There were so many worthy nominees deserving this PlanetPOV award for The Biggest Political F#%! Up of 2011, let’s just say that there are no winners, only losers and bigger losers.
Narrowing the list down to fifteen leaves out a number of viable nominees so please feel free to vote for any of these and/or nominate your own favorites (unfavorites?) in a comment below and folks are encouraged to vote for any of those by replying to that comment affirming your vote.
In any case, please vote for a maximum of five whether in the poll below or by replying to one nominated in a comment below.
Okay, here we go, in no particular order or sane rationalization, our fifteen candidates:
[poll id=”44″]
My vote for Stupidest New Catch-Phrase for 2012: “Legitimate Rape.”
In my mind, I’d like to lump The governors of Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Florida as a representative of GOP treachery and a solid peak at how mean spirited they really are. I voted for Boehner because he has power to do damage to others. the rest of the GOP field seem more interested in shooting their toes off.
Ooops, and Indiana
Most of these are different kinds of fuck-ups, so it’s difficult to choose between them. However, since you specified political fuck-ups I’ll pick those that had the most negative political impact on those involved.
1.) It was inevitable that the Tyrants of Arabia would be at the top of this list. Their monumental cruelty and stupidity is what has led to their undoing. Obviously, none of them ever read the Evil Overlord List.
2.) Governor Walker’s anti-union rampage has to be on this list. Not only has it negatively impacted his political career – recall, anybody? – but it has damaged the conservative anti-union movement by galvanising the public against them.
3.) I dislike putting Anthony Weiner’s rather ridiculous sexting scandal so high on this list, but it cannot be denied that it had an immediate political impact. Namely, by destroying his mainstream political career. I haven’t heard of him since the scandal except as the butt of jokes.
4.) Rick Perry forgetting which agencies he would abolish put the final nail in the coffin that was his campaign. One could say that the entire GOP race is just a competition to see which vampire makes it out of the funeral parlour.
5.) Though Michele Bachmann never really had a chance in the race for the GOP nomination, her singular inability to not make things up firmly put her out of the running.
P.S. An dishonourable mention must go the the GOP’s stance on payroll tax cuts, just for sheer ironic value.
Super hard, but I had to predictably go with Mubs and MoMo sticking to their guns to the end. Revolutions kinda get my vote on this one.
They were all unwinners though.
You know it was a bad year when it’s a tough choice to select the revolts against long time tyrants throughout the ME as the top political fuckup.
Though there will be one or two top vote-getters, if any of these events happened in just about any other year, they’d likely be the hands down winner.
Wow you really need an “all of the above” button up there with this bunch AdLib.
Internationally I think what TEPCO did at Fukishima was by far the biggest eff up. Five nuclear reactors backed up by diesel power at sea level in a tsunami zone. What the hell were they thinking? Not to mention all the eff ups by TEPCO and the Japanese government during the catastrophe.
KQ – while I’d not argue with you at ALL on the enormity of this, I believe your entry is disqualified on the grounds that it is the one and perhaps only F*&# up that is not US domestic in origin. Otherwise, of course, you’d be the clear winner. If we were competing…or something.
Happy New Year!
OK – re-reading the list, TECHNICALLY the Mid East tyrants f(*%$# up on their own, our intervention did not cause them to do that, so I will have to agree that given that presence of “out of towners” on the list already, your entry WOULD rise to #1. Well done, KQ.
This wasn’t as much a political fuckup as much as it was The Top Global Fuckup of 2011. I mean, a corporation putting an entire nation at great risk due to their greed and self-interest? Who woulda guessed it?
These are mine in no particular order
Donald Trump betting all his chips and comb-overs on Obama’s Birth Certificate
(President Obama and Seth Rogan took care of this at the correspondents dinner in DC.)
WI Gov. Scott Walker’s rampage against unions, voters, free speech and apple pie.
John Boehner and The House keeping their no-tax pledge by saying “no” to payroll taxes…being cut.
Mubarak, Gaddafi and other tyrants thinking that cups never overflow.
Alabama chasing off illegal immigrants then having no one to pick their crops or blame for stealing migrant jobs from Americans.
I am sampling a book on my Kindle, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce, and I found this quote quite funny and unfortunately true(while touring with homeschooled children and their parents, the Creationist Museum in Ohio):
“It is impolite to wonder why our parents sent us all to college, and why generations of immigrants sweated and bled so their children could be educated, if it wasn’t so that we would all one day feel confident enough to look at a museum filled with dinosaurs rigged to run six furlongs at Belmont and make the not-unreasonable point that it is all batshit crazy and that anyone who believes this righteous hooey should be kept away from sharp objects and his own money. Dinosaurs with saddles? Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?
Welcome to your new Eden.
Welcome to Idiot America.”
Sue, the dumbing down of America has been decried for decades but what some might not recognize is that it seems that each decade, even the ignorant people from that time look at the level of ignorance in the people of the next decade and shake their heads, “Talk about morons!”
As for this year in fuckupery, it certainly was a bumper year. I could vote for all 15 I listed and more.
With the uprising of people around the world and OWS here in the US, it sure seems like people are on the Howard Beale train, mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.
Adlib
I just finished reading Joe McGinnis book on Palin and I think I now know why she declined this year. She would have been humiliated that her home state would not have supported or voted for her. She is actually despised now in Alaska. Probably why she bought the home in Arizona. Speaking of batshitcrazy lol