The Knucklehead of the Year award- Politics

Time to give out our fifth Knucklehead of the Year award. This time it is the politics category. As one may guess, TFM gives many awards to deserving candidates in this field. Just click here and you'll see for yourself.

Click here, here, here, and here to see our other year end award winners for 2006.

Our Judging Panel remains the same. They are-

Greta from Hooah Wife and Friends
Don Surber
The Professor from Right Wing Nation
Doyle from A Cool Change
Jim from Bright & Early
James Joyner from Outside the Beltway
Dr. Steven Taylor from Poliblog
Jo from Jo's Cafe
Mr C from Peer Review FL
John in Carolina
Right in Florida
Rick from Stuck on the Palmetto
Bullwinkle
and Yours Truly. A big thank you to all the bloggers who helped out.

There were so many strong candidates, TFM nominated ten semifinalists. They are-

Jack Abramoff
President George W Bush
Former President Jimmy Carter
The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party
Mark Foley
George Galloway
Katherine Harris
Denny Hastert and Nancy Pelosi
Kim Jong-ll
Cynthia McKinney
Vladimir Putin

Comments from our judges-

Dr. Taylor called this a tough vote.

James Joyner said- "I'm not sure Foley is a "knucklehead," just a scumbag."

John in Carolina wrote- "Politics

This was the toughest category in which to select “a winner.” All nominees were so deserving.

To narrow the field, I used a process of elimination based on two questions:

1) How much harm has each nominee done?

2) Could the nominee have easily avoided doing at least a substantial portion of the harm he/she did?

That helped me easily narrow my choices to Kim Jong-Il and Jimmy Carter.

It got really tough after that.

I went back and forth between the two before I finally settled on Carter.

While both have done great harm, Carter earned my “vote” because he could have so easily avoided much of the harm he’s done.

Carter’s presidency was a four year “train wreck,” at the end of which he and his aides tried to convince the American people it was all their fault.

But even Ted Kennedy didn't believe that as he frequently said during his battle with Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.

Carter’s presidency was so bad that, when I finished thinking about question one: how much harm each has done, I had him in a tie with Kim Jong Il.

But then I got to question two: could either Carter or Kim have avoided much of the harm they've done?

Kim was raised by his father, a Communist dictator. He’s dependent on the Communists in China. He’s never had a chance to live in America and learn what a great country it is.

In Carter’s case, maybe as President he couldn’t help doing the harm he did America and the free world. He only had four years. Perhaps he’s a slow learner. Maybe he only figured it all out while he sat listening to President Reagan’s first inaugural address.

But post-president, Carter has no excuse. And except for when he’s swung a hammer for Habitat for Humanity, what’s he done during the last quarter of a century?

It’s been mostly slime and blame America, undercut her foreign policy, slam Israel, and excuse terrorists.

In the end my vote turned out to be easy: Carter hands down.

Mr. C wrote-

"1 Cynthia McKinney gets Rocky Balboa on us

2 Jimmy Carter blames the Jews… again

3 George Galloway says go ahead, make my day"

Greta said- Politics

"1. Jimmah "I hate Isreal" Carter
2. Foley the IM man
3. Kim Jong Ill in the head"

Doyle wrote the following as to why she voted Cynthia McKinney #1-

"Blow by the security everyone else has to follow, and when a cop stops you, slug him! Next, issue an apology, but then clarify it immediately with a non-apology and then call ANOTHER press conference to ramble on about inappropriate touching. Oh, and let’s have some music, too, so that you can sway back and forth, forth and back, with a joy-filled look on your face, eyes gazing upward into endless emptiness!

After a showing like this, Ms. McKinney ran for reelection. And in an election year where Democrats took control of both the House and Senate, she couldn’t even win the primary in which she ran as the incumbent.

In this category, Ms. McKinney is definitely the Knucklehead most worthy of special recognition."

TFM voted for Vladimir Putin. It was the only first place vote the Russian President got. I guess none of the other judges wanted to risk death by radiation poisoning old age.

The winner is..........

Former President Jimmy Carter!

Jimmy Carter joins Florida Department of Children and Families, Hilton Hotels, The New York Times and Andrew Tilley as 2006 Knucklehead of the year finalists. Please come back tomorrow to see who the next of our eight finalists is. On Decmeber 31st the Grand Knucklehead of 2006 will be announced. Have a great day.

Linked to- Adam's Blog, Basil's Blog, Bright & Early, Cao's Blog, Hill Chronicles, Jo's Cafe, Perri Nelson, Pirate's Cove, Planck's Constant, Pursuing Holiness, Right Wing Guy, Right Wing Nation, Samantha Burns, Third World County, Wakeup America, Outside the Beltway,