Well, Blagojevich’s chief of staff wants to spend more time with his family. Weird timing seems to be an issue with these guys, you know.

But also: Lisa Madigan seeks the TRO knocking Rod out of office. It seems to be the quickest way to get him out — the Legislature then can take its sweet time to impeach him and it won’t matter because he would be toast. Plus, Lisa Madigan has, of anybody left in Illinois government, the best rep.

(Still unresolved: whether or not Lisa Madigan is hawt. I can appreciate arguments either way.)

Damn.

And yet Dick Cheney still walks the earth.

Wow, is it mid-December already? Seems like only yesterday we were at the old site. And the old-old site the day before. Time flies!

It flies so fast that we’ve been caught flat-footed during the year-end awards season — we have absolutely nothing set up to grab some cheap publicity and reader entertainment.

So, we’re throwing it out to you: We need some awards, stat. We need categories, we need nominees, we need ideas for a Tacky Photoshop Graphic to present the winners, all of whom will likely accept their accolades in abstentia.

Heck, we might even set up a voting process, although that’s something of a hassle. Maybe we’ll create a PayPal account instead, so your vote will really count. Seems the going thing these days.

2008 Golden Dukes Announced! [TPM]

It’s that time again – the 10 worst predictions of 2008.  You’ll never guess who took the gold:

“If [Hillary Clinton] gets a race against John Edwards and Barack Obama, she’s going to be the nominee. Gore is the only threat to her, then. … Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now.” —William Kristol, Fox News Sunday, Dec. 17, 2006

Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist William Kristol was hardly alone in thinking that the Democratic primary was Clinton’s to lose, but it takes a special kind of self-confidence to make a declaration this sweeping more than a year before the first Iowa caucus was held. After Iowa, Kristol lurched to the other extreme, declaring that Clinton would lose New Hampshire and that “There will be no Clinton Restoration.” It’s also worth pointing out that this second wildly premature prediction was made in a Times column titled, “President Mike Huckabee?” The Times is currently rumored to be looking for his replacement.

Make sure and click through the C&L link to Foreign Policy and read the long version.  After the jump, an abbreviated list of the other honorees.

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Everybody’s favorite op-ed scold, Nicholas “PAY ATTENTION TO AFRICA YOU HEARTLESS BASTARDS” Kristof, wrote today with respect to remaking the Department of Agriculture into a more consumer/small-farm friendly outfit than it is now, without so much influence from Big Corn et al.  A worthy topic — which, of course, turns into his usual vigorous defense of how wonderful he is. (Did you know, for instance, that he grew up on a farm in Oregon? And gives to charities? Wow!)

But there was this:

The most powerful signal Mr. Obama could send would be to name a reformer to a renamed position. A former secretary of agriculture, John Block, said publicly the other day that the agency should be renamed “the Department of Food, Agriculture and Forestry.” And another, Ann Veneman, told me that she believes it should be renamed, “Department of Food and Agriculture.” I’d prefer to see simply “Department of Food,” giving primacy to America’s 300 million eaters.

No. This is too good. THIS MUST HAPPEN. What on earth would the Department’s official seal look like? A close-up of a guy preparing to chomp into a turkey leg, surrounded by thirteen stars? And I’ve always been clamoring for the naming of an Undersecretary of BBQ Best Practices, which would be the best government position ever created.

Hope you like stripes Rod!

Christ on a cracker people, being in Chicago at this particular point in history is awesome.  Not only are we anxiously awaiting the beautiful majestic ascent of Black Eagle, we are getting to enjoy the deliciously naughty fall of Slimy Rat Weasel (must credit homofascist).  Fitzmas came early, and we thank the FSM for these gifts.

But lest you think Rod’s fuck-ups (you can’t call them indescretions because that would imply that he has some sort of discretion to begin with, and based on how fucking stupid he has shown himself to be he doesn’t deserve that much credit) are some isolated incident, let me give you a quick history of the previous 50 years of Illinois governors before hairpiece took over in 2003.

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Psychogeezer: But Joe, I thought we were friends! JtWB: Hahahaha! You appalling dog, fucking die!

Utterly moronic wife beater and bleeding media hemorrhoid Joe the Wife Beater in a few short months has advance from obscurity as an unemployed, unlicensed pipe hack to a media God, invited to speak on cable news shows as a replacement for the talking dog act or for the horse who can count.

Joe the Wife Beater provides good value to these programs as he doesn’t charge and it is much more entertaining to listen to him attempt to talk than it is watching the horse try to count.

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