Whore of The Year

I’ll admit that my first thought was “Tim Russert by a mile” for his idiotic performance with Dean back in August, his idiotic first interview with Clark, his idiotic interview of Hillary Clinton, and general hackery and whoreishness.

But as Horse points out, David Brooks is making a strong if somewhat late run for the title, and Charles Krauthammer is always a top contender:

Until today, it appeared as though Dr. Chuckles Krauthammer would emerge as the anti-Russert should several of the other minority contenders fade, but officials have informed us on the condition of anonymity that new internal polling shows the January Surprise in today’s New York Times – a bizarre piece by dark horse David Brooks that claims neocons and PNAC and their exhaustively documented crackpot schemes are figments of Bush opponents’ imaginations – may pose a serious threat to both the Chuckles and Tim-meh candidacies.

For details on Brooks’ last-minute surge, see Tuesday’s Daily Howler; for the best-case scenario for the Washington Post’s Krauthammer’s candidacy, see this Daily Howler.

Still, the contest is for whore of the year, not hack of the year. Krauthammer is a long-acknowledged Republican hack. David Brooks has long been known as a conservative but until his twice-a-week NYT gig, Brooks apparently didn’t publish often enough to fully reveal the extent of his servility.

Russert, on the other hand, has the distinction of having spent many years building up a solid reputation as a tough-but-fair interviewer and moderator before prostrating himself before Republicans in control of the elected branches of government and a surge in the popularity of conservative media. For his willingness to — nay, talent for — shimmying and writhing for a few conservative nickels, Russert remains by far the strongest candidate for Whore of the Year.

AB