The Biggest Losers of 2008

For this, the third edition of my Biggest Losers list, it wasn't that hard to find candidates, this being an election year. Who knows, some of these people may soon be sharing a cell. A cell as in a 6X9 gray/green room with bars. Recent developments in Illinois made me glad this list wasn't compiled earlier in December. Without further ado:

10 Biggest Loser/2008Joe Sixpack.

After Sarah Palin dropped Joe's name in the Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden (mind if I call ya' Joe?), we never heard that much more about Joe Sixpack due to the stampede to record Joe "The plumber's" every utterance. Where have you gone, Joe Sixpack, our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you...

9. Joe "the Plumber".

Joe the plunger would have been a more accurate handle for Joe Wurzelbacher, given the fact that he has no plumbers' license. I suspect that Joe the plunger was planted as Barack Obama made the rounds of that Ohio neighborhood. In any event, Joe Wurzelbacher learned the flip side of 15 minutes of fame as he was paraded around at John McCain rallies. Rather than focus on the facts of Joe's record, the GOP tried to "shoot the messenger" by discrediting the source. Well, the shooter might as well have been Dick Cheney. This loser is "blowing a gasket" trying to cash in on his newfound fame. Pull the plug!

8. Joe Lieberman

The only reason the three Joes aren't ranked higher on the list is the fact that Barack Obama chose not to punish "Holy" Joe Lieberman by yanking his chairmanship of his Senate committee. This guy has now been at the forefront of two Presidential elections. He's now 0-2.

7. Tim Mahoney

This Florida Congressman who replaced Mark Foley of the 2006 male page scandal, ran to "restore morals and family values" to Washington before getting caught paying a former female staffer $121,000 to settle her sexual harassment claim against him. Voters turned the page on the Foley era only to elect a heterosexual harrasser. When will voters figure out that most of this "family values" smokescreen is window-dressing? Mahoney was defeated in November, by the way.

6. Elizabeth Dole

Elizabeth "Don't call me Liddy" Dole, who only spent a handful of days a year in her state of North Carolina during her Senate term, resorted to a clumsy smear attempt against her opponent this fall. In an attack ad that was aired by the Dole campaign, Dole's opponent, Kay Hagan, was called "Godless' even though Hagan is an Elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, NC. Dole, who must have thought that the Senate seat was low-hanging fruit, had her ticket punched by North Carolina voters, as Tar Heels voted to recall this lemon.

5. Tony Alamo

A Jim Jones wannabe cult leader, Tony Alamo, whose real name is Bernie Hoffman, was arrested in his compound in Fouke, AR in September for molesting young girls. Alamo says he doesn't marry girls from the ages of 9 and up, but it's okay to do so as long as the girls have achieved puberty. Back in the early 90's, Alamo's holdings in Alma, AR were seized for paying his workers slave wages and cheating on his taxes, among other charges. Alamo was sent to the Federal Pen where he did a few years time, never stopping publication of his raging anti-Catholic rantings. Alamo claims the Vatican owns and operates the U.S. government. Years ago, after Alamo's late wife Susan died, Alamo claimed his wife would be resurrected on Easter Sunday and refused to have her body embalmed, keeping it in a freezer located in the compound. A local DJ used to dedicate the song Wake Up Little Susie to her and Alamo's real name of Bernie spawned jokes about the film Weekend at Bernies. In the 80's film, two guys propped up a dead VIP, Bernie, pretending to be his buddies.

4. Ted Stevens

The soon to be former senior Senator from Alaska, the pork barrel King who siphoned off way more federal funds than such a small state could expect to garner, was indicted, convicted and finally, defeated. Ted Stevens must have really delivered the pork to be convicted right before the election and lose his bid for reelection by only a hair, and a Joe the plunger hair, at that. Stevens in the final days of his umpteenth reelection bid claimed he could still serve if reelected since his conviction was not official until he had been sentenced by a Judge. If that didn't fly the line was that he was appealing the conviction. This was after a longtime friend was the key witness for the prosecution in Steven's case. Having half-price home improvements done by a special interest and lying about it, among 6 other felony charges, cost Stevens a 40 year career in the U.S. Senate. Don't be surprised if George W. Bush pardons Ted Stevens on his way out of Washington.

3. Elliot Spitzer

The disgraced former Governor of New York made a name for himself as a "tough-guy" Prosecutor of such crimes as prostitution and white collar financial shenanagins. In a previous article on Spitzer, I discussed the hypocrisy of Spitzer in detail as he was exposed as a whoremonger and crook of the highest (or lowest) order. The arrogance of Eliot Spitzer was truly astonishing. Like the story by Hans Christian Andersen, this emperor had no clothes.

2. Rod Blagojevich

I suppose we could reverse the order of #'s 2 and 3. Attempting to sell a U.S. Senate seat is not immoral on a level with Eliot Spitzer's crimes to be sure. However, if I remember correctly, Eliot Spitzer didn't know he was under FBI surveillance when he committed his crimes. The sheer brazenness of Rod Blagojevich's crimes knowing his phones were probably tapped and he was surely being followed....is, as they say in the Mastercard ads, priceless. You might give my10 New Years resolutions for Rod Blagojevich a read, by the way. Shameless plug alert. By the time you read this, Blago may have been forced out by the Illinois legislature. Poor guy! In Illinois when the cry of 4 more years is heard by a politician, the crowd is chanting not for another 4 year term as Governor, but another 4 years to be added onto a Governor's sentence.

O.J. Simpson

Over 13 years after his acquittal on murder charges by a Los Angeles jury, O.J. Simpson was convicted on several felony charges in Las Vegas. In a bungled robbery attempt in which Simpson claimed he was trying to recover items that belonged to him, what O.J. didn't count on was video cameras capturing the scene. Simpson had apparently stashed the some memorabilia with friends in an attempt to shield the items from Fred Goldman, who of course, won the civil suit against Simpson after the acquittal in the criminal case. O. J. Simpson, 61, was sentenced on Dec. 6th, 2008 to a minimum of 9 years in the state pen 40 years and a day after winning college football's most coveted (and hyped) award, the Heisman Trophy.

These ten had some pretty stiff competition for the coveted 10 Biggest Losers of 2008. John McCain and Sarah Palin were considered, of course. However, given the fact that Sarah Palin was vaulted from the obscurity of a small state Governor to the probable frontrunner for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2012 and John McCain was spared the seemingly impossible task of cleaning up George W. Bush's mess..this pair could be considered winners in a twisted sort of way.

One of the real Biiggest Losers of 2008 was the far right wing of the Republican Party as the so-called "religious right" drove the GOP off a cliff, politically speaking. Losing numerous seats in both Houses of Congress and the Presidency, maybe the GOP will get the message that extremism ultimately leads to repudiation by the voting public. If Barack Obama attempts to lead the country too far to the left, he will discover the same thing.

The absolute Biggest Losers of 2008 were the morons hanging Barack Obama in effigy on Halloween like a guy in Ohio. Not much better were those peddling ridiculous conspiracy theories about Obama or his birth certificate and hammering Barack Obama for supposedly being a Muslim on the one hand and then attacking Obama for his former Church of Christ Pastor Jeremiah Wright on the other.

One of the traditions of the annual Biggest Losers list is the whining messages from the right like "I notice you have more Republicans on your list than Democrats" yadda, yadda, yadda. There are three Democrats on the list and an Independent who was a VP candidate for the Dems, not that I set out to make a balanced list. Any such list without Eliot Spitzer or Rod Blagojevich would not have any objectivity. The list is for those, especially public officials, who have abused the public trust in exchange for money or power. And, of course garden variety flakes like Joe the plunger.