I remember when The Golden Dukes was a real knee-slapper.
For the last ten years, I’ve been invited to be a judge at Talking Points Memo, to choose the worst political actors of the previous 12 months.
I never dreamed the field of candidates would evolve into such a bunch of sad sacks.
Whatever happened to tinkle-fetish congressmen, caught buggering in tearooms?
Whatever happened to pols bribing suckers with white Caddies and a bag of coke?
Whatever happened to laughs?
Alas, 2018’s Duke nominees were lined with more cynicism than mink, more cold-eyed stares than functioning libidos. Mining comic gold out of these fuckers was harder than shoving a fat man through a needle.
Be that as it may, I performed my duty. The gavel has spoken.
I’d like to dedicate my picks to the memory of Hunter Thompson, and his son Juan, who never met a Latin* they didn’t like.
Finally, check out the other judges’ picks at TPM, they'e quite convincing!
Meritorious Achievement In The Crazy
Donald Trump
“Deus quem punire vult dementat”
Trump will be the first executive since Antigone’s uncle, to be completely undone by his defiance of death rites. “Crazy” is a cute way of putting it.
Individual #1 will not mourn. He will not clean, bury, or honor the dead. He will leave his men out in the field. He will betray and besmirch his family.
Rulers often meet ruinous ends because the economy or the climate betray them, aided by great plowing drifts of palace intrigue. And Trump will suffer those torrents, too.
But the reason the man will be despised forever, beyond memory of every Mueller count against him, is because the Fake King would not respect the dead, and because he feared the living.
Trump is paralyzed by a neurotic fear of death, war, and dismemberment. But he will not bow his head. He will howl.
Hence, if he does not mourn, he will burn. For that, the man loses the allegiance of people who’d otherwise have followed him over a cliff. Daddy, you’re through.
Best Scandal
Michael Cohen, Esquire
“Ne eligat is qui donum accipit”
Cohen says to the judge he’d never forgive himself for the suffering his wretched behavior has caused his family, all at the expense of his brown-nosing hubris.
Yet his contrite speech didn’t have the quite the deep pool of St. Sebastian’s blood I expect to see collecting on the floor.
This isn’t just about the embarrassment of Papa Cohen being a liar, leech, thug— or that Mickey’s nose is so far up Trump’s ass, that only his toes are hanging out. No.
This isn’t even about disgracing whatever finely-wrought organized crime traditions arise from the wife’s side of the family, who presumably cannot believe any professional criminal could be this stupid. They thought “Fredo” was just a guy in a movie.
Here’s the anecdote that I won’t forget: Back when Cohen’s young son had his bar mitzvah, special guest Donald Trump was so late to the ceremony that he delayed the crux of the ritual, leaving the rabbis, congregation, and hundreds of guests just… hanging there.
Trump finally burst in, just as the whole shebang was about to combust. Jokes on you, Mikey!— Trump cracked wise to all assembled. He NEVER planned or wanted to attend, but his pathetic lawyer would not stop begging him.
Dear Mr. Cohen: Living on your knees is a hell of way to go, but you bled all of us for your trouble.
Best Scandal, Local Venue
Scott Taylor & Leslie McCrae Dowless
“Qui vitulum tollit, taurum subduxerit idem”
An Election Fraud Con-Man tie! Bless their hearts.
You two have rubbed the cheat right off the peach.
Did you caucus beforehand, to gin a hiring hall for stone-cold hustlers? —Any vacancies? Do you want a job at the CIRCUS?
Oh, sorry— the flying pigs have too much DIGNITY.
Best Campaign Trail Gaffe
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith
“Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare”
Pin the gold ribbon on the white supremacist potty mouth.
It’s not a gaffe for Cindy. It’s a lifestyle.
Literary Achievement In 280 Characters
Speaker Paul Ryan
“Dives aut iniquus est, aut iniqui heres”
Paul Ryan, whose image appears in the visual dictionary for “Craven,” had this to tweet for upbeat news in 2018:
“A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week! She says that will more than cover her Costco membership for the year.”
A DOLLAR-FIFTY A WEEK isn’t enough to put spam on the table.
Speaker Ryan is a stain upon the working class traditions of Wisconsin. If he had to live for a week like he expects “lessers” to endure, he would fold like a paper bag.
Outstanding Ineptitude In The Cabinet
Ryan Zinke
“Cuilibet fatuo placet sua calva”
My favorite part of Zinke’s balls is that he refused to quit, until he got to throw his lavish end of year Xmas Party.
“Bachmanity Insanity” has NOTHING on our boy.
Ho ho ho, the Interior Secretary won’t leave, until he gets the last fruitcake! All the Who’s down in Whos-ville can just suck it!
Word is, Santa Claus left Ryan a big coalpile…
Ryan’s underneath it.
Best Conspiracy Theory
Ann Coulter
“Cui caput dolet, omnia membra languent”
I was once invited to speak at an august institution, Tulane University, in their grandest hall, where presidents, kings, and even Grace Kelly once graced their stage. I shivered to step out on the same boards.
After the curtain fell, I made a point to speak to the stage manager, a gentleman far past retirement age, who had lectern memories going back to FDR.
“Tell me, Mr. Fox,” I said, “Whose speech, in all of history, left the greatest impression on you?”
“Oh that would have to be yours, Miss Bright,” he said.
“No, I’m serious!”
“Well, I’ve been moved to tears and prayers more times than I can count,” he said. There’ve been so many ‘greats’… but I have to tell you, the worst, the very worst… I can’t even call a human being, that I ever hosted here; she desecrated the room…. Oh my goodness, I can’t even say her name but that hair and the things she said have scarred my heart forever.”
“Ann Coulter?”
We hugged each other like there was no letting go.
*About those Latin phrases...
My parents grew up at a time when public school kids studied Latin, and if you were a “nerd,” as they were, it became quite fun to play with many of the classic phrases and choice words.
Later in life, quite by accident, I discovered in my talk-a-thons with Hunter Thompson that he was a Latin philosophy lover of the first water! And his son Juan continues the tradition. I was thinking of them all this winter, and the Roman circus of our political fates. Below is a translation of some of the phrases I used in this round of the Dukes! It really is remarkable how apt they are.
On TRUMP:
Deus quem punire vult dementat
"Whom God will destroy, he first make mad."
On MICHAEL COHEN:
Ne eligat is qui donum accipit
"Beggars can’t be choosers"
On TAYLOR & DOWLESS:
Qui vitulum tollit, taurum subduxerit idem
"He that steals an egg will steal an ox."
On HYDE SMITH:
Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare
"Any man can make a mistake; only a fool keeps making the same one."
On RYAN:
Dives aut iniquus est, aut iniqui heres
"No one gets rich quickly if he is honest."
On ZINKE:
Cuilibet fatuo placet sua calva
"Every fool is pleased with his own folly."
On COULTER:
Cui caput dolet, omnia membra languent
"When the head is sick, the whole body is sick."
Painting: The Punishment of Thieves, William Blake, 1824-1827
