THE GOLDEN WINGNUT AWARD….The Wingnut Contest is over and the votes have now been tallied by the prestigious accounting firm of Pollhost.com. So without further ado, the five winners of the Golden Wingnut Award are:
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John Hinderaker: “It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius….”
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Glenn Reynolds: “Maybe we should rise above the temptation to point out that claims of a ‘quagmire’ were wrong….Nah.”
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Michelle Malkin: “The Defeatocrats Cheer”
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Ann Althouse: “Let’s take a closer look at those breasts.”
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Kim du Toit: “The Pussification of the Western Male”
Congratulations, wingnuts! And special congratulations to Power Line’s John Hinderaker, who ran away with first place by a wide margin — and deservedly so. Also to Kim du Toit, who mounted a last second comeback against veteran wingers Jonah Goldberg and John Derbyshire to nab the final spot. It would be cool if I had a trophy or something to send to each one of the winners, but I’m afraid I don’t. My little clipart creation will have to do instead. And since we’re all about democracy and the graphical representation of data here at PA, the full results are below the fold in handy bar chart format. The complete list of 14 nominees is here.
A few closing comments are in order. First, several people pointed out that there were countless worthy contenders that got left off the list. I am not unsympathetic to these cries. But you know how it is. Deadlines are deadlines, and after I decided (after consultation with the panel of judges) to limit entries to one per author — well, we did the best we could. But yes, this and this and this deserved consideration. Maybe next year.
A number of conservatives were upset on the opposite score: what happened to the worst of the liberal blogosphere? Answer: get off your butts and create your own award, OK? The field is wide open for some enterprising winger to create a Golden Moonbat Award.
On a similar note, a few people were flustered by the definition of “wingnuttiest.” That’s understandable. After all, some of the nominees were breathtaking examples of warblogger paranoia; some were just humorously batshit insane; and some were merely unfortunate mistakes with no special ideological axe to grind. But in the immortal words of Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it. And I trust my readers to know it when they see it too.
Finally, a personal note: We live in an age of celebrity, and a blogger who retired three years ago probably never had a serious chance of cracking the top five. Still, history must be served: when they write the dictionary definition of wingnuttery there’s going to be a picture of Steven Den Beste beside the entry. So, since this is my contest, I hereby present SDB with a special judges award for lifetime achievement in transnational wingnuttery. They just don’t make ’em like that anymore.
