Grab a ringside seat as we pit Democrats vs. Republicans in a battle for badass supremacy!
Punchy pundits scream that Republicans are immigrant-incinerating cowboys and that Democrats are peach-scented poetry majors who want to hug it out with Al Qaeda. Every politician on the Hill claims they're in the party of power, but who really is? To find out, we matched our nation's leaders in six rounds of 'nad-defining fisticuffs, then we enlisted Ann Coulter, Fox News' Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, and Air America's Randi Rhodes to help score the bout. Utilizing boxing's Ten Point Must System, the winner of each round receives 10 points, and the loser 9. OK, elected officials, rub Vaseline all over your bodies and come out fighting!
Ann Coulter "Republicans in a landslide — get used to hearing that, by the way — because in order to be ballsy, you have to have balls. `Wanted dead or
alive!', 'Smoke'em out of their holes!' That's George W. Bush, and it's not trash talk if you back it up, sonny. `Bring it on!'"
Randi Rhodes
"If you think being tough is dressing up in costumes with codpieces and being fake warriors and fake patriots, the Republicans win. If you like phonies, then you like Republicans. But if you like your tough guys real, the Democrats are the shit."
Alan Colmes
"If you're a Democrat, you have to be tougher because you have to deal with nasty Republicans. The Democrats say it like it is, while the Republicans just spew. And just because you're in a party that is pro-war doesn't make you a tough guy. Democrats win."
Sean Hannity
"It's not even close. The Democratic Party is pathetically weak and timid and afraid — they are gutless and spineless. Democrats constantly call for retreat and defeat. They have emboldened our enemies and undermined troop morale. They are the party of weakness."
Team: Republican
Team: Democrat
Round 1: Lady-killers
Tom Coburn (Sen., OK)
Married a former Miss Oklahoma. Once t.-I claimed, "There's no science that shows silicone breast implants are detrimental, and, in fact, they make you healthier."
John Warner (Sen., VA) 114 , OK, she was in her 40s at the time, but as far as notches in the bedpost go, they don't come much bigger than being a former Mr. Liz Taylor.
Fred Thompson (former presidential candidate, TV character actor)
When the phlegmatic Law & Order star was asked what his most prized possession was by the AP, he responded, "Trophy wife." The New York Times considered whether the cleavage of his 24-year-younger wife, Jerri, would help get votes. (Um, nope.) Fred has actually fathered children with his babe wife, which is as inspiring as it is repulsive.
Ted Kennedy (Sen., MA)
The fornicating fatty was caught enjoying the company of a female lobbyist's vagina under the table of a high-end D.C. restaurant in 1987. Two years later his naked ass was photographed atop a brunette on a boat in St-Tropez. Oh, and in 1969, he left a woman to die in a car he crashed into a river.
Dennis Kucinich (Rep, OH)
On his radio show, Glenn Beck speculated the flap-eared presidential hopeful bagged his mega-hottie, tongue-pierced Brit wife, Elizabeth, with the aid of "some sort of... date rape drug." Outrageous! ...Or is it?
John Edwards (former Sen., NC; presidential candidate)
In 2000 People named him "sexiest politician alive." Eight years later, this champion of the impoverished is just as handsome, thanks to his proclivity for $400 haircuts.
Judges' Table
Randi Rhodes: "The Republicans as lady-killers? Giuliani is a cross-dresser, Mark Foley hits on little boys, and there's the toe-tapper guy. Gay, gay, gay."
Ann Coulter: "Obviously, Ted Kennedy wins the lady-killer competition, having actually killed a lady."
Round 1: DEM, 10-9
Round 2: Party Animals
Randy Kuhl (Rep., NY) His rap sheet of alleged misdeeds includes excessive drinking, womanizing, and yanking out two shotguns at a 1994 dinner party — and threatening to use them on his wife — and the dude still has a job!
Dana Rohrabacher (Rep., CA)
Refusing to pussy out with "I didn't inhale" excuses, the surfing lawmaker has said he "did everything but drink the bong water." Result: Rohrabacher's been reelected to Congress nine times in a row.
Jim Ramstad (Rep., MN)
In 1981 he woke up from a blackout inside a jail cell in Sioux City, South Dakota after being arrested for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and failure to leave a coffee shop at 2 A.M. Pretty badass, although he ruined it by stating that the incident humiliated him into entering a treatment program.
Dennis Cardoza (Rep., CA)
Cardoza likes to fight dirty. This grandson of Portuguese immigrants used to stage female mud-wrestling shows in his family's Merced, California bowling alley.
Barack Obama (Sen., IL; presidential candidate)
Wrote in his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, that as a teenager he had a special way of dealing with the emotional problems of life: "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it."
Stephen Lynch (Rep., MA)
Lynch has tussled with cops twice: once
for possession of dope at a Grateful Dead
concert in 1977, and later for kicking an anti-American demonstrator's ass in 1980. Oddly,
these arrests have been an asset in getting him
reelected repeatedly in South Boston. Wicked.
Judges' Table
Alan Colmes: "Republicans are the best partyers. Democrats are the ones with the strong work ethic."
Sean Hannity: "Barack Obama wins. He's the only candidate I know who has made the admission of using cocaine and basically had no negative fallout."
Round 2: DEM, 10-9
Round 3: Military Valor
Sam Johnson (Rep., TX)
Korea and Nam combat aviator endured
seven years as a POW. In a meeting with President Bush, he said, "Syria is the problem... You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on 'em and I'll make one pass. We won't have to worry about Syria anymore."
John McCain (Sen., AZ; presidential candidate)
Broke both arms and a leg when shot down over Vietnam in 1967, took a bayonet to the groin, and endured five and a half years of torture in the Hanoi Hilton — famously recounted in his 1999 memoir, Faith of My Fathers. Don't nobody fuck with McCain.
Chuck Hagel (Sen., NE)
His body on fire, the Nam vet dragged
his brother out of a hit vehicle in 1968. After Cheney shot his pal, he noted, "If he'd been in the military, he'd have learned gun safety."
Jim Webb (Sen., VA)
Vietnam Vet's Navy Cross citation reads
in part: "Observing the grenade landed dangerously close to his companion [Webb] simultaneously fired his weapon at the enemy, pushed the marine away from the grenade, and shielded him from the explosion with his own body." Wore son's Iraq War combat boots every day of his 2006 senate campaign.
Daniel Inouye (Sen., HI)
Served as a volunteer at Pearl Harbor,
earned 15 medals and citations, and lost right arm in WWII. Displayed "complete disregard for his personal safety" (per award citation) in neutralizing Kraut positions.
Charlie Rangel (Rep., NY)
The Army vet led 40 men from his unit in a three-day escape from a Chinese Army encirclement in Korea. He earned the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.
Judges' Table
Ann Coulter: "Dems demand that we surrender in Iraq. A little on the unmanly side, don't you think?"
Randi Rhodes: "This is going to cause me a fucking headache for saying, but Democrats win because they never get caught by the enemy."
Round 3: GOP, 10-9
Round 4: Trash Talking
Don Young (Rep., AK)
"Environmentalists are a socialist group
of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans."
John Boehner (Rep., OH)
"I listen to my Democratic friends, and
I wonder if they are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people."
Rudy Giuliani (former New York City mayor; presidential candidate) "Our military is too small right now to
deal with the Islamic terrorism threats, but it really is too small to deter would-be aggressors to even think of challenging us. And that's due to Bill Clinton."
Hillary Clinton (Sen., NY; presidential candidate)
"When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation...I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
Maxine Waters (Rep., CA) "We're at a time when very smart people have been allowing this dumb-ass president of the United States to do as he pleases... I'm not backing off. I said it, and I mean it!"
Tom Harkin (Sen., IA)
"When I hear [criticism of John Kerry's heroics] coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil."
Judges' Table
Alan Colmes: "Republicans are the best trash talkers. The Democrats said the truth. The Republicans are number one at spewing."
Sean Hannity: "The Republicans win because Rudy hit the nail on the head. Rudy just tells it like it is."
Round 4: GOP, 10-9
Round 5: Random Acts of Machismo
Timothy Johnson (Rep., IL)
In 2003 he punctured a lung and fractured a rib in a car accident en route to a speaking engagement at an Urbana, Illinois church. Through a clenched jaw, the heartland hard-ass delivered his speech on time before heading to the hospital.
Roscoe Bartlett (Rep., MD)
Took advantage of fact-finding trip to
Iraq in 2003 by climbing into Saddam Hussein's spider hole just days after the dictator was captured. "I was probably the only Congressman who laid down there," crowed the 81-year-old.
Dick Cheney (vice president)
Shot his friend in the face with a shotgun after mistaking him for a quail. Whoops. Loses points for showing a partly human side in declaring that the accident was "one of the worst days of my life."
Patrick J. Leahy (Sen., VT) Confronted Cheney about his ties to Halliburton, which inspired Cheney
to tell him to "fuck off" on the Senate floor.
Leahy was also one of two Congressmen who
received anthrax-laden letters following 9/11.
Harry Reid (Sen., NV)
The Senate majority leader was named
head of the Nevada gaming commission in 1977 and went head to head with organized crime. He was such a fly in the Mafia's marinara that an unsuccessful attempt to kill him with a car bomb was made in 1981.
Jim Moran (Rep., VA)
Famous for taking a swing at Randy.
"Duke" Cunningham as they were leaving the House chambers in 1995. Cunningham charged that Moran "turned his back on Desert Storm." Moran later apologized, and Cunningham accepted. Bunch of Marys.
Judges' Table
Ann Coulter: "'Democratic machismo' is an oxymoron. Unless you're talking about Hillary."
Randi Rhodes: "All the Republicans did was go on a camping trip to Saddam's vacant house and show up to a meeting on time. Dems win."
Round 5: DEM, 10-9
Round 6: Embarrassing Infractions
Mitt Romney (former Massachusetts governor; presidential candidate)
As a devout Mormon, abstains from alcohol and coffee, promotes premarital abstinence, and says he would "like to see less violence and sex on TV, in video games, and in movies." Drag.
Robin Hayes (Rep., NC)
In 2001 fellow Republicans pressured
him into casting the deciding vote in favor of the controversial "Fast Track" bill, which gave the president authority to negotiate trade deals. According to one report, "Republicans yelped and cheered, and Hayes burst into tears. [Dennis] Hastert put his arm around Hayes' shoulders as the North Carolina lawmaker wiped his face."
Thad Cochran (Sen, MS)
Cochran dorked it up as the University of Mississippi's head cheerleader.
Steve Kagen (Rep., WI) Served as CNN's "allergy consultant" from 1995 to 2002.
John Kerry (Sen., MA)
Exhibits a deep and abiding love for windsurfing.
John Hall (Rep., NY)
Forgiven for singing "Still the One."
Judges' Table
Alan Colmes: "Democrats are proud of their masculine-feminine sides."
Sean Hannity: "You have to go with Kerry, who routinely emboldens our enemies by saying our troops are terrorizing women and children in Iraq."
Round 6: DEM, 10-9
The Donkey
Punch Delivers!
Democrats 58, Republicans 56
The Dems are the biggest badasses on the
Hill. It was a close one, with Republicans
giving a strong showing in trash talking
and surviving seemingly insurmountable odds in the fields of battle. But the combo of cheerleading and crying in the final round proved to be a knockdown from which the GOP could not recover. You put up a good fight, guys, so go back to your corner with your heads held high and spit. That means you, Larry Craig.
Hannity's American history of manliness
Fox News Channel's conservative bullhorn offers his unique perspective on past patriots and pussies.
Joseph McCarthy
"He was pretty tough. I think he was just standing up for his principles. There was another side to the story. Things went a little far, but there was legitimate concern about efforts to align with enemies of this country."
JFK
"He believed in strong national defense. If JFK were alive today, he'd be
a Republican."
Jimmy Carter
"He was absolutely inept, weak, impotent, and a modern-day appeaser. Today's Democratic Party is an appeasement party that doesn't understand the nature
of the conflict with Islamic extremism."
Worst of the Wurst
These politicians take from the many and give to the few—and earn a place in our tax-dollar-hemorrhaging Hall of Shame.
Team: Republican
Team: Democrat
Ted Stevens (MVP) State: Alaska Career lowlights: As chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, amassed a pork total of $524 million in fiscal year 2004, the most of any congressman. Since 1995, he's spent $95 million on HAARP, a program that heats and tests the ionosphere. Once suggested N.Y.C. cops and firemen give up their overtime pay as a wartime sacrifice.
Arlen Specter State: Pennsylvania Career lowlights: When asked why he blew $90,000 to fund fruit fly research in France, Specter responded, "That sounds frivolous, but the fruit flies pose a real threat to crops, and they are tested in France because you don't want to study fruit flies in Pennsylvania, where they might get into our apple crops."
Jim Gibbons State: Nevada Career lowlights: Snagged $225,000 to repair a swimming pool in his hometown of Sparks, Nevada—a pool that Gibbons himself caused to shut down in the 1950s by filling the drain with tadpoles. When asked about his earmarking money for his own special interests, Gibbons replied, "Who cares about the process? The process is irrelevant."
Terry Everett State: Alabama Career lowlights: Received $202,500 for the National Peanut Festival Agricultural Arena in Dothan, Alabama, which did wonders for Alabama's native elephant population. Later admitted he was shocked to find out that not only was his request granted, but the government added an extra $2,500 that he never asked for.
Robert Byrd (MVP) State: West Virginia Career lowlights: Became the first person in history to obtain more than $1 billion in pork over his career. Since Byrd entered state government 57 years ago, West Virginia has added about 37,000 miles of federally funded hillbilly highway. Byrd said, "You might as well slap my wife as take highway money from West Virginia."
Daniel Inouye State: Hawaii Career lowlights: Gouged taxpayers to the tune of $494 million worth of pork in 2004 alone, second only to Stevens. Spent $220,000 of federal money to study an abundance of icky green algae on the beaches of West Maui. He also burned up $2.3 million on brown tree snake control and $586,000 to "monitor" pineapple and papaya crops.
Ernest "Fritz" Hollings State: South Carolina Career lowlights: Spent $1 million to study fish spawning at the Charleston Bump, a hot spot for scaly swingers. Spent $16 million on the aptly named Hollings Marine Laboratory, and
$5 million on the Hollings Cancer Center. Hopes to have his state renamed Hollings' South Carolina have gone unfulfilled.
Anthony Williams Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Career lowlights: Scored $181 million in federal pork in 2004—for a city with a population of 563,000. As mayor of D.C., Williams is seeking $300 million to build a new baseball stadium in hopes of luring the Montreal Expos to Washington, and is boycotting Baltimore Orioles games to protest the lack of a team in his city.
John DeVore. D.C. Smackdown! / How Your Money Is Wasted. . March 2008 / November 2004.
