There’s a new awards program in town — The Sully Awards. It is run exclusively by me, and it’s named after Andrew “How Can We Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?” Sullivan of intermittent blogging fame, not Sully Sullenberger, Hero of the Hudson. Therefore, it celebrates politically driven collapses onto inflatable fainting cushions, not feats of airliner piloting skill and courage.
First nominee: avid false equivalency salesman Ron Fournier, who is leaving Atlantic Media to spend more time with his family become associate publisher of Crain’s Detroit Business. Evidently even a both-sides-do-it hack like Fournier realizes there are only so many ways one can write, “Sure, Donald Trump is a dangerous demagogue who lies constantly about everything, all the time, but OMG HILLARY’S EMAILS how-can-we-trust-her?!1!1!?”
Good riddance to bad rubbish. But in recognition of his conspicuous lack of gallantry in the service of Broderism during this most vexing election season, here’s a trinket for Fournier’s new Detroit office: the very 1st Semi-Annual Sully Award. Because when the going gets tough, punk-ass quitters get going…right outta DC.
Regretfully, we must venture into Non-Hack-Land next, where Charlie Pierce disappoints — and scores an elusive Sully Award nomination:
If Hillary Clinton Seeks (or Accepts) an Endorsement from Henry Kissinger, She’s Lost My Vote
…I live in the bluest damn state there is east of Hawaii. My senators are Senator Professor Warren and Edward Markey. Less than a third of my fellow citizens are Republicans. (Granted, one of them is the governor, but let’s move on.) HRC could not lose the Commonwealth (God save it!) even if she drank a polyjuice potion and campaigned here transformed into Alex Rodriguez. So I can say this full in the knowledge that what I say will not have the slightest effect on the outcome of the presidential election. But it is not negotiable.
If Hillary Clinton actively seeks, or publicly accepts, the endorsement of Henry Kissinger, I will vote for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld on November 8. (Jill Stein, you might’ve been a contender, but going off to Red Square to talk about Vladimir Putin and human rights? Being an honored guest of a Russian propaganda channel? I don’t think so.) Kissinger is a bridge too far.
Oh, FFS. This is the kind of “Game over, man! Game over!” political delirium exemplified by Sullivan after Obama bombed at the first 2012 presidential debate. As should be obvious to any pol-watcher with Pierce’s experience, Clinton is trying to run up the score on He, Trump — she wants to utterly humiliate the shouty jack-o’-lantern by framing him as unacceptable to anyone who has ever played a role in government, regardless of party and ideology, thus giving wavering GOP voters an excuse not to vote for the serially offensive asshole.
Like the Republican president he served and that paranoid wank’s successors, Kissinger left a giant shit-stain on the planet and is therefore considered an elder statesmen by Republican voters old enough to remember him or conversant enough with history to know about his sinister turn in the Nixon White House.
Damn near half our fellow citizens are tragically uninformed assholes, okay? But if Kissinger and less lethal fellow GOP foreign policy fuck-ups like these 50 people plus Condi Rice, George Schultz and James Baker dump Trump for Clinton, that’ll be yet another hit to Trump’s reputation as a serious person within that seriously shitty party.
What it will NOT be is an indication that Clinton co-signs GOP foreign policy disasters past. Is it really necessary to explain this? This non-troversy reminds me of the foofaraw surrounding then-candidate Obama’s statement that he wished to be as consequential a president as Ronald Reagan, which was received in some quarters as “Gawd save us, Black Ronnie Raygun is coming after our Social Security.”
Therefore, I bestow upon Pierce the 2nd Semi-Annual Sully Award for conspicuous timorousness in political reporting. Still love ya, Charlie, but didn’t the 2000 election teach us anything about the futility of casting a vote as a political gesture? I know you’re in Massachusetts, but get a grip, man!
Now, deep, cleansing breaths, everyone. Can we get through the next 90 days without covering ourselves in beagle shit and running through the streets bellowing doom and woe? Yes, we can.
Inaugural Semi-Annual Sully Award RecipientsPost + Comments (242)