For your consideration, I present each nominee one more time.
In the Athletic Round we had LeBron James. He announced to the world, only minutes after letting his former employers know, that he would leave Cleveland and go to Miami. He promised to do what he could to bring a championship to Cleveland, but in the end he was only interested in bringing one to himself and he would go where he needed to in order to do it. I can’t blame him for wanting to leave Cleveland, but he shouldn’t have done it in the fashion that he did, creating a media spectacle.
In the Celebrity Round, Mel Gibson touretted his way to infamy after already being on the fence with his previous foot in mouth disease. Allegedly he assaulted the mother of his child. He spouted off more obscenities and vitriol then a Mamet character and still he managed to get support from his former costars. One can only hope that 2011 serves as a chance for him to come back to reality and get on some proper meds.
For the Reality Round, Jesse James spat on his marriage and every hanger on that ever attached themselves to the celebrity that is Sandra Bullock. And he managed to do it while she stood on stage professing her love and owing her newfound resurgence to you. At least you could have had the decency to let her know ahead of time. Or better yet, not been such a douchebag to start.
Blindsided?
Politicians stole the Political Round from the Tea Party Movement in the political round by failing to do anything but posture and play king of the hill. Instead of actually making a change to the country, they simply made a change to the roster. Well, guess what? We became disillusioned the last time around under the eight years rule. Granted, we only gave it two years but we’ve become fickle and impatient. I guess we wanted to believe in change, but didn’t want to believe in a slow process. You didn’t help the cause, you impeded it to get into power. Maybe neither side is the answer. In any case, you were all winners, right or left.
Politicians make for strange bedfellows
In the Media Round, Dr. Laura went gangsta over the airwaves and claimed first amendment blah blah as a defense. Put it this way, when Sarah Palin comes to your defense it might not be a good thing. Ask a majority of the candidates she backed during election season.
Oh yes, I did!
Roger Goodell says one thing and does another. He wants safety but more money for the league in the form of regular season games. He wants to punish certain players but turn a blind eye to others. He wants obscure transparency over the rules of play yet can’t take a standardized position on how players should act off the field. The emperor has no clothes but he clinched a playoff birth from the In Charge Round.
BP contributed to one of the worst ecological disasters since Joe Hazelwood slept off a bender and the third mate ran aground in Alaska. But to lay blame for the disaster solely at the feet of BP is a bit much. There were multiple factors that involve multiple parties. How the whole crisis was handled has more to do with BPs nomination and win of their round.
Lastly, I present our reigning champ, Death
I'm Death, bitch!
On the home front Death took the life of my mother in law, a 12 year survivor of renal cell cancer. The cancer never got her. She died of a brain hemorrhage, due to a blood thinner she was on at the time. Also, my wife’s childhood pet, Woody, a 24 year old black and white one fanged cat finally had to be put down. Both of these deaths affected me more than any celebrity or childhood hero I may have had. So, Death was busy and is in good company with a bunch of other D-bags.
That all being said, I can clearly pick a winner of the 2010 D-Bag Awards.
BP
Death had it locked up but I had to think about it. Death may have claimed the lives of millions this past year, including mine explosions, earthquakes in Haiti, personal losses and losses to my childhood, but Death is doing his job and while I won’t strip him of the title, I cannot clearly give it to him this year. BP was the bigger douchebag. Tony Hayward made the biggest of all d-bag statements when he said, “I want my life back.” The entire handling of the disaster was a ridiculous exercise right out of the playbook of FEMA circa 2005. And while life may be getting back to whatever semblance of normalcy it may have had on the Gulf Coast, the full effects of what happened and how it happened and how it was handled may still be years out on the horizon. Even the name of the rig, Deepwater Horizon, is a sort of morbid foreshadowing of what the future of the Gulf Coast may have in store for us. This was a disaster that even Death was going, “Whoa, you guys are real douchebags!” So, your winner for 2010, by an oil slick is BP. Kudos, douchebags. Good luck in 2011.
