I'll Do the Driving

A**hat of the Week: Ralph Nader

Don't get me wrong, the left fringe has as much right to be heard during a national election as any other point on the political spectrum; neither party should be allowed to simply take their base for granted.  However, a presidential election is way too serious an event to serve as a vehicle for personal vanity, something that pretty much describes Ralph Nader 2008. 

Get lost Ralph.  Nobody cares anymore.

DISHONORABLE MENTION: The entire country of Serbia.

Asshat of the Week: Mark Penn

This idiot is a never ending source of stupid quotes.  I've already taken him to task for this doozy, now he blesses us with this little bit of faulty logic:

Winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election.

No, but it is pretty much always a prerequisite.

Asshat of the Week: Gordon Schultz

Enjoy spending the rest of your life in jail.

Asshats of the Week: Two Unidentified Florida Minors

Stealing money from a Girl Scout selling cookies?  WTF?

Asshat of the Week: Roger Stone

This is tasteless even for insane Clinton hatred . (Potentially NSFW)

Asshats of the Week: The Nevada State Education Association

As you might know, Nevada is holding its presidential party caucuses tomorrow.  Tomorrow is of course a Saturday, which is very much a work day for many (most?) Las Vegas casino workers.  This is a bit of a quandary on the Democratic side, since Clark County hospitality workers are a sizable portion of their base.  As such, the Nevada Democratic Primary hit upon the idea of setting up open polling places on the Las Vegas Strip in order to give blackjack dealers and culinary workers and hotel desk clerks and what not additional options for voting.  This plan was put in place months ago, with little controversy.

Well, little controversy until this past week, when the Nevada State Education Association suddenly decided these special caucuses were an affront to democracy, or something like that anyways and sued to stop them.  Coincidentally, I'm sure, while the teacher's union itself has not made a formal endorsement, it's leaders seem to have connections to the Hillary Clinton campaign, and this move comes immediately on the heels of the major casino worker's unions endorsing Barack Obama. 

Maybe I'm just cynical, but this is the most questionable bit of timing since the Michigan State/Kansas game in Kansas City during the 1986 NCAA basketball tournament.  The NSEA had months to stand up for the rights of janitors, were they truly concerned with the rights of janitors, and they didn't until it suddenly appeared these special caucuses might be deleterious to the leadership's preferred candidate.

Asshats of the Week: Fred Phelps and His Entire "Church"

You may remember the wrong-way accident that inspired last week's winner.  Well, it seems the memorial service for its victims had some unwanted guests:

Three members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, known for protests at military funerals, demonstrated about a block from St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church, the site of the service.

The demonstrators said the deaths are God's retribution against the community for a recent $11 million jury award against the Kansas group. A federal jury in Baltimore made the award in October to Albert Snyder, of York, Pa., who sued after the group protested his son's military funeral in Maryland.

The community is going to "pay the price" for persecuting his group for preaching the word of God, said demonstrator Fred Phelps.

I'm generally not a fan of eliminationist rhetoric, but I think Buckeyenewshawk has a point when he says the following:

The world would be much better off if Fred Phelps no longer walked on it.

A**hat of the Week: Michael Gagnon

[Here I begin a new weekly feature saluting the most idiotic, evil, or just plain annoying person of the previous seven days.]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words:

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, that really is a child seat in the middle of a freeway.  Its occupant was one of five members of a Maryland family killed when their minivan was struck head-on by Mr. Gagnon's pickup truck, which was going Northbound in the Southbound lanes of Interstate 280 in Toledo.   Mr. Gagnon's BAC was three times the legal limit in Ohio; he survived, of course.

(As an aside, I lived in the Toledo area for three years, and am familiar with the spot where this accident happened.  Let's just say you would never seem someone coming the wrong way until it was too late.)