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At a time when President Obama just barely avoided making this list for having collaborated with Republicans on gutting entitlements by finally emphasizing that the Defense Budget must be reduced - here are the Worst Persons of the Day:
The bronze to Birther/Realtor/Wigster Donald Trump, and his absurd two-note campaign: that "his team" will prove Barack Obama was not born in this country, and that we should steal the oil in Iraq so we can pay for all the money we wasted in Iraq. Trump is growing so increasingly embarrassing - and not just politically - professionally as well, in real estate and broadcasting - that he's now been dissed by both Newt Gingrich and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Cantor said, quote:
"I don't think he is really serious when we ... see a campaign launched on the birther issue"
Gingrich said, quote: "I think that the Donald is such an interesting person in every way that being 'Apprentice Candidate' is his newest show."
Don? When you get shoved around by has-beens like Newt Gingrich and lightweights like Eric Cantor - you're done.
And, by the way, the joke about Trump - whose wealth rests on the money his father actually made - about him being born on third base and thinking he hit a triple? Actually he was born on third base, went backwards to second, and thinks he hit a **double.**
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Speaking of baseball references - the runner-up: John Steigerwald, the former Pittsburgh sportscaster now reduced to writing occasional columns for a newspaper in Washington County, Pennsylvania.
You've heard about Bryan Stow, the San Francisco Giants fan who was beaten into a coma in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, because he was wearing a Giants jersey.
Columnist Steigerwald knows who to blame. Bryan Stow:
Just before he was beaten to within an inch of his life, Stow texted some friends and said that he was "scared inside the stadium". Maybe someone can ask Stow, if he ever comes out of his coma, why he thought it was a good idea to wear Giants' gear to a Dodgers' home opener when there was a history of out-of-control drunkenness and arrests at that event going back several years.
That is what Mr. Steigerwald wrote: Blame the victim.
For context, if you're in Western Pennsylvania and your name is Steigerwald, you had better just change careers. Bill Steigerwald wrote ridiculous columns for the Richard Mellon Scaife Vanity newspaper in Pittsburgh, the Tribune-Review, and announcer Paul Steigerwald once made a joke about the past winner of college hockey's Hobey Baker Award. His color man noted that the Baker award winner was checked to the ice and 'went down real hard.' Steigerwald #3 replied: "Not as hard as Hobey Baker went down, though. He went down in a plane crash. That's pretty hard to go down there."
For additional context, while the teams and the fans are rightly soul-searching over what happened last week - in 2003, in the same L-A parking lot, some Giants fans taunted a Dodger fan, who apparently replied. One of the Giants fans promptly shot and killed the Dodger fan. When the Dodgers and Giants were still in New York, two Giants fans taunted at a bar a Dodger fan named Robert Simon. He went home, got his gun, and came back and shot them. This was in 1938. Sadly, none of this is new.
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But our winner, Senator Jon Kyl, who apparently keeps getting reelected by Arizona in order to make John McCain look good...
You already know that the quote "Senator" unquote claimed that abortions constitute quote "well over 90 percent" of what's done by Planned Parenthood.
When challenged with the correct statistic - three percent, not 90 (what's 87 percent between friends?) - Kyl responded that his claim was, quote, "not intended to be a factual statement."
Mr. Kyl has now made Richard Nixon's press secretary Ron Ziegler look honest when he explained-away months of lying about Watergate by saying, "This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative."
Still. "That was not intended to be a factual statement." Nice to finally hear one of them admit that. They should include that after every Republican comment, like those fast-talking announcers at the end of the Bank Commercials on the Radio:
"Your mileage may vary. Higher West Of The Rockies. Member, F-D-I-C. 90 percent claim may actually represent 3 percent. The Check Is In The Mail. Not intended to be a factual statement."
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, today's Worst Person