This year's list is replete with the usual Beastly invective, and accompanied by the usual telling caricatures (I found the one of Jeremiah Wright particularly enjoyable— though some, no doubt, will find sacrilege in it— and that of Joe Lieberman delightfully nasty.) I might quibble over the inclusion of a few lightweights (does Internet fifteen-minuter Tila Tequila really deserve a spot?) and the absence of a few personal disfavorites (could nobody be bumped from the list to make room for Joe Biden?), but on the whole it's a rich selection. The pillory gets a good workout!
It offers plenty of amusement for those of us who are not ready to believe that the Millennium has arrived and the Reign of Righteousness will now commence. It could also offer some entertaining distraction to those who fear that the UN helicopters will arrive to haul them off to the camps any day now, but that crowd's grip on reality is probably too tenuous for them to appreciate the likelihood of the world remaining pretty much the same after the regime change. Next year's Beast list will be as full of dicks and buffoons as ever, I'm sure. The Buffoon-in-Chief and Big Dick may be out of office, but there will never be a shortage of their kind, nor will such ever be entirely without influence.
Oh, by the way: Door, arse, way out.
And to end on a note of optimism: Let the nation's struggle back up to the level of mediocrity it has historically enjoyed begin! Getting us there is all it will take to be the hero, Mr. President. I'm sure you're capable of accomplishing it.
