FREE REPUBLIC GAROFALO AWARDS - VOTE NOW - DC Chapter - White House Correspondents Dinner 4/26/03

The Nominations for Free Republic's Garofalo Awards are listed below. Voting will now commence from the time of this post until 9:00 a.m. Friday morning, April 25. Please choose your Top Ten Nominees for the Garofalo Award. Judges will tally the votes and announce the winners on a new thread.

The Garofalo--ready-to-eat stuffed crows on a platter--will be awarded to prominent individuals in the media and elsewhere whose histrionic predictions of doom and gloom before and/or during Operation Iraqi Freedom stand head and shoulders above all others for their shrillness, certainty, and apocalyptic ravings.

To be nominated, the person or entity had to meet the criteria and necessary documentation had to be provided to show specific reasons as to why this person or entity was singled out for special recognition.

Ten Garofalos will be awarded. We will do our best to present the Garofalos to any winners who attend the White House Correspondents Association Dinner on April 26, 2003, when the D.C. Chapter holds its 5th annual freep of liberal bias in the media.

SCARBOROUGH: Mr. Grant, how could you say that? Now I know what you’re thinking. Joe, isn’t there someone that you’re forgetting? Yes there is and here she is, our favorite Hollywood left wing actor, Jeanine Garofalo. (BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) JEANINE GAROFALO, ACTRESS: We are doomed if we go into this war into the heart of the Arabian world with a U.S. led effort against world opinion. We are doomed if we do this. (END VIDEOCLIP)

A few weeks ago, Bill O'Reilly questioned actor /activist Janeane Garofalo, "If you are wrong, all right, and if the United States – and they will, this is going to happen – goes in, liberates Iraq, people in the street, American flags, hugging our soldiers, all right, we find all kinds of bad, bad stuff, all right, in Iraq, you gonna apologize to George W. Bush?" Her response? "I'll bring roses right to his front door. I will bring a fruitcake and roses …" She also said, "I would be so willing to say I'm sorry, I hope to God that I can be made a buffoon of, that people will say, 'you were wrong, you were a fatalist,' and I will go to the White House on my knees on cut glass and say, 'Hey, you were right, I shouldn't have doubted you.' But I think that is preposterous."

Stahl: “The Powell Doctrine in military terms is that you throw a massive force, if you're going to go to war, make it huge. There are now criticisms, we're beginning to hear, that this force isn't massive enough.” Powell: “It's nonsense. It's the usual chatter, I mean we have commentators everywhere. Every General who ever worked for me is now on some network commenting on the daily battle and, frankly, battles come and wars come and they have ups and downs, they have a rhythm to it. The Powell Doctrine was you use decisive force, and the plan that General Franks and his commanders have put together is a decisive force that will get the job done. So don't let one day’s ups and downs suggest that the battle isn't going well. The United States armed forces with our coalition partners, the British principally and the Australians, have gone 300 miles deep into Iraq in a period of five days. That is a heck of an achievement.” Stahl: “Yeah, but our, the rear is exposed.” Powell: “It's not. Exposed to what? Exposed to small- ” Stahl: “Exposed to fedayeen, exposed- ” Powell: “Fine. So? We’ll get them in due course. They are not exposed to a massive Iraqi army that is operating in a coordinated way that can assault our flanks and stop our assault.” Stahl: “Are you saying you're not worried or concerned about guerilla warfare?” Powell: “Of course we are, and that, and we’re trained to handle this, but this chatter for the last 24 hours that everything is coming apart because on Sunday we took a few casualties. The casualties for this operation have been low. You don’t want to slow your advance to go into a particular city and spend all your time rooting out people that you will get in due course. They're not threatening the advance.” Stahl: “But you can't get your supplies, well you can't- ” Powell: “Who says?” Stahl: “ - can't get the humanitarian- ” Powell: “Who says?” -- CBS “48 Hours,” March 27, 2003, 12 days before the collapse of the Iraqi regime.

“With every passing day, it is more evident that the failure to obtain permission from Turkey for American troops to cross its territory and open a northern front constituted a diplomatic debacle. With every passing day, it is more evident that the allies made two gross military misjudgments in concluding that coalition forces could safely bypass Basra and Nasiriya and that Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq would rise up against Saddam Hussein. Already, the commander of American ground forces in the war zone has conceded that the war that they are fighting is not the one they and their officers had foreseen. 'Shock and awe’ neither shocked nor awed.” -- Analysis in The New York Times, March 30, 2003, nine days before Saddam Hussein disappeared.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/25/IN239822.DTL

This invasion of Iraq, if it goes off, will join the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut and Somalia in the history of military catastrophe.

What will set it apart, distinguishing it for all time, is the immense -- and transparent -- political stupidity. San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2002

TomPaine.com: So Medea, what are you doing right now? Medea Benjamin: Well, we’ve spent the morning dressing ourselves as victims of war, victims of collateral damage. We have blood all over our clothes. We’re wrapped in gauze and mud all over us. We have toys, babies, baby dolls with their heads and their arms blown off of them, and we are symbolizing the death and destruction that is going to come in Iraq. We went through the halls of Congress this morning to say, "Shame on you. The blood of innocent Iraqis and U.S. service people is on your hands," and [we] marched through the halls of Congress mourning and wailing. Now we’re on our way to march to Donald Rumsfeld’s house, with the same message that the blood of war is on your hands. TP.c: Who are you with that is doing this? Benjamin: This is Code Pink, women for peace. We are the women’s group that has been standing vigils in front of the White House every single day since Nov. 17th, trying to meet with George Bush and Laura Bush to express our outrage against this war -- to no avail. And we feel a tremendous sense of despair, a sense that our democracy has failed us. We feel betrayed by our representatives. We feel that we have nothing less to do but to express our outrage, our agony, and commit non-violent acts of civil disobedience.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPentagon.asp?Page=%5CPentagon%5Carchive%5C200304%5CPEN20030414a.html

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) criticized the administration Thursday for allegedly weakening U.S. efforts to fight terrorism by getting involved in Iraq. "I have absolutely no regret about my vote [against] this war," she said, noting a price tag of "probably $100 billion." "We could have probably brought down that statue for a lot less," Pelosi continued, referring to a statue of Saddam Hussein toppled by Iraqis with the help of U.S. Marines. "But the most important question at this time, now that we're toward the end of it, is what is the cost to the war on terrorism?"

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraqi Minister of Information (during the last three weeks of war)

Iraqi Minister of Information Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf bordered on comical as he gave his assessment of the war, which contrasted with what we watched on the various cable news channels. "They will be burnt. We are going to tackle them," said Al-Sahhaf, after U.S. missiles destroyed his office, forcing him to give press briefings on the street. While we watched American tanks roll through Baghdad, Al-Sahhaf said, "There is no presence of American columns in the city of Baghdad at all. We besieged them and we killed most of them." After U.S. forces seized Baghdad's Saddam Hussein airport, Al-Sahhaf stated, "We butchered the force present at the airport. We have retaken the airport! There are no Americans there!"

Charles Rangel (Hannity & Colmes, March 27, 2003) "I just don't believe that you bomb women and children in order to enforce [the U.N. resolution on Iraq.] ..." "With all due respect to the president, I don't think he has the experience for me to be listening to him on how the war's going or what we should be doing. It would be a tremendous stretch to say that I have an appreciation for the president's knowledge of international politics."

ARNETT: Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces. HOST: (In Arabic) ARNETT: And I personally do not understand how that happened, because I've been here many times and in my commentaries on television I would tell the Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country. But me, and others who felt the same way were not listened to by the Bush administration. HOST: (In Arabic) ARNETT: That is why now America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and re-writing the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance now they are trying to write another war plan. HOST: Yeah. (Speaks in Arabic) Mr. Arnett Thank you very much. (Speaks in Arabic)

(FROM) FLOOR REMARKS OF REP. JOHN CONYERS, JR. SPECIAL ORDER ON IRAQ March 19, 2003 Bush’s war against Iraq is: * A war that will devastate a country of 26 million and cause damage that will take years to undo; * A war that will see many American casualties, and that could fracture our fragile economy; * A war that will destabilize the Middle East; * A war that will swell the ranks of terrorist recruits; * A war that will weaken our fight against terrorism, at home and abroad, and that will cost billions of dollars desperately needed for programs in Detroit and other cities; and * A war that will set a terrible precedent, in a world of growing numbers of nuclear states, for any country to launch a preventive war against opponents deemed a possible future threat; and * A war not really wanted by the American people, our military commanders or our allies.

The moral strategy would be to avoid the holocaust. To achieve that from the present disastrous position, the United States would have to accept a cease-fire, which would lead to the withdrawal of coalition forces under safe conduct. There would be no military dishonor in such a step. It would, however, entail the humiliation of the entire Bush administration, indeed its well-deserved political collapse. Too bad the moral strategy is not a practical one.

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=8&rnd=533.9803309777853

Now we're stuck in the Iraqi quicksand in a soon-to-be burning desert with guerrillas tearing up our rear, doing unto our troops whatever unconventional fighters did to the French at Moscow, the Germans at Stalingrad, the Americans in Vietnam and Somalia, the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Russians in Chechnya. * While Saddam was watching videotapes of “Apocalypse Now” and “Black Hawk Down” and taking notes, Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers – badly misjudging Iraq's determination – chose to refight Desert Storm. * The Dream Team made three classic mistakes: * Not understanding the enemy or the nature of the war. * Thinking smart bombs would do the job. * Underestimating the patriotism of the average Saddam-hating Iraqi and how fiercely he'd fight for his country.

A down-arrow for Dick Cheney: "Tells 'Meet the Press' just before war, 'We will be greeted as liberators.' An arrogant blunder for the ages."

Simon Jenkins, the Times of London, in an article called - yes! - "Baghdad Will Be Near Impossible to Conquer," March 28, 2003

"In Baghdad the coalition forces confront a city apparently determined on resistance. They should remember Napoleon in Moscow, Hitler in Stalingrad, the Americans in Mogadishu and the Russians at Grozny. Hostile cities have ways of making life ghastly for aggressors. They are not like countryside. They seldom capitulate, least of all when their backs are to the wall. It took two years after the American withdrawal from Vietnam for Saigon to fall to the Vietcong. Kabul was ceded to the warlords only when the Taleban drove out of town. In the desert, armies fight armies. In cities, armies fight cities. The Iraqis were not stupid. They listened to Western strategists musing about how a desert battle would be a pushover. Things would get 'difficult' only if Saddam played the cad and drew the Americans into Baghdad. Why should he do otherwise?"

"[Al-Jazeera has shown] the resistance and anger of the Iraqi population, dismissed by Western propaganda as a sullen bunch waiting to throw flowers at Clint Eastwood lookalikes ... The idea that Iraq's population would have welcomed American forces entering the country after a terrifying aerial bombardment was always utterly implausible ... One can only wince at the way weak-minded policy hacks in the Pentagon and White House have spun out the 'ideas' of Lewis and Ajami into the scenario for a quick romp in a friendly Iraq ... pity the Iraqi civilians who must still suffer a great deal more before they are finally 'liberated'."

"I have at times as the war has unfolded secretly wished for things to go wrong. I wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic. I wished for them to resist longer. I wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. I wished for all the things we feared would happen. And I'm not alone. A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who opposed the war have told me they've had identical feelings. More casualties would have been a preferred alternative to a larger moral negative of a victory that boosted President Bush's chances for reelection."

George Galloway, a British Labour Party MP, who, in an April 1st interview for Abu Dhabi TV, urged British soldiers not to follow "illegal orders" to fight in Iraq. He also charged that Bush and Blair were "wolves" who "lied" when they said the war in Iraq would be "quick and easy." *"They attacked Iraq like wolves," he said. "They attacked civilians." He called on Arab countries to stop supplying coalition countries with oil. * Remember, he's saying all this while troops from his own country are on the battlefield, and he's making these comments on Arab TV, channeling them right into the barracks of enemy troops during wartime.

Mr. Higgins made some very sweeping statements about the war, including this statement in the Dail on March 12:

“By the time this House returns on March 25 it is possible that up to one million mothers may be affected by the war, there may be 100,000 direct casualties and 400,000 secondary ones. Ten to 15 million people on food dependency may also be affected.” New Ross Standard (Ireland), April 17, 2003, Anne Marie O'Connor

"Mr. Jordan" is Eason Jordan, chief news executive of CNN, who confessed recently in the New York Times that CNN's Baghdad bureau suppressed information about Saddam Hussein's crimes. * Among the news Eason Jordan acknowledged suppressing in his New York Times Op-Ed was the declaration to him by Saddam's son Qusay that he intended to murder his brothers in law (who had defected to Jordan, but were lured back), and that government thugs had threatened to torture and kill Iraqi employees of CNN. * Mr. Jordan maintains he had to keep silent, because otherwise CNN could not have brought the world news from Baghdad. But CNN wasn't reporting news. It was telling lies. * CNN "allowed a tyrant to enforce a tyrant's rules on a supposedly powerful American news organization whose currency is truth," the Arizona Republic said in an editorial. * CNN reported preposterously high estimates of civilian casualties provided by the Information Ministry, without telling their viewers their information came from the same guys who told them the Americans had been slaughtered. * CNN used to be called by some the "Clinton News Network." It might more accurately be described as the "Collaborators' News Network." Reported by Jack Kelly, The Washington Times, April 20, 2003

But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.

"Have we gone to war yet?...We [expletive] deserve to get bombed. Bring it on...Let's get rid of all the economic [expletive] this country represents. Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!"

"The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated. It is a war we can not win....We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad and for this reason I believe the defeat of the United States in this war is inevitable. . . . Everytime we confront Iraqi troops we may win some tactical battles, as we did for ten years in Vietnam but we will not be able to win this war, which in my opinion is already lost." South African radio station TSF, March 25, 2003

In Washington, actress Susan Sarandon, who supports numerous liberal causes, accused Bush of having "hijacked our losses and our fears." Sarandon said terrorism could not be fought with violence and that most Americans did not want a conflict.

"Let us resist this war," Sarandon told the cheering crowd. "Let us hate war in all its forms, whether the weapon used is a missile or an airplane."

Sarandon is to be guest speaker at the New York City protest, which is being orgranized, along with others across the country, by the coalition United For Peace and Justice.

The actress, who lives with her family in Connecticut, told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith that many Americans "do not want to risk their children or the children of Iraq."

Once we do this unprecedented thing of having a war on spec - preemptive strike. I mean, it's against the whole, everything this country is supposed to be about," she said. "So I'm terrified about what's going to happen."

Appealing to President Bush and members of Congress, the Academy Award winner said, "Get with it. Get off your horse and let's get real about this."

A chill wind is blowing in this nation. A message is being sent through the White House and its allies in talk radio and Clear Channel and Cooperstown. If you oppose this administration, there can and will be ramifications.

Every day, the air waves are filled with warnings, veiled and unveiled threats, spewed invective and hatred directed at any voice of dissent. And the public, like so many relatives and friends that I saw this weekend, sit in mute opposition and fear.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A21147-2003Mar24&notFound=true

Robbins to Lloyd Grove, "If you ever write about my family again, I will [bleeping] find you and I will [bleeping] hurt you."

"I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war. Bush's policy of pre-emptive war is immoral - such a policy would legitimize Pearl Harbor. It's as if they learned none of the lessons from Vietnam," she said to enthusiastic applause.

Late on Wednesday, Clark said an attack on Baghdad would be a ``massive crime against all international law and against all morality and the United States is better than that.''

``My message to President Bush is: we have absolutely no right to attack the people of Iraq. ... You shouldn't and must not do it,'' Clark told Reuters.

``We are here to urge the people of the world to stand up and say we don't want a superpower beating up on a small nation.''

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/03/23/state2309EST0088.DTL

"We live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts," Moore said. "We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush. Shame on you," Moore shouted.

Clark at times questioned whether the U.S. should have sent in more personnel. Speaking at Presbyterian College in South Carolina on March 25, Clark said, “What we can't know is how effective air power will be against the first-echelon defense… We might be able to do the job if air power is effective, if we don't have close contact with enemy forces and if the Iraqi will is broken. But those are a lot of big ifs. Why not use it (ground force) if you have it?”

He told Cox News Service that a quick victory in Iraq is “not going to happen… The simple fact is that the liberation didn’t quite occur. They didn't uprise.” In a mid-March interview with Salon.com, Clark said he originally had predicted a war lasting two or three weeks, but “that was all premised on our having our force there and being ready to go at the outset. Of course we weren't.” Asked why the Pentagon would start the war "if not all the troops were in place, he replied, "I can’t explain it. I can’t defend it; I’ve never seen the plan. This is the decision that was made. It might work out; then again, it might not.”

Nicholas De Genova is an anthropology professor at Columbia University. He was one of twenty speakers at a "teach in" there last week, sponsored by the Columbia Anti-War Coalition. While a few of the presentations were scholarly, most took the viewpoint that "George W. Bush, not Saddam Hussein, poses the greatest threat to world peace and security." Many ranking professors at that institution took part in this anti-Bush, pro-Hussein rally. The most obnoxious comment of the day was made by Professor De Genova..*To the cheers of the assembled students, he said that he wished for "a million Mogadishus" against the American troops in Iraq. (That was a reference to the 18 American soldiers killed in Somalia, portrayed in the movie, Black Hawk Down.) So the professor was wishing for 18 million American deaths.

COURIC: Mik, we only have a few seconds left. But quickly, anymore information about Saddam Hussein's fate? . . . .MIKLASZEWSKI: Not at all. Wild speculation. But U.S. officials insist they still don't know what happened when--after they bombed that site in western Baghdad earlier this week. . . . .COURIC: So they haven't been able to confirm reports he was taken to Tikrit, and then Mosul, and then hopefully to Syria. . . . . MIKLASZEWSKI: That--that's very unlikely considering the kind of U.S. forces that are arrayed up there. . . . . COURIC: OK, Mik. Thanks. [End of Excerpt] TODAY show, April 10, 2003

"I don't know if we'll ever get the whole truth from this administration — about anything," Martin Sheen said when asked why the president might consider war in Iraq. When pressed, the "television president" waxed freshman-year-Freudian: "I think he'd like to hand his father Saddam Hussein's head and win his approval for what happened after the 1991 Gulf War." No doubt the same goes for Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and anyone else who supports the president's Iraq policy — all to "win approval" from George W. Bush's father.

Organizers of the "virtual march" on Washington are calling on supporters to call, fax or e-mail their two U.S. senators and the White House during business hours on Feb. 26.

The group also unveiled a new television ad featuring actor Martin Sheen, who plays the fictional President Josiah Bartlet on NBC's The West Wing. In the ad, which begins airing Thursday, Sheen urges Americans to take part in the call-in effort.

"Our message to Washington will be clear," Sheen says in the ad. "Don't invade Iraq. We can contain Saddam Hussein without killing innocent people, diverting us from the war on terrorism and putting us all at risk."

Participants who register for the call-in campaign at the group's Web site will be directed to make their phone calls at specific times, Andrews said. The goal is to record one call per minute in every Senate office and at the White House.

Actor George Clooney has spoken out against a possible US invasion of Iraq, accusing President George W Bush of running the US Government "like the Sopranos".

Speaking on the PBS television network, Clooney said Mr Bush and his cabinet were behaving like Big Tony and his mobster family in the TV show.

Clooney accused the President of cutting a deal with France and Russia to ensure the UN Security Council will not complain when "we go into a war and kill a lot of innocent people".

"Are we going to try and talk to Saddam Hussein...without jumping in and killing people first?" he said.

"I don't believe we're going to wait until the last resort to do it. That's what bothers me."

Separate quote---"I believe he thinks this [war against Iraq] is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore."

Mr. Farrell is another one who tends to see the world in made-for-TV terms. To him, American pressure on Iraq comes down to a matter of personal pride — the president's. "George Bush simply cannot turn back without losing face," he says, as though discussing character motivation in front of an acting class. "This is of great concern. This is a nation that ought not be concerned about its leader losing face." In a world according to Mr. Farrell, personal vanity is driving a foreign policy that is being supported, as poll numbers indicate, by Americans ("sheep," Ed Asner says) worried the president might suffer a blow to his pride. Huh?

"America has never paid any attention to other people, so it's absurd for Bush to say that it's all in the best interests of the Iraqi people. "If the United States marches into Iraq without the backing of the United Nations, that will be done entirely without the backing of the American people."

"Our paradigm now seems to be: something terrible happened to us on September 11, and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with us," said Clinton, who spoke at a seminar of governance organised by Conference Board.

"We can't run," Clinton pointed out. "If you got an interdependent world, and you cannot kill, jail or occupy all your adversaries, sooner or later you have to make a deal."

"Since September 11, it looks like we can't hold two guns at the same time," Clinton said. "If you fight terrorism, you can't make America a better place to be." Agence France-Presse

"Iraqis, very clearly, do not want to be 'liberated,' even many who had long opposed Saddam's brutal regime. To the contrary, the US-British invasion appears to have ignited genuine national resistance among 17 million Arab Iraqis, just as the 1941 German invasion of the USSR rallied Russians and Ukrainians behind Stalin's hated regime. ... The nasty, bloody urban warfare the Americans and Brits sought to avoid at all costs is now confronting them."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=127&ncid=742&e=14&u=/ucru/20030403/cm_ucru/ignoramuses_abroad

"Though Operation Iraqi Freedom has been underway for only two weeks, Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" strategy was a flop. Pentagon strategists expected to have taken Baghdad by Mar. 27. Best-laid plans and all that: U.S. generals, worried that they don't have enough men on the front lines, are considering whether to lay siege to Baghdad, bomb it to ruins or take it one block at a time. Basra hasn't fallen. Suicide bombers are on the loose, we're offing civilians and the Iraqi army has gone guerilla. And we hold a mere 4,000 Iraqi POWs. Only 45 Americans and Britons have died so far--compared to 112 total combat deaths in 1991--but allied casualties will soar if and when ground troops are ordered to take Baghdad... In this respect, Iraqis are no different than we are. Millions of Americans consider Bush to be a hateful, extremist dimwit who seized power twice, once in an unconstitutional judicial coup d'état and again by using the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext to expand his personal power and gut the Bill of Rights. They call him names, like the Resident and Commander-in-Thief. But even the most passionately anti-Bush Americans would eagerly join their W-loving compatriots to fight any army that invaded the United States in the name of some theoretical 'liberation.' I know I would."

"Is Wolfowitz really so ignorant of history as to believe the Iraqis would welcome us as 'their hoped-for liberators'?"

OK, Angelwood's tired after researching quotes for this thread, so I'll answer for her...

Everybody, please vote for your top ten Garafolo Award "winners" right here, on this thread.

If you really, really want one nominee in particular to win, you can bullet vote (choose only one person). But only do that if you have your heart set on just one person to win the top award.

Ringleader, Warlord and maybe a couple other DC Chapter members will help in the tallying on Friday. The name with the most votes is the 1st prize winner, the one with the next-highest number of votes is the 2nd prize winner, and so on down the line - until we run out of crows.

Anybody who was not listed above by Angelwood is not eligible to win; as they had not been previously nominated in the "nominations" thread last week. They may be worthy of a plate full of crow, but we can't consider them for this particular honor. Rules is rules.

What, no (perky) Katie Couric? She probably had no idea she was endorsing the position that if Saddam was spared death, that would be a good thing. When one is so fervently anti-Bush sometimes it just slips out. Well... maybe we should forgive the queen of perkyness, just because she's so perky. Sometimes when one is trying hard to be so perky, the mouth just leaps far beyond the brains ability to keep up.

My votes go to those whose comments fit best the criteria laid out: The Garofalo--ready-to-eat stuffed crows on a platter--will be awarded to prominent individuals in the media and elsewhere whose histrionic predictions of doom and gloom before and/or during Operation Iraqi Freedom stand head and shoulders above all others for their shrillness, certainty, and apocalyptic ravings.

Leslie Stahl
R.W. Apple
Peter Arnett
David Hackworth
Simon Jenkins
Edward Said
Michael D. Higgins
Scott Ritter
Wesley Clark
Eric Margolis

The above are in the order they appear in the post.

The other nominees were equally revolting but tended to focus more on an anti-Bush mentality rather than on tactics or predictions of outcome. In fact most of the others conceded the fact that we would win (in some cases easily) but put us at moral equivalence to Saddam. IMHO, there could be another whole contest for the most ant-American, anti-Bush commentator.

Choices, choices...
in no particular order:
1) Janeane Garofalo
2) Chris Matthews
3) Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf
4) Peter Arnett
5) David Hackworth
6) Gary Camilla
7) Scott Ritter
8) Wesley Clark
9) Eric Margolis
10) Ted Rall
Good luck to the judges!

This is tough, there are many who deserve this award, however here are my choices:

Gary Camilla of Salon.com--the worst of all of them by far.
Nicholas DeGenova
Peter Arnett
Charles Rangel
Chris Matthews
George Galloway
Eason Jordan and CNN
Scott Ritter
Helen Thomas
Michael Moore

In no particular order:

Janeane Garofalo

Medea Benjamin

Nancy Pelosi

Eason Jordan and CNN

Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders

Scott Ritter

Michael Moore

Nicholas DeGenova

Mike Farrell

Bill Clinton

I respectfully suggest, though, that Baghdad Bob be removed from consideration. Unlike the other nominees, there is absolutely no evidence that Baghdad Bob believed the nonsense he was spewing.

This is NOT easy! Again, not necessarily in this order as they're all very dangerous people:

1. Clinton
2. Clinton (the lovely & gracious Mrs.)
3. CNN
4. Garofalo
5. Chris Matthews
6. Pelosi
7. Hackworth
8. Tim Robbins
9. Michael Moore
10. John Conyers

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