Jul 12

Douchebaggery Roundup (with dessert!)

Baseball, Entertainment, Harvard, New York City, Politics, Republicans, Sports

DEVON GRANDY (Honolulu, Hawaii)

Break Out The Oreos has noticed a particularly abundant quantity of both douchebaggery on the interwebs of late. A quick rundown follows.

Karl Rove, an already notable and well-established douchebag due to his role as the architect of (still) President Bush’s election campaigns, made headlines yesterday as he gave due process, accountability, transparency in government, the Constitution, the American public, and Congress all the finger (presumably metaphorically). Rove, subpoenaed by a House subcommittee over his role in allegations of inappropriate political pressure within the Justice Department, not only opted not to testify, but declined to even show up at Capitol Hill, which, of course, is a grand-jury offense. Both Rove and the White House cited “executive privilege” in the matter and claimed that communications occurring within the administration, even in its relationship to the Judiciary, are confidential. Of course, the concept of “executive privilege” has a long and uncomfortable history in our country, and frequently functions as a nebulous euphemism for Presidential track-covering. And besides, even without considering his disfranchisement of the American voter and his engineering of smear campaigns against both John McCain and John Kerry (and Barack Obama?), Rove stood up a perfectly good name card and glass of water. Now how’s that for rude?

More douchebaggery to heat you up, and then some easy laughs to cool you down, all after the jump.

Iran, defending what it defines as its right to develop a non-weaponized nuclear program, claims that it would be “madness” for the United States and Israel to engage it militarily over the issue. Just a tip to our favorite Islamic Republic: it’s kind of hard to take you seriously when you (a) have to doctor your missile press release photos and (b) can’t find anybody competent to do it. What, there wasn’t a kid with Photoshop you could have hired?

Toronto Blue Jays Fans, while certainly not the archetypes of douchebaggery, decided that heckling Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez over the not-really-a-story Madonna/divorce scandal needed to be done in the most obnoxious way possible. See the photo for elaboration. It’s truly a lovely homage to this stunt pulled last year by that perennial douchebag fanbase known as Red Sox Nation. Let me tell you one thing: A-Rod may be smeared across the tabloids every summer (probably due to the proximity of the New York news market) with allegations of infidelity, but you would never, never catch him fighting with a teammate or shoving a team official. It may be the case with mediocre outfielding and baserunning, but “Manny being Manny” doesn’t explain away physical assault. Where’s the equal time treatment for Manny Ramirez?

All of this douchebaggery makes one feel both tired and unclean, so, as promised, to clean your palette of that douchebag aftertaste: Comedy Central Insider has been publishing the “25 sexiest Daily Show moments” in five-video segments. BOTO was reminded of some of The Daily Show’s best moments of hilarity, both intentional and unintentional. A vintage, unpolished classic:

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• June 5, 2008 -- Alumni Recognition, Tarsem Singh’s New Film, and the Return of Pedro Martinez
• November 5, 2008 -- We’re Dancing in New York City
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