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Sunday, February 15, 2009

Golden Ellipses: The IOKIYAR Award (for Brazenness or Hypocrisy)

And the winner is...

Concern Trolling
The nominees for The IOKIYAR Award (for Brazenness or Hypocrisy) are...
  • Brian Williams Likes Barack Obama - I don't recall similar concerns when Chris Matthews was gushing about President Bush, as he landed on the aircraft carrier to declare: Mission Accomplished!
  • Defining "There" - Mallard calculus...Important: Decades old Clinton word parsing. Not Important: current Bush Administration unwillingness to define what "torture" is.
  • Concern Trolling - Falsely conflating the Democratic Primary process with voter suppression (to express grave concern over the treatment of Hillary Clinton!) while ignoring actual voter suppression from Republicans.
  • Nepotism - Mallard calculus...Important: Hillary Clinton being Bill Clinton's wife. Not Important: President Bush being President Bush's son.
  • Guilt by Association - On one hand, ascribing guilt by association with Rod Blagojevich to President Lincoln would be crazy. On the other hand, did you know Rod Blegojevich and President Obama are both from Illinois? It's true, you can look it up on Conservapedia.
Bonus points to Mallard this year for such an impressive effort, while lacking a Larry Craig figure about which to be hypocritical.

8 comments:

GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Man, these are all "winners." I guess I'll go with "guilt by association," just because of the way it's apparently A-okay to make sweeping negative generalizations about a BLUE state, but if I call, say, Mississippi a godforsaken hellhole, I'll be angrily informed I'm one of them there dreaded élitists. Bad times.

Word verification: "shining." Has Tinsley EVER had a shining moment?

Andrew Johnston said...

Tough one. I have to go with Brian Williams Likes Barack Obama simply because it's the most directly hypocritical. It's not exactly hard to find reporters slobbering over Dubya, Sarah Palin, or any of the 2008 GOP nominees (particularly Romney and Thompson). Similarly, one can effortlessly find hit pieces on Obama and HRC. Hell, as long as the AP insists on fielding people like Jennifer Loven and Ron Fournier, it's hard to take these bias claims seriously.

Nepotism is a close second. Much as I dislike HRC, there's really no comparison between her bonafides and G-Dub's. He was a complete and utter failure, while she...wasn't. (Bonus points for Tinsley's gender-ambiguous feminist)

Anonymous said...

Hillary Clinton.

It gets a double whammy from me since he absolutely refuses to acknowledge that there might be any credentials there (which has nothing to do with whether or not you like the person). Whereas Bush's were pretty run-of-the-mill or downright lower than normal.

Anonymous said...

Concern Trolling.

What happened, Mallard? I thought you agreed with your straw man here: stupid* people shouldn't vote!

*poor, black, non-conservative, women

Anonymous said...

This is a toughie. "Concern Trolling" seems to most accurately invoke the spirit of the award -- the invitation to compare Democratic primaries with GOP primaries, which of course were ALSO not open nation-wide, is immediate.

The hypocrisy in "Nepotism" is a little more subtle, but it compensates with blatant misogyny.

In the end, I have to go with "Guilt By Association", as I don't believe that Tinsley realizes that the behavior he's declaring "not OK" (unless you're a Republican) was in fact being perpetrated almost exclusively BY Republicans.

rewinn said...

Geox: Tinkley's "Shining" moment may be similar to that of the alcoholic dad in the movie.

The historical irony of "Concern Trolling" is that in much of early America, poor, rural whites couldn't vote because there you had to have a certain amount of wealth and/or land to register. IIRC ultimately the Democratic Party overcame the Federalists by finding ways around this limit.

"Nepotism" is a strong contender, because there are so many layers to its hypocrasy: Bush's nepotism, Clinton's many years of Senate experience, Palin's anti-feminist political views (... making victims pay for rape kits? what's up with THAT?); and the general attitude among most feminists that all candidates must be judged on their merits, not their genitalia.

But I just loooooooooooooooved the hypocrisy in "Brian Williams". After eight years of the corporate media sucking on George W Bush's toes and keeping their jobs, Tinkley comes up with a monument to hypocrisy that is simple, complete and perfect.

"Heck of a job, Tinkley!"

Anonymous said...

The think the individual hypocrisy in the "Concern Trolling" strip is greater, but I'm going to have to go with "Nepotism" since i was an ongoing theme.

We should also have a "least flattering strawman caricature" and nominate the poor butch overweight NOW supporter, who is apparently so ill-informed that she can't find another argument against Palin.

Jazzbumpa said...

Wow. This is stunning. I'm going with Nepotisms. But ---- Wow.

WV: lanche. I think this is a moderately unpleasant medical procedure