How did he keep it down to 30?

I’m just surprised Billy Kristol was only 17.

It’s a fun exercise. People are predictably enough debating the decisions about which hacks to include and in what order all over the left side of the blogospewer, in a “No no, the Mummy is creepy, but Dracula is more just pure evil!” sort of way.

He should do a top 30 hack tactics – you know, the old “I’m a liberal, and I’m here to say Dems will keep on have trouble at the polls until they stop hating America”.

Or the “I’m and independent-minded conservative with a token liberal opinion – now here’s 30 minutes of rote-memorized doctrinaire talking points from this morning’s RNC email”.

If Halperin wins, it’ll be good news for John McCain. Kristol at 17. Clearly a tough field.

What, no David Broder? No Richard Cohen? I agree that York is hacktacular, but the regularity with which the two I’ve noted are inflicted upon the public-at-large should give them a leg up over amateurs like York. Besides, if they give York a spot, they’ll also have to give one to his hair, Milton.

Apparently, some poor bastard is married to Laura Ingraham. However, that poor bastard is not me, so there’s something to be thankful for.

Jon-ah! Jon-ah! Jon-ah!

Though I’m not sure he has the body of work (tee hee) to compete with the decades of pure hackism spewed by others on this list. And the beauty of this compilation will be that each of the Heroes of Hackism will trumpet their inclusion as a badge of honor, thus propelling the perpetual motion machine of lack of self-awareness on the right ever forward.

I fully expect Meggers to have an article up any minute in response. Or at least one on the importance of using ONLY top grade Brazilian marshmallows to top off the candied yams for thanskgiving. Win-win.

Pretty sweet takedown of the Bowtie of Doom. I had completely forgotten how far he had his nose jammed up Ronnie Raygun’s asshole back in the day.

Hadn’t ever seen/heard of S.E. Cupp before. Judging by the intended effect of her head shot, “S.E.” appears to be an unusual abbreviation for “Two Girls One.”

Well, Goldblurgh is #7, so that’s shot to hell. Thiessen at #6 portends great things for the top 5.

Dude, are you spying on my brain?? I just got over that whole blackout thing yesterday, and you pegged it! Especially the whole “why-am-I-naked-from-the-waist-down afterglow.” You just made my morning, sir, thank you! Hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

You know what’s really sad? I can’t think of anyone on our side of the fence that gets enough media exposure to be considered a hack. I’m sure some rightwing stooge is busy putting together his version of our top 30…but it’s going to be real difficult getting the general reading republic to recognize any of them.

I wonder what the combined income is for this group o’ hacks? I’d say it’s well north of 30 silver pieces.

So here’s my list of the Top 5-

Rush Limbaugh
Bill O’Reilly
Ann Coulter
Sean Hannity
Pat Buchanon

In thinking about the previous post, I’m sure the stooge would immediately put KO, Ed Schultz,Larry O’Donnell and Maddow (anyone see a pattern here?)on the list….then he or she would stroke out trying to come up with another hi-profile media candidate from the progressive side.

As of today, the list is up (down) to #3 – Tom Friedman.

Others you may have missed are:
10. Peggy Noonan
9. Laura Ingraham
8. Maureen Dowd
7. Jonah Goldberg
6. Marc Theissen
5. Marty Peretz
4. David Broder

Worthy choices all!

What, you expect them to leave off before they’ve finished the breath? Michael Moore, of course. And Jimmy Carter, because he writes a column every now and then and he’s UGLY.

All it takes is to be recognizable, and Not One Of Us (for their values of Us).

Friedman #3.

David Broder ranks [literally] #4, beaten out by the more-rank Thomas Friedman @ #3.

So, #2 is Halperin. Which leaves us with…whom?

Cohen!

I think my choices were in the wrong category. Those would be best described as ‘propagandists’.

Anyways, #1 will be most interesting. I imagine the Washington elite are clicking on the story every 2 minutes to see who the winner is. Sucks to be Halperin…who wants to be known as #2?

In the future, we should always refer to these folks by their #. “#9 said today that…..”

Washington Post : Hackery :: SEC : College Football

Many memorable lines during this exercise, but I especially love this one describing Cohen.

There’s no subject on which Richard Cohen is not completely inessential.

Substitute any of the thirty.

Here’s hoping O’Keefe and Breitbart top the list. the obnoxiuous buggers should both be doing time.

Fuck. I lost my office pool.

Don’t feel bad. At that level of hackitude, only random chance makes sense as a betting strategy. What’s sobering to realize is that nearly all of these folks are columnists for our top news publications, and the ones who aren’t probably will be soon…

I guess by that logic, the New York Times is the Big Eight.

yeah, that one jumped up and gave me a big wet kiss as well

haven’t been disappointed in any yet

thanks TBogg !

Judging by the intended effect of her head shot, “S.E.” appears to be an unusual abbreviation for “Two Girls One.”

There I was thinking that the “S” stood for “Sipp”.

Pareene has done a good job of distinguishing partisans who, though they may be hateful fucks, are good at being partisans, and hacks who are good at nothing except being hacks.

Read the comments at Salon…have to say, Krauthammer was a major miss. And Barnes, Kondracke, and that cokehead, whatshisname, were also deserving of at least an honorable mention.

I think there also should have been a category foe ‘Group Hack’. NRO would have had no competition.

Shameless liar Bill Kristol only made it to #17. This is the guy whose picture ought to be in the dictionary next to the definition of “liar.”

How come the author(s) can throw up to an F bomb; but US readers can’t even add a flagrant Zionist to this hack list?

Wonder why no Ruth Marcus?

Yes, excellent reading, though I would have rated David Brooks nearer the top than at No. 30.

Krauthammer clearly should have been HIGH on the list!

Reading the comments re Friedman led me to two articles by Matt Taibbi reviewing The Moustache of Wisdom’s vile books. Taibbi’s prose [from 2005 & 2009] had me rolling on the ground in laughter.

http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html

http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html

Dear hardtoport and Mauimom,

The amount of bile building in my bile-filled spleen cannot possibly measure the level of bitterness I have for this world and, especially, you fucking hippies.

Best Fucking Regards,

Kraut

p.s. Get off my lawn!

gunsbeforebutter, might I suggest listening to a little KennyG or some smoothjazz to help with the bile?

Does iTunes have smoothjazz’s “Over the Bus” featuring such classics as:

“unmitigated DISASTER, LOL”
“Palin Haters and ankle biters, LOL”
“Go ahead flame away Haters!”
“keep dangerous objects close to the vest, LOL”
“Like OBomb you come across as a snot ass”
“only SUPER SMART people know what “Over the Bus” means. LMMFAO.”

and, everyone’s favorite holiday tune: “I just GOOGed”

Pareene has done a good job of distinguishing partisans who, though they may be hateful fucks, are good at being partisans, and hacks who are good at nothing except being hacks.

Good point. This isn’t an enemies list – it’s a “don’t bother” list.

Thanks so much for drawing our attention to Pareene’s wonderful “Hack Thirty” list. I wish I’d had this list when Keith Olbermann got suspended. It would have made it much easier to see through all the pontifications about objective journalism in the mainstream media. The MSM is just as deceptive as Fox, although it fits into a different niche in the ecosystem of paid deceit. Pareene repeatedly mentions the woeful absence of accountability in the MSM. The Hack Thirty is a step toward filling that accountability vacuum.

The one problem I have with this list is that the criteria for inclusion are so heterogeneous. Some of these people are merely windbags, but others are serious professional liars. And conversely, because this is a hack list rather than a rogues’ gallery (and because it limits itself arbitrarily to 30), it omits many of the worst professional liars of all. I would like to see a website devoted specifically to documenting the lack of credibility of prominent MSM figures whose repeated and spectacular pattern of dishonesty has made them unworthy of being listened to or believed (a single lapse, however egregious, would not qualify). Precedents exist – like this list, like David Corn’s book The lies of George W. Bush, like a periodical called Lies of our Times put out by some of the Chomsky-Herman radicals, devoted to calling out the New York Times. But I would like to see something more systematic. I don’t have the resources (including legal counsel!) right now to do the job myself, but for anyone who’s interested, the domain name professional-liars.com has not yet been registered.

This S.E. Cupp quote from the Salon article is as bad as it gets:

I don’t really care that polar bears may not live to see the birth of my great-grandkids, or that I just shot a deer with my 12-gauge, since it will make for really tasty jerky…

Shot a deer with my 12-gauge? What a dumbass. Maybe NYU graduates shoot deer with a shotgun, but nobody else does.

She clearly suffers from Dennis Miller disease, right-wing hipness. Miller does nothing anymore except endlessly repeat right-wing bullshit, but he shows how cool he still is by throwing in an occaissional “fuck” here and there. So cool. So pathetic.

Apparently, some poor bastard is married to Laura Ingraham…

No. No one is now, or has ever been, married to Laura Ingraham. I know, big surprise, right?

It’s a fine line between a hack and a propagandist. Correction, it’s more like one big blur. The difference might be the hack thinks he’s being non-partisan while the propagandist knows he’s not.

If there’s any positive outcome to this Top 30 list, maybe having them all exposed and lumped together as agents of the status quo will force some of them to start re-examining the pablum they peddle.

I really hope this becomes an annual blogging event. I’d love to get a chance to actually vote on my choices and have the Top 30 developed on the aggregate results of a vote. The Hackey’s! First prize could be a trophy with a symbolic garbage can. Maybe we need to embarrass these people into doing informed, honest journalism/opinion/editorials.

“No Richard Cohen?”

Jenn wins the pool.

Sure would like to see Media Whores Online resurrected. I really never understood why that site folded….seemed like it was quite effective exposing the clown class. But “professional-liars.com” has a nice ring to it and would be the perfect hosting site for the Hackey’s Award. Someone could make a good living keeping these people honest.

That is not the worst of the S.E. Cupp quote, she is proud of not caring if polar bears are driven into extinction, and then this…

“and nature’s bounty is mine for the taking.”

Fuck her.

Though I’m not sure he has the body of work (tee hee)

Hence his nick, “Jonah the Whale.”

Shot a deer with my 12-gauge? What a dumbass. Maybe NYU graduates shoot deer with a shotgun, but nobody else does.

Actually, a shotgun firing slugs is an excellent deer weapon. A bullet the size of your thumb has hella stopping power.

My only concern with this list is that McMegan will redouble her efforts output after being shut out, and we don’t really need any more foolish words on the economy at the moment.

Otherwise, a delightful, if not comprehensive, list.

I’m really a bit surprised that Alex went with Cupp over established players like McMegan (if you prefer “always wrong”) and Cokie Roberts (if you prefer “vapidly inessential.”) No Cokie? The woman hasn’t uttered a useful word since…well, anyways. That’s like taking Miley Cyrus over Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross.

Taibbi is a national treasure. I am currently reading Griftopia and within the first 10 pages he nails what ails the Tea Party – they think that the government that they are (often legitimately) pissed at is the same one for Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.