The New York Times, The Associated Press and Andrea Mitchell All Win Kozmos

What’s the difference between a Kozmo and a Nobel Peace Prize? One difference is that a Kozmo must be earned. I expect that, in the not too distant future, banks will hand out Nobel Peace Prizes for opening checking accounts. Or maybe you’ll be able to use your credit card points to buy a Nobel Peace Prize. Kozmos, on the other hand, will always be something you’ll have to earn. And this year, we had a plethora of deserving candidates. As the candidates are evaluated on their ignorance, arrogance, condescension and hypocrisy, and as those attributes pretty much define the self-anointed intelligentsia, the judges were nearly smothered by the avalanche triggered by the election of Barack Obama.

Once again we have elected to divide our awards ceremony into a two weekend event with the mainstream news media taking the stage first.

This was a difficult year for the mainstream media. After investing every last measure of their credibility getting Barack Obama elected president, they were left floundering when The One’s magic required resuscitation when he committed misstep after misstep.

One glaring difficulty that Obama faced was the very shallow talent pool to draw from within his own party. Several cabinet nominees were found to have evaded their taxes. So short of talent were the Democrats that Tim Geithner, who clearly cheated and was not a victim of TurboTax as he claimed, was nevertheless confirmed as Treasury Secretary. Since then, many of the top positions within the Treasury Department have gone unfilled because so few candidates have paid their taxes. So dire is the problem NBC’s Andrea Mitchell actually apologized for her profession’s predilection to report criminal behavior.

“I think it's a problem, although I will say this - for the media to blame that entirely on the Senate seems to me a little bit self serving,” Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) said. “I mean, the media is the problem here, in part. It is the over-focus on part of people in the media to relatively minor infractions that causes this. I guarantee you my colleagues would not on their own be doing this. So I do think we are in a culture now where a lack of perfection exacts too strong a toll, but that's the politicians reacting to the media.”

To which Andrea Mitchell answered, “I take your point, Mr. Frank, Mr. Chairman. You're right and we plead guilty because this is this culture right now of ‘gotcha’ has gotten completely out of control.”

For groveling above and beyond the call of duty, Andrea Mitchell collects the Mainstream Media Suckup Kozmo.

The Associated Press wins two Excellence in Fact Checking Kozmos for its efforts in setting conservatives straight. The AP earned one citation for setting Representative Rep. John Mica (R., Fla.) straight for his claim that, "transportation money is slow to get out because of 'red tape' slowing things down."

The AP got right to work sorting out that nonsense: “THE FACTS: Republicans are correct that only a small percentage of the $48 billion in transportation money has been spent. But red tape is a red herring. In fact, stimulus projects have to be ready to begin quickly. Projects that have yet to clear permitting, environmental review or other bureaucratic hurdles won't get funded because they won't meet the law's deadlines.”

So, it was bureaucratic hurdles and not red tape slowing things down. Thanks AP.

The AP earned another Excellence in Fact Checking Kozmo for assigning 11 fact checkers to scour Sarah Palin’s memoirs for errors. They claimed to uncover 5, but a careful reading lowers their score considerably.

Meanwhile, I have not yet seen the AP’s fact checking of Al Gore’s latest book, “Our Choice.”

It wouldn’t be media day at the Kozmos without the New York Times. The Times earned uncountable nominations this year, but The Times really stood out with its endorsement of Nazi economics. Only an historical illiterate could fail to recognize the similarities between Barack Obama’s stimulus package and Adolf Hitler’s in the 1930’s. So, The Times invested over 1200 words extolling the virtues of Nazi economic policy.

Oh well. Why not? It was, after all, The Times’ Walter Duranty who, in the 1930’s helped the Soviet Union conceal its Ukrainian genocide because of his sympathies for communism. The more times change, the more The Times stays the same.

Next week, we’ll bestow Kozmos upon deserving politicians.