Esquire's Ten Worst Members Of Congress

[Syrinx]

I can't find this on the website yet, but the November issue of Esquire has endorsements for every Congressional race coming up. And they also list their picks for the ten best and ten worst congress members.

My very own Congressman, Artur Davis, is included on the list of the best.

Barack Obama gets all the plaudits as America's first postracial black politician, but it is the electric Artur Davis (Obama's law-school classmate at Harvard), elected in 2002 on a farm-city unity platform, who truly deserves that title. Look for Davis to truly test this approach by running for governor in '10.

The nine others on the list are Mike Pence, Henry Waxman, Jeff Flake, Ike Skelton, Sheldon Whitehouse, Mike Simpson, Olympia Snowe, Lamar Alexander and Mark Pryor.

Senator Saxby Chambliss leads off the list of the worst:

Chambliss is a senator today by sole virtue of the fact that in 2002 he attacked incumbent Max Cleland -- who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam and earned Silver and Bronze stars -- as soft on defense and lacking in patriotism. Where was ol' Saxby during the war? Home, of course, claiming a "football injury." How you get elected reflects your character, and Chambliss should never be allowed to live down the shame of what he did in 2002. Never.

CNN favorite Michele Bachmann is next on the list.

One gets the impression that if, in the name of "traditional values," Bachmann could rescind the vote for women, she would. Her vacant, wild eyes recall a doomsday prophet, or one of Charlie Manson's girls. Equal parts religious hack and party hack, she's got spunk and not much else.

Steve King, from Iowa, is also on the list.

King believes himself to be clever, and his list of idiot declarations is probably the longest in Washingtgon. Now he toes the fine line between idiocy and bigotry when he argues that Barack Hussein Obama's prescence in the White House will aid Islamic terrorists. Iowa, please, we beg you.

But my favorite is Joe Lieberman.

Inherent in politics is the fact that someone always loses. Some lose gracefully, some lose poorly, and as in the case of Joe Lieberman, some lose their minds. Since being defeated by an anti-war candidate in the Democratic primary in 2006, Lieberman (who was subsequently reelected as an Independent) has pursued his campaign of revenge against his former party, thinly disguised as an act of principle, replete with the quavering sanctimony that no country should have to put up with from anyone, much less from this small man.

The rest of the list includes John Cornyn, Pete Stark, William Jefferson, Steve King, Joe Baca, John Murtha and Ted Stevens.

Oh, and they also endorse Barack Obama for President. And they compare John McCain to "a monkey dancing on a string."

:rofl:

Political fans may want to check this issue out. It features Halle Berry on the cover as the "sexiest woman alive."

[ColbertWatcher]

1. Interesting stuff, thank you for posting. n/t

[Syrinx]

2. you're welcome

:hi:

[ColbertWatcher]

3. As soon as they post the article, add the link, please. n/t

[Syrinx]

4. here's the endorsement of Barack

I just checked a few hours ago, and it wasn't up yet, but now it is. I still don't see the best/worst lists.

Here are the concluding paragraphs, and a link.

Esquire Endorses Barack Obama for President

We thought this election would be a serious fight over the future of this country, but only one candidate showed up.

For the past several months, it has worked to make extricating ourselves from the catastrophe it has wrought in Iraq as hard as possible. It has sought to make permanent the culture of corporate brigandage and predatory incompetence that it has made a hallmark of its stewardship of the country and its government. Salted throughout the vast bureaucracy are dozens of little homeschooled land mines, the products of a dozen cheapjack diploma mills selling patent-medicine history to the spiritually gullible. The fantastical hiring practices that only recently have come to light in the Department of Justice are only the most visible example of this, but the poisonous philosophy that has guided this administration is in all the institutions of the government Barack Obama hopes to lead. It is not dormant. It is there, replicating itself like a virus does in the cells of the body, waiting until it can erupt and debilitate him and his administration.

And nowhere is it more clearly visible than in the federal courts. It is in the courts where the depredations of the past seven years can become permanent. It is in the courts where the un-American legacy of George W. Bush can live forever -- or, at least, as long as most of the rest of us do. The Supreme Court already is dangerously close to an extremist conservative majority, and Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito were both born after John Paul Stevens already had passed the bar, and it was Stevens who, as recently as last June's Boumediene decision, helped create a thin 5 -- 4 majority in favor of reestablishing the right of habeas corpus for those people being detained by the administration in places like Guantánamo Bay. The decision threw out a key provision of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, a bipartisan piece of legislative cowardice that sank the Great Writ into a deep mire of euphemism and deceit. One vote, to uphold the right that En-glish nobles wrung out of King John in 1215. One vote, on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. One vote, from an eighty-eight-year-old man who'd already founded his own law firm when the chief justice under whom he serves, and who predictably voted in agreement with the president who'd appointed him, was born. One vote, on one of 107 federal courts.

There is no evidence at all that anything will change under a President John McCain, who has already identified Roberts and Alito as his beau ideals of Supreme Court justices. He has made brave noises about torture and the extraconstitutional prerogatives of the executive, but President Bush and his men went on and did what they wanted anyway, and McCain walked away, begging for votes from fundamentalists who hate him, meeping his displeasure in ways that were barely audible. The virus will gestate and spread on his watch, all throughout the federal government. Bushism must be ripped out, root and branch, everywhere it has been established, or else the presidential election of 2008 is a worthless exercise in futility. Barack Obama may not be the man to do it, but John McCain, for all his laudable qualities, clearly is neither willing nor able to do so.

To continue to govern ourselves this way is unthinkable. It is unsustainable as a democracy to continue to mock so egregiously in secret what we continue to profess in public. That is the task for the next president. That is the main reason to vote for Barack Obama of Illinois. We strongly encourage you to do so.

http://www.esquire.com/features/esquire-endorsements-2008/esquire-endorses-barack-obama

And, for fun, Halle Berry as the sexiest woman alive.

http://www.esquire.com/women/women-we-love/halle-berry-sexiest-woman-alive-2008?click=pp

;)

[ColbertWatcher]

5. I saw that one. Good stuff. Like you , I couldn't find the other one. n/t

[old mark]

6. Thanks. Always liked Esquire. nt

[Number23]

7. Very nice post!

Any thread that disses Joe, Saxby, endorses Obama, and names Halle the sexiest woman alive is all right in my book...:)

[Syrinx]

8. .

:thumbsup:

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Why is Pete Stark on the Worst List?

[brentspeak]

11. I second that question

Stark is one of the best, not worst, members of Congress.

Also, why is Murtha on the 'worst' list?

[wryter2000]

12. Pete Stark is great

I don't know what they're thinking with that one.

[csorman]

10. Yay! Crazy Michele Bachmann made the worst list

Thank heavens she's not my rep (I have Keith Ellison - woo hoo!), but I know several folks who live in her district. She's evil. Evil, evil, evil. And completely fucking nuts.

Every time I see her on Larry King (I wonder if they pick her for comic relief), it looks like she's going to gobble up the other commentators.

[awnobles]

13. Get Cornyn Out

He is vulnerable to challenger Rick Noriega, but he has lots of cash. Giving to Noriega would help possibly rid us of Cornyn. Please help by donating.

[awnobles]

14. Get Cornyn Out

He is vulnerable to challenger Rick Noriega, but he has lots of cash. Giving to Noriega would help possibly rid us of Cornyn. Please help by donating.