Douchebag of the Week

We're going to institute a new recurring feature here on Copious Vitriol: Douchebag of the Week. This weekly award will be open to anyone. Visitors to the site are encouraged to nominate people via the comments section. If you nominate someone, please provide a brief explanation of why that person should be afforded the honor of joining those illustrious douchebags who have gone before (including links to supporting material, if available). This is an equal opportunity award. No one shall be excluded from consideration, and a person may be a recipient of the award multiple times. At an interval yet-to-be-determined, those recent winners will be put to a vote, and the winner will be granted the title of Uber Douchebag. Let us now announce the winner of the inaugural presentation of the Copious Vitriol Douchebag of the Week.

Rod Blagojevich

It is difficult to even find a good place to start with Gov. Blagojevich (or G-Rod as Nigel and God call him). The reasons for bestowing this honor upon him are as numerous as they are compelling. His behavior as it pertains to Illinois state government has been nothing short of mind boggling. He has routinely made decisions intended to punish those state officials and legistlators who have angered him. He has repeatedly overstepped the authority granted to the Governor under the Illinois Constitution. As far as he is concerned, the state of Illinois only exists north of I-80. He aggressively pushed one of the most contentious and ill-advised tax plans in recent memory. Any of these reasons would be enough to garner the attention of the Douchebag of the Week Nominating Committee, but what has earned him the title is the string of events he is alleged to have orchestrated surrounding the sale of Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama.

While I am certainly no attorney, I think that his behavior has moved from the "weird" or "unusual" and into the realm that warrants a DSM-IV clinical diagnosis. Assuming this goes to trial, frankly I don't see how it could proceed without settling the question of whether or not he is fit to stand trial. His delusions of grandeur as evidenced by a.) his stated anger at not being chosen as John Kerry's running mate in 2004, even though he was never under consideration; b.) his assertion that he should get a Cabinet level post (Secretary of Energy because that's the one that makes the most money) or ambassadorship in exchange for the Obama Senate seat; c.) his repeated references to moving into a more powerful position as though it was already a done deal; d.) his stated willingness to appoint himself to the vacant Senate seat; e.) his flagrant disregard for such inconveniences as "rules" and "ethics," and f.) his repeated references to making a run for President in 2012, suggest that he lives in a world that those of us encumbered by reality simply can't understand. He is, simply put, a walking research paper for some enterprising psychiatrist. This self-important, masturbatory behavior is sort of like watching news footage of some sort of disaster: you're appalled by what you're seeing and you'd really like to stop watching, but you can't help yourself. This has the potential to eventually wind up on one of those "Smoking Gun Presents World's Dumbest Criminals" shows. This level of egregious idiocy is difficult to attain, to say nothing of maintaining that level, which he seems to have done with ease.

Bravo, Rod Blagojevich. You are the very first recipient of Copious Vitriol's Douchebag of the Week Award. You've earned it.