• “A Santorum Surge?” [NRO]
• “The Rick Santorum surge is here” [Salon]
• “Republican Romney tops Iowa, Santorum surges” [Reuters]

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Like an endorsement from a guy who helped ruin our economy will help: “The Gingrich campaign has announced that they have received the endorsement of Arthur Laffer, “father of The Laffer Curve and supply-side economics, and architect of the Ronald Reagan economic plan.” Laffer will appear with Gingrich later today in Iowa.” [TPM]

“Texas Gov. Rick Perry revealed a hardening in his stance on abortion Tuesday, telling a crowd in Iowa that he opposed abortions in all cases, including when a woman had been raped or the victim of incest. Previously, Perry had not opposed the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s life was threatened.” [CNN]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZACT4UgBog

We used to say that we learned storytelling from Bill Cosby, absurdity from George Carlin — and timing from Chuck Jones, the genius behind our favorite Warner Bros. cartoons. Much later, we would say that we likely learned a taste for avant-garde music from Carl Stalling, the composer/arranger for many Warners classics.

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Our highest honor is not easily achieved. Anybody can be an asshole. Some can even be an asshole for years without meriting special recognition — Louie Gohmert may some day win an Anal Pear, but he’ll never qualify for a Crystal Douchebag. For he lacks a special quality only few possess: The ability to really fuck things up.

The nominees are: Newt Gingrich, who hasn’t worked an honest day in his life; Rupert Murdoch, who pulled off the hat trick of undermining Democracy on three continents; Grover Norquist, who doesn’t need to run for President because he already wields ultimate veto power over everything; and Donald Trump, who has been building a decades-long case for a severe Estate Tax.

And the winner is…

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As is evident from the variety of candidates, there is no single qualification for this highly coveted award. It’s not something as simple as “Who had the most deleterious effect on our polity?” or “Whose energy-drink commercial annoyed us the most, especially since we don’t pay attention to Sport?” Instead, to honor the implement to which this is dedicated, the judgment is more intuitive: Who pissed the living shit out of us?

The nominees are: Joe Arpaio, whose incessant begging for attention finally produced results from the Justice Department; Newt Gingrich, whose revived Contract On America starts with keelhauling judges; Tim Tebow, who keeps distracting God from more pressing matters; and Barack Obama, who mercilessly taunts Glenn Greenwald with violations of Justice that nobody else cares about.

And the winner is…

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No, we sternly instructed the Judges, You cannot choose all of them. We tried to explain that Time would never choose everyone as Man of the Year, because that would just undermine the point of the exercise, but after the raucous laughter died down — and we threatened to withhold their Gift Bags — the Judges granted our point, and got down to work.

The nominees are: Michele Bachmann, who revealed that she’s one of those people who believes everything she reads in chain emails; Herman Cain!, who deployed the longest gap since Nixon; Jon Huntsman, who adorably expected everyone to take his serious candidacy seriously; Rick Perry, who revived one of our favorite Monty Python sketches; and Mitt Romney, who announced that he’s starring in a self-funded remake of Indecent Proposal.

And the winner is…

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