Buffalo Beast: Palin tops "50 most loathsome people in America"

The Buffalo Beast releases its list, awarding #1 to Sarah Palin.

Charges: ....... Palin’s unending emissions of baffling, evasive incoherence should have disqualified her for any position that involved a desk, let alone placing her one erratic heartbeat from the presidency. The press strained mightily to feign respect for her, praising a debate performance that involved no debate, calling her a “great speaker” when her only speech was primarily a litany of insults to city-dwellers, echoing bogus sexism charges when a male Palin would have been boiled alive for the Couric interview alone, and lionizing her as she used her baby as a Pro-life stage prop before crowds who cooed when they should have been hurling polonium-tipped javelins. In the end, Palin had the beneficial effect of splitting her party between her admirers and people who can read.

Exhibit A: Waving her embryo-loving credentials, in the form of her Down syndrome baby, at "But ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy."

Sentence: Hand-to-hand combat with Vladimir Putin and a pack of wolves.

Read the rest of the list, because although tilting liberal, they get in some good shots at John Edwards, Keith Olbermann, and the Clintons. Actually, the whole thing is brilliant, particularly the "Sentence" bits.

A particular favorite: their hit on John Updike, clocking in @ #38 on the list:

Charges: Being foolishly wrong about absolutely everything for about a thousand years and counting. Getting rich applying faux gilt, and guilt, to the dull, pointless, overstuffed lives of New Yorker readers. Systematically tackles the big issues, and is subsequently dragged by them right into the end zone like Bo Jackson dragged Brian Bosworth. Latest attempt to capture the zeitgeist, The Terrorist, resulted in unintentionally comic transposition of Congregationalist soap opera to the Semtex demographic. Won’t learn, won’t quit. Like the Energizer bunny, only dumber.

Exhibit A: Apparently immortal, always a mark of evil.

Sentence: Eternity working for minimum wage in a university photocopy shop.

[Hat tip: John Cole]