poll of the 20 worst figures in American history that has been heavily criticized by both the Left and the Right. You know what I say about that? Regrettably, I have to say that much of the criticism had merit. The list, which was compiled via blogger vote, wasn’t all that good.
Which is to say that John either didn’t know how stupid it would look until it was pointed out to him, or he said “Fuck it. Run that baby!” As part of his mea fuckedup culpa (which is latin for “my bad, yo”), John admits:
Also, it’s worth noting that in a poll like this, there is ALWAYS going to be a heavy bias towards recent history. Had this been a list of the worst figures in the last 40 years of American history, then people like Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton, and Harry Reid, who seem out of place on a historical list, would have richly merited inclusion. Placed against the worst people in American history, they don’t quite rise up to that level — but, that’s an easy mistake to make. Even some liberal historians who were polled during the Bush years were ranking him as the worst President of all-time. That’s every bit as ridiculous as having Jimmy Carter as the worst figure in American history — and even historians were making that mistake.
Yeah, stoopid old historians calling George Bush the worst President ever while he was still in office. What kind of dumbass would do something like that?
Yeah, here it comes…
The Official John Hawkins Private Reserve Worst Figures In American History list thing:
Aaron Burr: Shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel and led a treasonous plot to take over part of the United States.
Aldrich Ames: A CIA spy for the Soviets.
Al Capone: The Chicago mob boss whose name is synonymous with organized crime.
Alger Hiss: Hiss was a Soviet agent who penetrated to the highest levels of FDR’s administration
Barack Obama: His profligate spending, at a time when the United States desperately needed to cut back, imperiled the continued prosperity of the country in a way no previous President ever had before….
Say what? What’chu talkin’ ’bout Hawkins?
Current President Barack Obama made the list? The Kenyan guy? Really?
It’s almost as if John Hawkins doesn’t even read his own posts… even if it was only three paragraphs before.
But wait. There’s more…
Hoping to achieve the kind of notoriety usually afforded to that kid in the back of the school bus who will eat his own boogers for a nickel just so the other kids will acknowledge his existence, Hawkins doubles down with…another list.
The Seven Greatest Presidents in American History
Why only seven? Because either there were only seven good ones or shut up is why. Does that answer your question? Okay, then.
And who are these seven? I honestly don’t know. I only got this far:
After talking about The 7 Worst Presidents Of The Last Hundred Years at Townhall last week, it seems natural to move on to the 7 greatest Presidents in American history. Since below average and mediocre Presidents are quite common while truly extraordinary Presidents are very rare, it seems appropriate to focus on the greatest Presidents in American history instead of just looking at the last 100 years. So, let’s get started….
7) Sarah Palin (2012): In the spirit of giving Barack Obama a Nobel Prize for what he was going to do as President, Sarah Palin is getting the number seven slot for what she will surely do when she defeats Hillary Clinton in 2012, after Hill crushes Obama in a brutal primary. Palin will not only be remembered as our first female President, she’ll control the borders, get spending under control, and win the war on terror after we went backwards on that front during the failed Obama presidency….
Oh dear.
John….. John Hawkins. Yeah, you. Put down the booger. Here’s some friendly advice:
Learn it. Live it.
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The 7 Worst Presidents Of The Last Hundred Years? But there have only been 16 or 17, for pity’s sake.
That’s like a list of “The ten best Glenn Greenwald blog posts out of the last twenty” or “The two thousand best contributors to the International Panel on Climate Change Report” out of the four thousand IPCC authors who won the Nobel Prize.
A list of “The one hundred stupidest right wing bloggers” obviously at this point would include, lessee, scritch scritch, carry the two, okay that makes….
All of them.
So often these days I can’t help but recall Lee Camp’s brief but memorable moment on Faux: “Ohh… can I just ask a question? What is Faux News? It’s just a parade of propaganda innit it? It’s just a festival of ignorance…”
It’s only for the entertainment value that I keep watching this shit. When even a wingnut such as Rick Moran calls you out on your juvenile bullshit and you think it’s a worthwhile effort to defensively re-do your list, then it ought to be obvious that what you’re doing is worse than time wasting. It’s indulging in stupid so transparent that even your allies see the futility of it.
Problem is, this sort of (I don’t even know what to call it, commentary? advocacy? activism?) has become the essence of wingnut “thought” these days, and it’s too often taken seriously by the Villagers amongst us. I miss the smart country I used to know and love.
Cue the Star Trek babes!
He says it’s ridiculous that historians named Bush the worst president ever, given the lack of time that had passed. etc. – and then names Obama the worst president ever. Also, what’s with blaming Carter for the Iranian Revolution? What about America’s role in the 1953 coup?
At least he claims to be against segregation, but his reasons for liking presidents are awfully wacky. And that Palin thing, even as a joke (as he claims it is) is awful. I’d deride it as horrible political prediction, but then I realized it’s just the usual fapping.
So, his basic excuses are that “Well, these people are idiots with the attention spans of common mosquito larvae, and even if they weren’t, this kind of exercise would always be pointless because of these predictable failings, but I do this every year anyway because it’s not fair that Jonah Goldberg gets all the crazylove”?
Well okay then.
None of these cretins ever notice that the “great” Presidents were merely the ones who happened to be in office when something awful & potentially fatal to the nation happened (various wars, a depression, for example) &, because the country survived, are considered to be some hot shit.
Not unlike Mr. Roberts, where Doc postulates that Ensign Pulver, in a B-29 hit over Tokyo, would repair the plane bare-handed, & land it using his bare feet for landing gear, but make him the Laundry & Morale Officer for a tub plying the backwaters, & he becomes, well, Ensign Pulver.
Of course, our streak of luck may have run out.
That’s all?
He must’ve been having a bad day if that’s all he could come up with. Even I could come up with more major liberal pariahs who actually wanted to make the country a better place.
They’re BAD: Harry Truman, though he did drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan so
he gets a pass. FDR almost brought USA to it’s knees : think of all the people who would’ve starved to make the world a better place. Lincoln won the Civil War, but he also freed the slaves. He’ll have to go into the Good/Bad category.
And the people who wanted to make the world a better place for the have nots, but just the haves. I shudder to think how long that list might be.
Not to mention poor Aaron Burr still getting a bum rap.
Even some liberal historians who were polled during the Bush years were ranking him as the worst President of all-time. That’s every bit as ridiculous as having Jimmy Carter as the worst figure in American history — and even historians were making that mistake.
Historians? The people who study the past and therefore might actually have a well of knowledge to draw from to allow them to make intelligent, informed comparisons? That’s the same as willfully ignorant hacks with the attention span of gnats arguing whether history’s greatest monster is Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter?
Man, they just can’t go a day without trying to find someone to hate on that everybody agrees with. They’re like 5-year olds.
I brought up the ’53 coup to a friend of mine who agitates for swaggering dick foreign policy and he blew it off, “I’m sure there was more to it than just oil.”
*snicker*
Much as I love the Full Retard clip, I’m not sure it applies. The weirdest part of this to me is how not-badly Hawkins writes, vs. the patent imbecility of what he says. Oh, and the self-contradicting obliviousness of it all. I suggest we need a more fine-tuned diagnosis than “full retard.”
Doctors?
Hey, 5-year olds usually don’t go around hatin’. They’re mostly an incredibly enthusiastic and cheerful crowd (which is why I prefer their company to that of most adults…) It’s only when they grow up and come to realize what a completely fucked up place they live in that they get their grump on. And I really can’t blame ‘em.
It’s like asking a fruit fly what was the best day of his life.
President…(chuckle)…Sarah…(guffaw)…Palin….(dissolves into heap on floor)…in your wet dreams, sir. Let’s face it, she ain’t even gonna get nominated, cause 2012 is all about…Mittabee!!! Fuck yeah!!!
Yeah, Carter was so bad that, had we actually followed through on his vision, we’d be energy independent from the ME oil, probably a few more trillion in the GDP, and we’d have an economy that people are working in to provide alternative/renewable energy and a post-oil infrastructure. But no, Republicans had too much money to make partnering with their friends in the ME to do what was right for this country and convinced Iran to hold the hostages until after the election.
But, seriously, aren’t you at least a little bit ashamed of ridiculing a special needs person?
OK, Carter? I still can’t get that this worm is defending Carter as one of the worst monsters of recent American history. I had the honor of hearing President Carter speak while I was at St. Olaf College, and he was every bit as gracious and humble and eloquent and thoughtful as I had thought he would be. Look at his life post-presidency and tell me that this man is a monster. He is worth a thousand John Hawkins (a McEstimate, see BJ for reference) at least.
I’d be interested in whether or not he ranks W as one of the “Seven greatest Presidents”.
I was thinking this morning that W isn’t even the greatest President named George Bush.
Next John Hawkins list: “Top Ten Chins on My Face”.
Dude, yeah, chins…
That boy got some jowls. Yeesh. Lay off the twinkies, my brother.
And if his list starts with fapping, you know where it ends.
I really shouldn’t have to say it.
Ronald Reagan.
I hate to resort to an ad hominem argument, but looking at the picture, I don’t believe one could discern where the booger begins and the rest leaves off. Even though I enjoy watching Michael Steele make an idiot of himself, I think I would have had to whisper to him and loan him my butter knife to scrape his coat.