edited version cross-posted at Huffington Post
Worst decade: The Republican Party, from Karl Rove’s pronouncement of a “permanent majority” to total collapse and minority status.
Worst performance of the year: The Democratic Party, who after securing the White House and a Democratic majority have been so brazenly arrogant and politically incompetent as to have allowed a conservative comeback one year after people thought, said and wrote that conservatism was dead.
Biggest winner of 2009: Sarah Palin. No man could have bailed on his governorship to find himself in national news continually, with supporters growing daily, while orchestrating it all from a Facebook page, and putting so much fear into the DNC that they put out an oppo memo on her, even though she’s not running for anything (until 2012, that is).
Biggest winner of the decade: Hillary Clinton. There are no equals for this one. After being dragged in front of Starr’s tribunal in the 1990s, previously pronounced dead after “Hillarycare,” Mrs. Clinton became a highly approved New York senator, which she jettisoned into a presidential candidacy, landing as Secretary of State (a job she’s managed far better than she did her ’08 campaign), because even after the brutal primary battle Pres. Obama knew she was invaluable to have at his side, ending the decade with an approval rating higher than Barack Obama’s is today.
Most wonderful to watch in 2009: First Lady Michelle Obama, who has re-envisioned what it means to be first lady, from her guns to White House garden, not to mention her community service and the outreach to the DC community, amidst a whirling schedule as a mom of two wonderful girls. Mrs. Obama has exhibited pure, unadulterated class, non-pretension and female power in a way that no other first lady has done.
Biggest credibility collapse of the decade: John McCain, who began the decade as a maverick, much sought after Republican renegade, but who is now nothing more than a fading shadow of his former independence.
Disappointment of the decade: That Al Gore didn’t take the oath of office in 2001.
Biggest fall: Tiger Woods, because a cheating louse is one thing, but a sex addicted wee hours troll, while his kids grow up with an absentee dad, is inexcusable.
Highest ride of the decade: Fox News Channel. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, no one can beat ‘em.
Schmuck of the decade: John Edwards, whose story is so filled with embarrassing, mortifying and stupefyingly irresponsible elements that anyone who ever bought into his con should be unqualified to work in politics.
Biggest disappointment of 2009: Sen. Russ Feingold, for voting against mandatory coverage of pap smears and mammograms, because preventative care for women is too expensive.
Most powerful of 2009: Nancy Pelosi, who, love her or hate her, stood on a line to lead.
Biggest audience “screw you” of the decade: “The Sopranos” ending, with any number of choices possible other than the lame ass, lazy, cop out, unimaginative, ruined the whole series, won’t buy the DVDs, ending that David Chase & company delivered to the show’s devoted fans. (Preferred ending: They all land in Sicily Naples where Tony can exact revenge against Furio, unless Carmella runs away with him first.)
Most wonderful discovery of 2009: The way people in Virginia decorate their homes at Christmastime. Not with bright lights, though some do that; and not with big extras on the lawn, though a few do that too. Most simply reclaim a smidgen of colonial times by putting wreathes in every window, some adding lights, with spotlights on front doors, taking the onlooker back to when the Commonwealth of Virginia became so great.
Biggest rise of the decade: New media, those of us who exist beyond your brother’s blog, and who helped take out traditional media, with the heights that we can climb still unseen.
Most stupendous comeback after aortic valve replacement: Robin Williams, in a tour de force for HBO that will knock you out.
Best political performance of the decade: Tina Fey as Sarah Palin.
Most important news show of the decade: Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show.”
Best TV pleasures of 2009: It’s a tie: “True Blood” and “Glee,” with “Dexter” close behind. UPDATE: As Billie reminded me in the comments over @HuffPost, “Mad Men” deserves to be in this one, too (don’t know how I forgot it, as it’s one of my favorites); the JFK assassination episode alone making it remarkable.
Worst ending of 2009: The Hollywood film industry.
Most sobering realization this decade: The U.S. doesn’t make squat anymore and no one has the vision of John F. Kennedy to jump start an innovation economy, green or otherwise, to turn the sinking ship of the U.S. of A. economy around.
Walk softly and carry a big stick award of the decade: SecDef Robert Gates.
Rise of the decade: From talk radio to Senator Al Franken, a man who went on to show Democrats how power is used, while infuriating Rush Limbaugh in the process, as Franken fought to pass the rape law against private contractors, standing up for women in the military.
Suckers of the decade: National Organization of Women, and Planned Parenthood, who got beat by a guy named Bart Stupak.
Most overwrought reaction of the decade: The political left’s bellyaching about Jack Bauer and “24.”
Scariest moment of the decade: George W. Bush’s reaction when he found out we’d been hit on 9/11.
Shockers of the decade: To find myself in Washington, D.C., not to mention married! (Seriously, in 2000, I was writing and campaigning across radio airwaves for Al Gore, finishing a book and battling w/ publishers, after being hit very hard by the dot-com bomb… and was a very long way away from ever wanting to get married.)
Most cherished professional reward of 2009: The hundreds of people (and generous angels, as they say on Broadway) who donated to this site, which allowed TM.com to give a modest donation, for the very first time, to the Afghan Institute of Learning (10% of the last fundraising drive went to this org). From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Happiest moment of 2009: The Christmas blizzard; where a wonderland of snow transported us into an alternate universe; where neighbors became friends and no other place existed, time seemed to stop, work wasn’t so important, cocktails tasted juicier and wine fuller, difficult recipes delivered in a snap, while the fireplace burned brightly; all of which was gone in the rain that fell the day after Christmas, delivering us all in a slow slide back into reality, shifting the two feet of holiday snow and white wonder to an always accessible dream now tucked carefully away in a safe space in our minds, making us wonder if it had actually happened at all, though we knew it did, because when we shut our eyes we can still see and sense its magic.
The year is over.
The decade done.
Grab a new dream and deliver it to yourself.
Happy New Year. See you on the other side.
TM Note: The original site of my suggested “Sopranos” ending was Sicily. A million mea culpas, because of course the Sopranos hail from Naples, as I was reminded by David Chase, the creator of the series, in a letter that accompanied the full DVD set of the show, in the classiest “up yours” I’ve ever received from anyone. But set my suggested ending in Naples and you’ve got something.
Perfect.
Feingold though, is beyond disappointment, he’s a fraud.
Happy new year. See ya in 2010.
Happy New Year, Taylor. I appreciate your good credible work. Happy New Year to everyone at TM.
Happy New Year, Ramsgate.
Champagne is on ice at our house, though we may start with a lemon martini tonight.
Thanks so much, lynnette, we’ve been through the war together, haven’t we? …and it’s still not over, just a different battle.
It ain’t New Year YET! At least not in Pa. But when it is, raise a glass, even if it’s just full of sparkling Grape juice and give a cheer. Waving bye bye to the old one, and looking hopefully to the new one. Happy New Years one and all.
Taylor Marsh says:
31 December 2009 at 4:42 pm
Yes. How true. Don’t laugh but we’re going bowling tonight for NYE – open bowling, a buffet, and music. You know, I remember when Prince’s “1999″ came out around 1980 and thinking the year 2000 was so far away. Then 2000 came, we had a millenium house party and were still sweeping confetti off the driveway 6 months later. Now it’s a decade since then which seems impossible – in the blink of an eye, no less. Cheers! P.S. A lemon martini sounds interesting.
How fun. Enjoy.
We’re counting it down, secularh… Have a great evening, everyone, and thanks for making TM.com one of your stops in 2009.
Taylor~Thanks for a year of great writing!
Happy New year to all and be safe if you are going out.:)
So many windows still waiting to be built. So many parts yet to be played. The curtain on a new production is just getting ready to go up as this one closes!
Happy New Year, Taylor! Thanks for all your good work!
BAC
I thought for quite a while on this, Taylor – and yes, I know it’s simply my opinion – but in this ‘decade’ (we still have a year to go *L*) – one thing stands out above all else. An event if you had told me in 2000 it would happen in my lifetime I would have declared you (oops) an ‘idiot’. Regardless of any disappointments that followed (and we certainly have a long way to go) – it stands alone at the top of this decade with no competitor in sight.
A Black man was elected President of the United States.
Love your post Taylor…
pmichael — see your point — a great achievement for us.. electing a black man. Now I hope this man in the white house actually does something worthwhile.
2009 was a very sad year for us… dog lovers that we are.. We lost our 19-yr-old basset/beagle on Jan. 19 2009. Still miss her.
Happy New Year everyone!
Hey Kris — Still a few hours for us to go… eh? … fellow west-coaster!
Hey its 2010 here on the East Coast and I’m reading tomorrow’s Times and I’m already pissed. LOL.
A Federal judge let those 5 Blackwater guards got off scot free for killing 17 Iraqi civilians and wounding 20 others. That’s over 17 Iraqi families going without justice, and it doesn’t bother us in the least. They got away with murder.
And we wonder why they try to do us harm; and Amanda Knox has the nerve to bitch about Italian justice.
As for planned parenthood and National Organization for women and NARAL. I have called them over the last 3 years and told them to run a campaign to boycott Dominos pizza and Curves for women’s health clubs and now Omaha Steaks, and they would have none of it. They could have had the women’s freedom of choice act passed by now.
Women got verizon to stop censoring text emails from NARAL in 2 hours when 20,000 women called Verizon threatening to stop their wireless service.
Actually it doesn’t only involve those 3 organization, many so called liberal organizations won’t run campaigns to boycott conservative funders so they each appear suckers for years. I don’t give any money to those so called liberal organizations. They appear cowards such as the grey panthers, Older women’s league, Progressive Democrats of America, National organization to preserve social security, Alliance for Retired Americans, Healthcare Now and a lot mmore. COWARDS!
“Ramsgate says:
01 January 2010 at 1:00 am
A Federal judge let those 5 Blackwater guards got off scot free for killing 17 Iraqi civilians and wounding 20 others. That’s over 17 Iraqi families going without justice, and it doesn’t bother us in the least. They got away with murder.
And we wonder why they try to do us harm; and Amanda Knox has the nerve to bitch about Italian justice.”
And now it turns out 7 of those eight “American civilians” killed by the Afghani they were trying to get to work for them were….BLACKWATER MERCENARIES”
secularhumanist says they were “Blackwater mercenaries” and CIA chief Penetta says they were CIA operatives. They were probably both. Peace
“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.” Oh, and the CIA. The CIA says that “we will get our revenge” on those who killed our operatives in Khost province. Last Saturday US forces killed 10 Afghan civilians including 9 schoolchildren while they slept in their beds in Kunar province. On Wednesday hundreds of Afghans protested in the streets against the US who they blamed for killing those civilians. The very next day an Afghan army officer blew himself up killing 8 CIA operatives. Where is the US press in all of this? The connection between these two incidents was made in the international press, but we here in the United States have read and heard nothing. Nada. Zilch. Now the CIA is busy plotting its vengeance for its 8 dead as the crowd of ignorant fools in the good old USA sits on its widening ass cheering on the combatants at the Rose Bowl. US Press: the worst of 2009 and of the decade. Peace
Secular/Imhotep:
Happy New Year again.
So there we you have it. WE are not the only ones who believe in revenge. It would be interesting if THEY sent out a video making it official Taliban policy — hurt our civilians; we hurt yours. Wither the drones.
Imhotep I share the feelings you expressed in your post of 10:06 AM
Secular this is what I meant when I said BO was Bush-lite last year. Even John Yoo now declares that Obama follows Bush’s policies. Although, I sense that he knows better BO is so afraid to confront the Republicans, the neo-cons, the foreign policy apparatus that he is caught up in this war mongering BS.
I expected more from him simply because for the first time a US president spoke of the ROOT CAUSES of terror. He knows that it is OUR POLICIES that engender their actions. Now he perpetuates those same policies.
Ramsgate, Obama is trying to find some way NOT to end up the way that JFK ended up. (I know that Taylor hates this reference, but there is no real way around it.) Several weeks before Kennedy was assassinated he signed a Presidential Directive that ordered troops to be withdrawn from Vietnam. The PD stated that he wanted no fewer than 1000 US troops to be withdrawn from Vietnam by January 1st 1964. He was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The day after Lyndon B Johnson was sworn into office he voided Kennedy’s Directive and wrote one of his own which ordered an increase in the troop levels in Vietnam. The rest is history and is on the record. Peace
Thanks LL, BAC!
…and for those of you w/o a personalized avatar, think about getting one for the New Year. Start here:
http://en.gravatar.com/site/signup
Go see a film this weekend. “Up in the Air” is tremendous, definitely movie of the year territory (whether it’s Oscar nodded or not), with “Sherlock Holmes” a lot of fun (Mark Strong breaks out).
Happy New Year, everyone.
Imhotep @ 11:28:
To be clear, are you suggesting that Obama is nudging this country into war in order to avoid being assassinated? Not sure I understood you correctly.
Also thought I would post the following article reflecting the Iraqi view of the case being thrown out. http://2su.de/pe
“Ramsgate says Re Imhotep’s post: To be clear, are you suggesting that Obama is nudging this country into war in order to avoid being assassinated? Not sure I understood you correctly.”
You understand perfectly. In the fevered comspiracy clogged mind of imhopless the CIA is running the show along with the banks and the council of seven and the Grand masonic Lodge.
I gotta tell ya. It is bad enough having President Obama and the Dems in Congress doing their timid professional Politition screw the pooch but having to realize the lefts equivalent of the Teabaggers and Birthers howeling about secret plots and conspiracies and 9/11 was an inside job, yada yada yada I trully do fear for the country. Hell, imhopless makes some of the repugnantklaners sound almost sane.
Okay…I’m testing my new gravatar. Has anyone seen UP? It is surprising for an antimated movie.
I remember that it takes a while.
Ramsgate this one’s for secularhuminist, but you might enjoy it as well. secularhumanist, I’m quite sure that you’ve never heard of “Freeway” Ricky Ross and his connection to the Hoover Crips. I’m also dead certain that you don’t know that Danilo Blandon (DEA and CIA informant) supplied “Freeway” Ricky with the crack cocaine which flooded Los Angeles in the early 80′s. Here are some other things that you don’t know. Blando got that cocaine from Norwin Meneses and Enrique Bermundez who both worked for Oliver North in Nicaragua. Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey and US Attorney General William French Smith both oversaw North’s activities. The money from the sale of that cocaine to “Freeway” Ricky was used to purchase weapons that were sold to Iran (for an up-charge) to assist them in their war against Saddam’s Iraq. The Iranian weapons money and some of the cocaine money was used to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. (That’s because the US Congress had cut off all Contra funding.) Reagan denied that he had any knowledge of any of this. Did you get all of that secularhuminist? If you’d like to respond that’s fine. But if you do respond, please respond to the “facts” and don’t just go off on one of your idiotic tirades about made-up conspiracies. Stick to the “facts” my good man. Peace
Give us some links please.
Imhotep @ 8:04PM :
I did enjoy your post, so much so that it triggered my third deep-down belly laugh of the new year. For that I am grateful to you.
LL, I saw Up the night before last. I was blown away. But then again, I shouldn’t have been. Pixar movies are the top of the heap.
Lake Lady, most of this information, although not all, can be found in the Kerry Committee report which was released on April 13, 1989. Senator Kerry conducted a 2 1/2 year investigation concerning the Contra…Los Angeles cocaine…weapons to Iran connection before he published his report. His report left out Dick Cheney’s visits to Saddam in the 80′s at which the US government agreed to sell biological and chemical weapons to Iraq to be used against Iran. Those were the same weapons that bush the idiot used as an excuse to illegally invade and then occupy Iraq. Peace
“Meanwhile, Kerry’s staff began their own investigations, and on October 14, 1986 issued a report which exposed illegal activities on the part of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who had set up a private network involving the National Security Council and the CIA to deliver military equipment to right-wing Nicaraguan rebels (Contras). In effect, North and certain members of the President’s administration were accused by Kerry’s report of illegally funding and supplying armed militants without the authorization of Congress.[4]
Kerrys staff investigation, based on a yearlong inquiry and interviews with 50 unnamed sources, is said to raise “serious questions about whether the United States has abided by the law in its handling of the contras over the past three years.”
So, I know it kinda shoots down your oh so exciting fantasy with “Freeway” Ricky Ross and how “Freeway”Ricky was used to purchase weapons that were sold to Iran but if you actually DO a little checking you come up with the FACT that Kerry’s report said that the Iran/Contra operation used people who ALSO hauled drugs because THEY had the aircraft and delivery capabilities.
It dosen’t say ANYTHING about the CIA flooding the west coast with crack and the notion that “Freeway” whatever used the money from dope sales to buy the weapons we sold to Iran is so fu*king patheticly mental as to warrent no further comment.
The weapons supplied to the Iranians were bought from ISRAEL. THAT is what was proven in the Iran/Contra hearings. You are a delussional quack. A conspiracy theory wack job.
Tell the Elders of Zion to get on the stick and team up with the Jesuits so they and the CIA can conrtol all the natural gas pipelines passing through your freaking HEAD! Maybe then they can vent it through your ears and you will stop blowin it outcher ASS.
Meds, come on dude/dudet, take yer meds. Really. You need them.
secular, you really should take a remedial reading course. What I said was is that “Freeway” Ricky got the cocaine from CIA and DEA informant Denilo Blandon. Blandon got the cocaine from Norwin Meneses and Enrique Bermundez who worked for both Samoza and Oliver North. North took the cocaine money and bought weapons from the Israelis that the United States had previously sold to them. Those US/Israeli weapons were then sold to Iran at an up-charge. The money from the Iranian weapons sales was used to fund the Contras because the US Congress had passed a law which prohibited all funding to the Contra movement. CIA chief William Casey and US Attorney General William French Smith protected Oliver North’s illegal activities. Reagan claimed that he knew nothing about nothing. Iran wanted the weapons to use against Iraq in their war with Iraq. At the same time Dick Cheney was selling chemical and biological weapons to Iraq(Saddam) to be used against Iran. Those were the same weapons that bush claimed to be the reason we needed to go to war with Iraq in 2003. Do you get it now, secularhuminist, or should I use smaller words and less complicated concepts when explaining it to you the next time? I have all the time in the world so don’t hesitate to ask question about things that you don’t fully understand. Peace