First Annual Turkey Awards

Recognizing that Thanksgiving signals the beginning of the season in which awards are given for performance in the previous year, Larry Blasko Said is mildly pleased to announce the First Annual Turkey Awards, generally honoring those who may be stuffed full of it, but seldom roast as they deserve.

The Turkey Award For Nitpicking does to the South Carolina Ethics Commission, for leveling charges of misbehavior against Gov. Mark Sanford, mostly for flying business class to places like Beijing when state policy calls for coach fare. You can read the individual nits here, including the shocking charge that Sanford, a Republican, may have used campaign funds for a trip to President Obama’s inauguration. Sanford, you’ll recall, came to national notice after disappearing for five days during which aides and his wife were told he was hiking the Appalachian trail when he was really in Argentina with his “soul mate.” Hiking, of course.

The Turkey Award For Mirror Addiction goes to Lou Dobbs, former CNN anchor who got to be former after several tussles with his bosses over the difference between unbiased news reporting and his opinions, which were, he apparently assured himself, Revealed Truth. The latest truth he’s revealed is that he won’t rule out running for president in 2012.

The Turkey Award For Greatest Group Gobble goes to the Republican National Committee,  which spent 2009 coming out in firm, principled opposition to just about everything except its own firm, principled opposition. No certain connection between that and the sudden thirst of the RNC communication director on Monday to return to his career in the private sector, a career he only abandoned in March.

The Turkey Award For Inspired Indecision goes to the so-called Mainstream Media, which is on a straight path towards being rebaptized the Tributary Trickle Media. Faced with an overwhelming onslaught of readers and advertisers abandoning them for web-based alternatives, what’s left of Mainstream has endorsed pay walls except when it hasn’t, thundered strict copyright enforcement except when it didn’t, and searched relentlessly for a clue, any clue.

The Turkey Award For Shameless Greed goes to Wall Street, which gobbled up so much “profit” on questionable investments that taxpayers had to fund mega-billion bailouts – so Wall Street could gobble up billions in bonus money reflecting stellar performance. This award is paired with the Turkey Award For Determined Innocence to the Obama Administration’s economic wizards who see no evil intent, hear no evil intent and certainly speak of no evil intent about  those struggling Wall Street titans, many of whom have been forced to cut back to only three or four homes.

The Turkey Celebrity Strut Award goes to former partial-term Alaska governor and failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has displayed a mastery of the limelight not seen since Betty Boop, and comes close you betcha to matching Boop’s intellectual and linguistic achievements. Now hustling her book Going Rogue, Palin wins for an impressive display of going commando on policy initiatives.

The Turkey Longest To Hatch Award goes to the Obama administration, which has been setting on a coherent exit policy for both Iraq and Iran for most of a year. Yeah, Old George built the nest, but the Obama crowd has spent months on it without producing either egg or chick.

Finally, the Turkey Who Types Award goes to this author, who enjoys the wonders of criticizing performance without being responsible to perform. Or as Voltaire said, “A witty saying proves nothing.”

Thank God we ain’t got none of that.

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