50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers (New York Press, via Gawker)

[swag]

http://nypress.com/18/13/news&columns/50most.cfm
. . .

41. Norman Podhoretz
Editor Emeritus, Commentary

It's been a good millennium so far for the city's most loathsome elderly intellectual. The Bush White House awarded ol' Poddy the Presidential Medal of Honor last year for his decades of tireless support for arms racing, unprovoked aggression and death squads. His wife Midge Decter, meanwhile, was awarded a National Humanities Medal for her decades of faithful imitation of a menopausal Mathew Arnold. His leaden-witted son John finally escaped the shadow of fellow mini-con William Kristol and took over that sophisticated journal of ideas known as the New York Post op-ed page. Just half a bloodline away, son-in-law Elliot Abrams wormed his way back into the foreign policy establishment like Iran-Contra never happened. So you'd think Stormin' Norman would be happy. Hell, last year the Free Press even published a 500-page Norman Podhoretz Reader. But Norman ain't happy. Norman's never happy. His latest piece in Commentary is one long cry of pain and hurt that his own designation for the Clash of Civilizations—"World War IV"—hasn't yet become an international relations meme on par with Walter Lippman's "Cold War" or the central, permanent organizing principle for Western Civilization, aka the American imperium, with him and Midge at the stormy helm. Someone needs to just die already.
. . .

29. Bill O'Reilly
Host, The O'Reilly Factor

Ah, yes, after two near misses, the sun-blotched king of swing finally makes the list. O'Reilly is the classic lace-curtain Irish boor: thin-skinned, wistful, bloated and delusional, and a whining Miss Nancy to boot. His personality would be a desperately pitiable object if he weren't also the kind of behind-the-scenes suck-up demagogue who will one day be Commissariat of Information and Media Punishment in George Bush's Emergency Third Term. This is a man whose only answer to challenge is girly tantrums, a man who screams down Al Franken when Franken busts him for lying about winning a Peabody Award, who cuts his guests' mics when they disagree with him. He calls his fellow Americans "traitors," "unpatriotic" and "dangerous" when they simply refuse to agree with the president. When O'Reilly suggests that for Valentine's Day we buy each other copies of his lousily written, poorly researched, mendacious tracts, we see a man looking for the love his drunken abusive daddy never provided to the one and only daughter in the family.
. . .

28. Lawrence A. Kudlow
Economist, Pundit

The one-time top Bear Stearns/ING economist and copropagandist on CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer wrote cheerily of the economic benefits of invading Iraq: "The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand points," promised the vampire, who by day doubles as CEO of his eponymous midtown consulting firm while also writing a column for National Review. "We will know that our businesses will stay open, that our families will be safe, and that our future will be unlimited." So—our businesses stayed open…because…we…invaded Iraq. The real record since the war—pace Kudlow the Market Impaler—has been millions of jobs lost and a slumping economy. Not to mention the moral nightmare of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and what will likely be a decades-long occupation costing billions of dollars that would be better spent on a space program for sending people like Kudlow to another planet on which to play his mass-homicidal version of Monopoly.
. . .

24. Katie Couric
Co-host, The Today Show

Couric's cloying little-girl shtick on NBC's Today Show is annoying enough, considering that behind the mask of "America's sweetheart" is a hard-nosed executive drawing one of the biggest paychecks in television. Her reportedly $16 million annual salary isn't what makes Couric loathsome, however. It's her disingenuous toeing of the line between serious journalist and corporate media whore. Couric's stratospheric stock has long ridden on her supposed ability to shift effortlessly between fluff and "real reporting"—meaning she can move from a fawning segment flogging the latest big-budget Hollywood pap to a "serious" news story like the Michael Jackson trial, all without batting a mascara-caked eyelash. The blow-up doll was even rumored to be a candidate for Dan Rather's chair at the CBS Evening News, proving once again that an unctuous ability to operate as a chameleon is a prized asset in the morally bankrupt world of big media.

. . .

[acmavm]

1. OUCH!

n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

2. The list omitted Donald Trump. IMHO he does NOT represent

what's the best of New York City or the outer boroughs. His glitzy bravado is self-promotion and I resent his attempts to portray himself as "Mr. New York". He will always be a "nouveau riche" and parvenu no matter how many years he's been "established".

[patcox2]

6. The Art of Welshing; The Bankrupt Empresario; the stinky combover guy

I loathe Trump, the smelly loser. The Art of the Deal my ass, what is it now, four bankruptcies for Trump Casino Hotels Inc.? The art of borrowing more money than you can pay and then welshing, is more like it. And the crap-tacular crappy gaudy lowbrow shit that he offers. The Marina, with its horrendous Italian-American Splitlevel in the Joisey suburbs mirror-striped downstairs bathroom decorating scheme, thats, as he so often says, "class?" Short-fingered vulgarian.

[acmavm]

3. Some of this is just mean:

They get on my nerves too, but unless I missed something this is a little over the top.
<snip>

34. Olsen Twins
NYU Students
Fraternal? Identical? Adorable? How about really fucking scrawny and annoying. The only thing we know for sure about the Olsen twins is that they suck—albeit legally, now that they've reached the age of consent. Though straight-to-DVD dreck is their bread and butter, don't expect them to cash out by flashing their itty-bitty titties on film anytime soon. They're still a couple more drug addictions and anorexic relapses away from being forced to munch sisterly snatch, thereby fulfilling the one-handed fantasies of 74 percent of male America and falling. So what makes these saccharine siblings so repugnant? Swaddled in designer rags, they're insults to the city's hobos. And contrary to the New York Times style section, they aren't starting any trends here. Our urine-scented street people have spent years cultivating their raffish look, complete with rope belts and oversized layers of torn rags—style the Olsens are biting weakly like the pampered Chihuahuas they are. Ladies, we really want to welcome you to New York. By all means, feel free to snort our cocaine. Eat our Tasti D Lite. Screw Lolita-crazed men of dubious ethnic origin and much facial hair. Just drop the rebellious act, dress according to your bank account and for Christ's sake, eat your veggies.

[swag]

4. Yes, there is much meanness there

It's one of those mean little rags the disaffected literature graduates hack out.

Fun, though. For a disaffected literature grad.

[ElectroPrincess]

5. Public figures should expect hyper-focus "No Slack" ! :-)