Who rates highest on the Major Yuck Index?

[saltpoint]

The Major Yuck Index is an index that gauges the degree and frequency that you say "Yuck!" to a given personality in American political life, whether an elected or appointed official, or a media figure, or what have you.

Nine choices follow, plus a tenth for OTHER if you wish to nominate someone you feel ranks highest on the Major Yuck Index.

[Greeby]

1. Other, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama

Just makes me cringe

[saltpoint]

2. Greeby, you can put me on the Lie Detector if you want, but I SWEAR

to you that I typed in Jeff Sessions where Orrin Hatch is, and changed it to Orrin Hatch at the last draft of the poll.

Sessions is a molten-brained imbecile, no question. How did someone like that ever reach the U.S. Senate?

[me b zola]

3. All of the above, including Sessions

But don't forget Hassert & Sensenbrenner :puke:

[saltpoint]

7. The poll doesn't include an 'All of the Above,' but you're right --

it should.

And yes, Hastert and Sensenbrenner should somehow be added to the list!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

16. Slither Sessions gets my vote too.

:ickyshivers:

[saltpoint]

18. There it is! You've got it exactly. That "ickyshivers" sensation.

Just exactly what the poll is after!

And Sessions brings it out in a lot of us!

[existentialist]

4. Condoleezza Rice

[saltpoint]

8. You aren't going to hear any objection from me on THAT nomination,

wicasa.

A VERY deserving soul for a Yuck nomination.

[MH1]

5. Damn, that's a tough one.

It's really hard to tell who's highest - I have to crane my neck and squint really hard and can only barely see as far up the yuck index as most of those folks go...

[saltpoint]

9. Hi, MH1. Yep. The Bush administration and FOX News, plus all the

tv evangelist types have given us a huge list to pick from.

It's a daunting task!

[MH1]

33. Hi, Old Crusoe!

:hi:

Yep, the yuckiness meter is pretty much pegged with this bunch.

[femmocrat]

6. Karl Rove

Surprised you didn't include him.

[saltpoint]

11. He does deserve a mention -- but he's so evil that he might be

Beyond Yuck.

We'll have to do another poll for nominations for Beyond Yuck -- people who are so comprehensively negative that they undermine even Nixonian standards of corruption.

Rove may be in for a rough couple of days or weeks -- whatever it is -- in the Plame case. It feels to me (I have no solid evidence of course) that he's up to his evil neck in it and isn't going to survive long in the corridors of power.

[TygrBright]

32. Yeh. Rove is past the "yuck" index. He's UP THERE on the...

..."AIEEEEEEEE!!!!" index.

Let's do that one next.

helpfully,
Bright

[saltpoint]

38. Good idea. That's the next level. Take it away if you want to.

Rove definitely would be a contender on that poll!

[Clark2008]

10. My "senator," Bill Frist.

I interviewed him as a young reporter... came back and told my news editor I thought he was the anti-Christ.

And, he'll probably run for presi-fundie in 2008. :scared:

[saltpoint]

13. Clark2008, no one deserves to have THE CAT BUTCHER as a senator.

Our most sincere condolences.

But take heart: he isn't polling very well on the GOP side of the ledger, so maybe his retirement from the senate will remove him from public political life once and for all.

Our fingers are crossed for you!

[Clark2008]

20. Actually, I kinda hope he DOES become the GOPher nom.

No way that cadaver-looking mofo could win.

:rofl:

[saltpoint]

22. Frist IS cadaverous. That's an excellent word for him.

He has that pasty, dead look of the newly departed about him.

Only with half the wit of a corpse.

I see your point. The Democrats would clean his clock in 08.

[LuCifer]

12. Bush

Plain and simple YUCK to the Nth Degree!

[saltpoint]

14. Yep. It's hard to ignore how bad this guy has been as president.

As bad as it gets, really.

I agree with Senator Edwards over the weekend -- Bush has passed Nixon as the worst president we've ever had.

[YOY]

15. What? No Santorum?

Super yuck! Mostly becasue he's from the same background (ethnically and regionally) as me.

[saltpoint]

17. Now hold on just a damn minute YOY. You are or were in the Peace Corps?

If so, you have served nobly in a noble pursuit.

Santorum is scum, start to finish.

You'd get a hell of a lot of applause at my house, believe me.

Santorum definitely wouldn't!

Also, any friend of hobbits is a friend of mine.

[YOY]

85. Yes I did and thank you very much...

but I'm still Italian Catholic and from the Pittsburgh-Cleveland area. That puts slime ball in my phenotype...I knew guys like him growing up. They would blatantly face hypocrisy just to gain face socially in the face of others who believe only as he does. The words 'knuckle-draggers' and 'sheep' are ultra-applicable here and their arguments are defeatable with short questions like:

Bush's FR: "So, you've never traveled internationally?"

Bush's Economy: "So, you still working for your father?"

Bush's Education: "So, you went to Catholic School?

Gay Marriage: "So, how many gays* do you actually know?"

*feel free to substitute 'gay' for any ethnic or social minority.

[saltpoint]

93. Well, I see where you're going with that, but at first take it sounded

like you were holding yourself accountble for something that wasn't your fault.

I looked at your profile and it looked pretty excellent to me, praiseworthy in fact, and so I rose to your defense.

I grew up around a mixed ethnic/socioeconomic demographic and there were some folks who matched your description above who weren't Italian Catholics.

Anyway, you're on firm ground with me if there's ever a dust-up in your neighborhood!

[YOY]

105. Thanks, your kindness is appreciated

It seldom truly is in this world but very much so in my case!

[Patiod]

24. That would be my vote

Ick

[Mira]

19. Don't forget Alberto Gonzalez - he makes my flesh crawl as well n/t

[saltpoint]

21. O you got that right. He's a pro-torture kind of guy, and that's not

good.

I can NOT believe that a man with a wife and kids can recommend torture to a U.S. president. I see it with my own eyeballs, and I can be outraged by it, but at some level, I just don't BELIEVE it.

What a little insect.

[stanwyck]

86. Just watching the story

of how Gonzalez wants to prosecute reporters who divulge national security information. Or what his administration deems national security information. What he intends is to squash any reporting critical of this administration. No letting the American people know that our government is representing us in our democratic nation by falsely imprisoning people, torturing people, and transporting prisoners to countries which torture and execute.
Gonzales is a fascist. He is not serving us, the American people, he is subservient to his Bush masters. Like Condi, he's just so thrilled to be invited to the big game that he's willing to trash whatever he learned about democracy in order to stay at the party with the big boys.

[The Jacobin]

23. Its a MAN, baby!

Which AAR show runs that teaser, Randi? Anyway, Mann Coulter is always someone I avoid in any media (and most of the time threads bashing her on DU). She is just ick.

[saltpoint]

26. Yes. "Ick" pours out of the woman in a torrent. You are wise to

avoid her on the tube.

Even past the point of her being paid to be a right-wing nutcase pundit, and even past the point of her being paid because she's provocative and outrageous, even then, she's STILL beyond the pale.

William Saffire wrote a conservative column for years and years with the NYTimes, and for about as long as he wrote, I disagreed with him. But he never just took a dump in the arena of public discourse the way Ann Coulter does with every single appearance on television.

[Yollam]

25. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham

:puke:

[saltpoint]

27. You said, it, Yollam. Cunningham is defintely NOT having a good

year this year, and that's ok with me.

I would really love to see Congresswoman Busby and not Congressman Bilbray in that district.

What a good headline that would be for us in November.

[PassingFair]

28. You left out Kay Bailey Huchison...

and that HORRIBLE, pinched-faced woman from Ohio, Jean Schmidt.

I voted for Dobson, though.

I can picture him strangling a child and convincing him it was for
his own good.....

[saltpoint]

30. LOL! That image of Dobson is terrific. Unfortunately it's all too

believable. That guy is one of the most dangerous human beings (?) alive.

Mean Jean Schmidt. Yes. She has the advantage of running for re-election in a very red district in Ohio, but there is always an outside chance that she could be defeated. She certainly isn't the warm cuddly type of public servant. More like a puff adder, sidewinding its way across the nursery.

And Kay Baily. Definitely a high yuck factor, no question. I am a bit worried that she is going to be the veep nominee for the Republicans in 08. I'm wondering if a deal ws struck to keep her out of the gubernatorial race against Perry this year. I know she wanted his job.

[BlueStater]

29. I'm definitely no fan of Mann Coulter

But I cannot, in good conscience, say she is worse than the Dick. The damage that man and his pet monkey have done to this country will take decades to repair.

[saltpoint]

31. Cheney is horrifying. While Coulter makes me squrim enough to up

and leave a room, Cheney is permanently dangerous. Coulter goes home and doesn't bother us until her next tv appearance.

But Cheney lurks in that undisclosed location, "loosening the bolts on Noah's ark," in Robert Bly's phrase.

[JeffR]

34. Poor Shrubalito's approval ratings suck so bad

He didn't even get a nomination.

[saltpoint]

37. JeffR, howdy & thanks for the post. Yep. Junior's numbers are so

low that I didn't even put him on there. He's getting to be kind of a has-been.

Fate can play tricks on us, and I suppose it's possible that he could roar back into the hero's circle, but I just am not seeing it right now.

Nice to bump into you again on DU.

[JeffR]

106. Likewise!

I realized after voting I should have suggested our wonderful former-First Lady Barbara Bush. I hear she's got a beautiful mind.:puke:

[Homer Wells]

35. King George

Yucchimus PRIME

:puke: :grr:

[saltpoint]

40. Yep. There must be Republicans meeting behind closed doors

throughout Washington these days asking each other if they're even going to have a political party after November of 06.

It's too early to call a blue House right now, and there's plenty of work to be done on our side, but I like our odds better than theirs at the moment, and Dubya is more to blame collectively for their woes than nearly any of them individually.

Bad year for Republicans. Good year for us.

[saltpoint]

36. A handful more for the slots we didn't have:

Exxon Mobil.
Berlusconi.
Arnold Schwartzenegger.
Britt Hume.
Ken Mehlman.
Michael Powell.
Dan Burton.
James Baker.
John Negroponte.
Oliver North.
Donald Segretti.
Rupert Murdock.
William Bennett.
Richard Perle.
William Kristol.
Saxby Chambliss.
Charlie Crist.
Haliburton & collateral firms.
Blackwater.
Ernie Fletcher.
Eliot Abrams.
Howard Kurtz.
Kate O'Beirne.
Porter Goss.
Katherine Harris.
Pat Robertson.
Pat Roberts.
Tom Coburn.
Kenneth Blackwell.

[bedazzled]

39. wolfowitz!

although it's hard to choose from this embarrassment of riches

at this point anyone who says they're a republican makes my skin crawl

[saltpoint]

43. LOL! It's true. Republicans these days are a creepy bunch.

Orrin Hatch is a witch-burning paranoid. Wolfowitz helped engineer the disaster of Iraq. Libby's already indicted, and more may follow. Cheney is nasty and deceitful and Bush is tongue-tied and deceitful. The Far Right nutcases in the Religious Right are bigots and cretins.

What a mess they've left the next president.

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

41. Yuck to Mary Cheney

reminds me of the landlord in the movie Kingpin, which I feel sorry for any lesbian who would wake up to that in the morning. :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[saltpoint]

44. Yeah -- Mary Cheney didn't do herself many favors this past couple of

weeks hawking her book.

She came across as somebody who could cuss her own father under the table, and that's sayin' somethin'.

In appearances in the media she seems haughty and self-serving.

[lonestarnot]

42. It's a tie in my book, bushitler, dishonorable dick, gopher, red rummy and

dough boy. All peas in the same evil pod.

[saltpoint]

45. Hey there, lonestarnot. You assemble a truly macabre gaggle of

thives and whores and liars.

It's awfully tough to pick the worst of a bunch when any one member would qualify.

My god can we have the 06 and 08 elections next week? Please?

[lonestarnot]

88. Old Crusoe!

:hug: Yes they are a theiv'n lying pile of crap aren't they.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

46. Red Rover

GOP Charm School

[saltpoint]

47. Yeah -- Karl is really something. In a lot of way he's alot more

menacing a figure than Lee Atwater, and Atwater was no slouch.

Of course I don't want to jinx Fitzgerald's work, but I can't help but tell you that I hope Rove is indicted. And Cheney, too.

It's too iffy a world to lay down a firm prediction. But you better believe my fingers are crossed!

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

48. Me too. As a source of pure misery, divisiveness, hatred, I

cannot think of anyone I'd more enjoy seeing indicted.

[saltpoint]

61. It would be REAL interesting if Rove had his Atwater deathbed conversion

moment NOW. Say, in his next phone call to Patrick Fitzgerald.

Atwarter repented of his subversive and evil politics in the last months of his life.

It would be GREAT for Rove to do that now, and tell everything he knows in a sort of soul-purge.

A couple weeks before the Nov. 7th election would be a good time, I think.

[Canuckistanian]

49. Lynn Cheney creeps me out

Not just that she's a thin-skinned nutcase in her own right, but that she married and stays married to the most evil man in America's long history of evil men.

But if she's just living to hear those sweet, sweet words from the executor of Dick's will, I'd be a bit more understanding.

[saltpoint]

51. If she wants in on that Will, she better not go hunting with her husband.

Word is he's a bit scattershot out in the brush.

[Canuckistanian]

55. Like most wild animals

I think she has a strong survival instinct.

[saltpoint]

59. LOL!

[RB TexLa]

50. Dobson with Lou Dobbs a close second n/t

[saltpoint]

54. On at least two posts on DU since I joined, I posited my abiding

personal regret over Lou Dobbs' decision to leave the Teletubbies and join CNN for LOU DOBBS TONIGHT instead.

To date, no one has posted any response to those threads or comments. I'm sure the reason for this is that it's just too painful for DUers to confront the loss of Lou Dobbs from an honored and popular group like the Teletubbies. So they post instead on Lou's stand on immigration, pretending that he was ALWAYS a news and finance guy for CNN. I admire their soldiering on so bravely.

____

Agree with you completely on Dobson. The man is a ravening psychotic who somehow manages to feed himself and bathe himself and appear mostly normal in public settings. But I don't think any of the villains in James Bond films come close to Jim Dobson in subversive energy. The guy is just plain evil.

[RB TexLa]

57. funny

:rofl:

[sheelz]

52. Truth

seems to rank high on the yuck index, why?

[saltpoint]

56. Not sure I follow. On DU people have pretty well-tuned shit detectors.

I've learned a lot from people on these boards.

You don't mean us, do you?

[sheelz]

60. It's not about the people...

they come and they go. They are easily replaced. We're fighting for truth. We need to look at the concepts that are being destroyed. Truth, peace, justice, democracy etc.

[saltpoint]

63. In our defense, I think we ARE looking at them. They get proper

and due attention.

But sometimes we need to let off a little steam.

That's all I'm shooting for in this thread.

No one's subtracting from the dignity or urgency of the larger questions you mention.

[sheelz]

69. I agree

they all make me sick and we all need to blow a little steam. I'm blowing off steam too. I think we need to focus on what we want. That's all, I'm saying. These bastards will come and go. There will be others.

Sometimes, I see progress then poof...it's gone. I just had an idea and didn't mean to interrupt your thread, accept my apology.

[saltpoint]

73. Hey sheelz. I hear you on the point you're making and I'm with you.

It's always a battle between delight and despair. Silliness and snark are two intermediate weapons to wield against sometimes overwhelming odds.

You've done nothing wrong, and I'm happy we're on the same team. The Republicans might survive these next two election cycles for all I know, but I think they know they're in trouble. If a party's success depends on their smearing their opponents instead of standing on the tenets of their platform, then they're probably going to suffer at the polls. We'll gain several seats in any case, and the mandate to govern will require compromise and clarity, things that have been in short supply the last 6 years.

"We'll meet on edges soon," said I,
Proud with fevered brow,
Ah, but I was so much older then;
I'm younger than that now..."

(Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages")

For my part, I'm a partisan zealot, willing to volunteer and work for Democrats against a dying, indefensible Republican Party. I bet your instincts are as good or better, and I'll stand with you in the fight ahead.

I hope we run into each other often on these boards.

Thank you.

[sheelz]

75. Thank you for the kind words

and the encouragement. Keep up the good fight! :yourock: :)

[saltpoint]

78. sheelz, I don't know where you are in New York, but if it's anywhere

near New York City, would you tell my old home town hello for me?

I miss it horribly on spring and summer nights.

[sheelz]

81. Western NY here...

I'm from the Chicago burbs and I miss home too. NYC is a great place to live, that would be my other choice. :-)

[saltpoint]

84. A lot of good moments for me in Chicago, too, but NYC is

kinda extra special.

If you are in western New York then the luck is western New York's to have ya.

:hi:

:thumbsup:

[Swamp Rat]

53. Where's Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh?

:puke:

[saltpoint]

58. Both Bill and Rush are likely in a dive in El Paso at this very hour,

Rush swallowing Oxies like they were goin' out of style, and Bill looking around the kitchen for interesting sexual diversions.

You know how they are on these spring week nights.

[Swamp Rat]

64. Wherever THEY are, you will also find Jeff Gannon.

:D

[saltpoint]

66. I'm wondering if there may be a lot more information about Gannon

yet to be revealed -- and not sexual information, either, but maybe something involving blackmail of Congressional members.

Not sure, but it seems as if his role is not really sexual but more overtly political.

I want Patrick Fitzgerald to snap it up with that investigation. He may know something about White House inner doings than anybody has reported so far.

[Swamp Rat]

67. Check out Gannon's autobiography

:D

[saltpoint]

68. Don't tell me the Forward is by Orrin Hatch...

[Swamp Rat]

72. "Oral" Hatch and Fred "Feel-You-Up" Phelps

:D

[saltpoint]

74. Wild graphics. Be nice to send a copy of the YMCA one to Jerry Falwell,

just to hasten conditions for a cardiac arrest.

On Phelps: From one angle, I have to assume that the progressive community is collectively paying him to go out and behave like a horse's ass in public at military funerals, etc.

The strategy being, the general electorate sees how bizarrely cruel and unstable the son-of-a-bitch is, and then votes against the GOP which cozies up to the fundies too often.

So I assume the DNC or someone is sending Phelps monthly payments to keep up the insanity in front of the cameras.

Seen that way, it looks like a clever political strategy for our side.

But if Phelps is NOT working for us undercover, and he actually BELIEVES in what he's doing, he's a side-winding toxic snake. Yuck, yuck and yuck.

[Swamp Rat]

80. If you send anything to Falwell, send him this:

:D

[saltpoint]

94. It would be great mischief to get ahold of Falwell's Liberty Baptist

University annual catalog and replace the staid and proper "Word from the President" photo with that one.

Just excellent, Swamp Rat. And Falwell has dished it out to others over the years -- wouldn't bother me that much if he got a taste of his own medicine.

[StellaBlue]

62. That guy from Oklahoma... that senator

Mercifully forgot his name ...

[saltpoint]

65. It could be EITHER senator from Oklahoma -- Imhofe (sp?) or Coburn.

[StellaBlue]

70. Coburn

I saw him on Meet the Press when I watched in the UK... creeeeeepy. Totally bonkers. Unbelievable that someone like that can get elected to a national poltical office. Welcome to America.

[saltpoint]

71. No kidding. I've heard a lot of people say the same thing, that the

guy just gives them the creeps.

[Nikki Stone1]

76. JUNIOR is biggest Yuck of all

I can't even look at him giving any kind of speech.

[lutefisk]

83. Junior, especially when he is kissing or grabbing necks/heads

He is just awful in every way. He is the kind of person that should be leading his yucky version of life in private with his yucky country club buddies. He should never have been placed out in public and in our faces like he has. Yuck.

[4Dude]

77.

I couldnt vote.........1 person was mi$$ing from the poll!!

I think we all know who that is :D

[saltpoint]

79. Connie Chung!!! Dammit, I KNEW I left somebody out!

[Initech]

82. Dobson, Robertson, Falwell, Phelps...........

Personally, I believe these people are a FAR greater threat to America than any of the things they say are hurting America.

[saltpoint]

95. I agree, EOO. Their cause can only advance if they turn people

against each other and against themselves.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would PUKE if he encountered the Dobson/Falwell/Robertson/Phelps bunch.

They would just puke. And I wouldn't blame 'em.

[Orsino]

87. Ms. Coulter, I guess.

The others seem either to believe what they say, or at least to have committed themselves to specific political goals.

I think Ms. Coulter just whores for money. She is a political porn star who fakes neogasms for a living. And she doesn't actually do anything but offend.

[saltpoint]

96. That's a bingo, Orsino. An excellent take on Ann Coulter.

Jack Rohan, the late Columbia basketball coach, once told me his life caption was, "You can get a lot of attention jumping off a building. You don't get much attention sometimes from building one, though, but it's the project to choose."

Coulter is a hit man / hit woman (you decide) -- a cheap drive-by artist, vandalizing public discourse.

I just had to include her on the list -- she's awful.

[hippiechick]

89. Robertson, Falwell, etc ...

... the religiously insane, warping the words and intent of Christianity to suit their own homophobic, xenophobic, anti-female agenda.

[saltpoint]

97. Sure do like your description of that bunch as "the religiously

insane."

Definitely works for me!

Agree also that they are each thing you say they are, and especially misogynists.

[Hubert Flottz]

90. Other...

All of the above!

[saltpoint]

98. Hi, Hubert Flottz. The difficult thing about a mischievous poll like

this is that there are too many GOP worthies who should be on it and not nearly enough slots!

[Hubert Flottz]

103. The local pubbies, including my GOPer neighbors, should be on

the Major Yuck list!

[saltpoint]

104. I hear you loud and clear. i have a couple neighbors who should

probably be on it, too!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

91. you left out a few names. can you name these critters?

[saltpoint]

99. Hey Jefferson's Ghost. I wholly accept that those are the standard

press file photos of Newt, McCain, and THE CAT BUTCHER.

I honestly think it would be a hoot to send the Frist-as-Satan image to PETA. They'd probably appreciate it very much, and likely see him in EXACTLY the same way.

Some awfully nice work there with these images.

And thematically sound, too!

[blindpig]

92. Richard "I hate life" Pombo

Son of a bitch is very bad for my blood pressure, the sooner he's incarcerated or taking a dirt nap the better.

[saltpoint]

100. Please tell me he faces a strong contender for his job in November.

Please tell me he will no longer haunts the halls of the U.S. Congress.

Please, please, please.

[blindpig]

101. Jerry McNerney

He claims to have a slight edge against Pombo in recent poll. I'm not sure who else is running in the Dem primary. This is possibly the only case where I will support whatever Dem has a good chance of winning, regardless of warts. Desperation is a powerful thing.

[saltpoint]

102. Yep. Pombo needs to be replaced. Let's hope for a Dem pickup

in that seat.