Griper Blade: 2008 All Over Again

Last night, I wrote that I hate year-end lists. I knew this would somehow come back to bite me, but in my defense, I don't give myself a lot of space to explain myself in the roundups. What I meant was the typical news media lists, which almost always consist of pop culture fluff bound to be completely forgotten as early as the very next year. The other kind of list is the Roster of the Fallen. I hate these, too. Yes, it's sad that we lost people like Studs Terkel and Paul Newman, but their memories are polluted when we pretend that Paul Weyrich was a wonderful and loving lamb of God and that Charlton Heston was anything other than an actor with his emotional meter pegged at "histrionic" and his volume cranked up to eleven.

That said, here's my year end list of things during the presidential campaign that are actually noteworthy. Besides, it's pretty short. As year-end lists go, this one isn't much work for the reader... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]