Cast Your Votes Now!

The end of the year is traditionally a time for summing up, for looking back over the past 12 months and taking stock of where we've been as we look ahead to where we're headed in the coming year. This year, it's hard: the past year has been abysmal on many points, and the year ahead promises to be a swamp of political and social yuck.

And so, Dear Readers, as a way of summing up and looking ahead, today we open the voting for Bilbo's first annual Ass Clown of the Year Award.

There is no shortage of promising candidates for this high dishonor. I offer the following candidates for your consideration, although you are free to vote for the Ass Clown of your choice:

Candidate 1. The Government and Religious Establishment of Saudi Arabia. Where else in the 21st century could you find a group of leaders so misogynistic and mentally and morally ossified that they would execute one woman for sorcery and sentence another to ten lashes for driving a car?

Candidate 2. The Republican Party (individually and collectively), for its "my way or the highway" approach to governance, striving every day to attain new heights of hypocrisy and betrayal of conservative ideals in search of political power while protecting big business and the wealthy at the expense of the middle and lower economic classes.

Candidate 3. The Democratic Party (individually and collectively), for its failure to recognize that it's cherished social programs are no longer sustainable, and failing to provide a compelling and affordable alternative to the rigid hyperconservatism and xenophobia of the GOP.

Candidate 4. The United States Congress (Both Houses), for its relentless focus on partisan posturing, shameless finger-pointing, and consistent avoidance of responsibility. At a time when principled leadership, compassion, and a willingness in good faith to seek the very best ideas to solve the nation's problems are desperately needed, our Congress does ... nothing.

And,

Candidate 5. The National Rifle Association, for its absolute insistence on totally unrestricted ownership and carrying of deadly weapons everywhere at all times, and for its head-in-the-sand denial of the carnage caused by the availability of high-powered, large-magazine semiautomatic firearms. The Second Amendment gives us the right to keep and bear arms. It doesn't give us the right to be stupid.

I will present the Ass Clown of the Year Award for 2011 in this space on December 31st. Vote early for the dishonoree of your choice. You can cast your vote as a comment to any post between now and December 30th, or you can e-mail it to me at der_blogmeister(at)yahoo(dot)com. In the spirit of modern American politics, you may vote as often as you like, and for more than one candidate. You may vote for anyone in any country. Write-ins are encouraged. It won't change anything, but it will make you feel better.

Have a good day. Vote early, vote often - somewhere out there, the year's top Ass Clown is waiting anxiously for your support.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo