2008 Kozmo Awards

So much absurdity and so little column space. The greatest challenge to awarding the annual Kozmo awards is not finding goofiness, but to identify with any certainty the silliest of so many deserving entries. In a year when Hillary Clinton cannot even cause a ripple in the pool by claiming that oil sheiks will fearfully reduce crude oil prices the moment she wins this November’s presidential election, it tells one something about the depth of talent and creativity in this year’s field. Nevertheless, your intrepid servant has slogged through the cesspool of leftwing wisdom and plucked from it the most worthy floaters for you to appreciate. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you part II of the annual Kozmo Awards.

Al Gore managed to sandwich winning the Nobel Peace Prize with quite remarkable demonstrations of hypocrisy. Before winning he was exposed as a world-class greenhouse gas emitter. The power bill for just one of his three mansions showed that he consumed 20 times the electricity of the average American home. Then, after winning his prize, he and Tipper flew a private jet to Scottsdale, Arizona, where he entertained friends who traveled similarly and set a buffet table weighted down with delicacies flown in fresh from Alaska, Maine and Asia.

Once again, the tobacco farmer who opportunistically turned anti-tobacco crusader collects another Kozmo for hypocrisy. It should look good on his mantle, between his Oscar and his Nobel.

Dennis Kucinich remains the only presidential candidate to take a firm stand against space based mind control weapons. But that’s not why he’s taking home a Kozmo. Nope, the congressman from Ohio wins for his commentary on American politics and cuisine: “You know how they say, Don't ever ask how laws or sausages are made? Well, I can attest to the wisdom of that with the exception of kielbasa made with tofu.”

The Anti-Bismark Kozmo goes to Dennis Kucinich.

I’d almost like to see Kucinich win the presidency, just so I can enjoy the spectacle of him “pardoning” the Thanksgiving tofurkey.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards goes to remarkable lengths to avoid informing his opinions. Fighting poverty is his primary crusade, and yet the one solution he has offered was tried and failed in the 1990’s. News to him. When it was learned that he had invested in a hedge fund, he said it was to learn more about poverty. If he did learn anything it was when that company started foreclosing on subprime mortgage loans in New Orleans.

When asked about Barack Obama’s supposed prescience regarding the Iraq War, he defended his vote for the war thusly: “He (Obama) wasn't burdened like a lot of us with the information that we were receiving on the intelligence committee and as members of the United States Senate. We were getting very detailed, intimate information about what was actually happening in Iraq.”

And so presumably, if only he had Obama’s advantage of ignorance, he too could have cast the vote he now claims he wishes he had cast in the first place.

And so, we award the Defense of Ignorance Kozmo to Pretty Boy John.

Johnny collects a second Kozmo for cynicism. This last spring it was learned that his wife, Elizabeth, had incurable breast cancer. Millions poured out their sincere, heartfelt sympathy to the Edwards family. And so John Edwards did what any loving husband would have done, he exploited his wife’s terminal illness to make money.

Visitors to John Edwards’ official campaign website were greeted with an opportunity to send Elizabeth an electronic sympathy note. Those who did were immediately solicited for contributions to the campaign.

In a normal year, Mike Huckabee would have won the Cynicism Kozmo for his media stunt with his negative anti-Romney advertisement, but John Edwards might have just retired the cynicism Kozmo. It’s hard to believe that anyone will ever again rise to the standard Edwards established.

This year’s Kozmo Supremo winner comes from academia, the fountainhead of most nonsense. Shortly after Columbia University president Lee Bolinger invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak, somebody wrote anti-Semitic slurs on a bathroom wall. Bollinger sanctimoniously railed against the offender and declared that the crime was inconsistent with Columbia’s ideals.

For Bollinger, anti-Semitism deserves a podium and a public address system. And for that, Bollinger wins the Irony Kozmo in a landslide.
Have a great 2008.