I only read it for the comics

So John Lynch (Stranger Fruit), Chad Orzel (Uncertain Principles - edited for egregious spelling error *smacking my forehead*) and PZ (Pharyngula) already tacked up The 50 Most Loathsome People for 2007. Because of crossreadership (the Refuge begging for scraps from aforementioned blogs) or simply because every acid-hearted cynic who reads the Refuge might also be inclined to read The Beast, you've likely already perused through the list. I'd say the selection must have been rather easy for The Beast's staff. Fish in a barrel and all that jazz.

The text is funny, but I'm partial to artwork accompanying the 50 Most Loathsome. Ian Murphy is the illustrator.

Murphy nicely captures the faux guileless expression on Ol' Cornpone Huckabee.

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A reptilian Larry Craig crawling out of a filthy public restroom toilet is brilliant.

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So you say if you've seen one grotesque Bush and Cheney caricature, you've seen 'em all, eh? Well this one hearkens to the classic of grotesqueries: Spitting Image.

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I wish I could draw as well as Mr. Murphy.

Of the 50 loathsome folks, I would like to give special mention to John Boehner. He was first elected to the 8th Congressional District in Ohio back in 1990 - back when I lived in that district. He challenged GOP slimeball Buz Lukens and won the election. During that campaign, the company (now defunct) for which I worked brought in young Boehner to speak to the scientists. What were they thinking?

His reception was tepid, particularly since the majority of the sr. staff scientists were pro-choice (among other traditionally GOP-Not positions), and Boehner was vocally anti-choice as well as being anti-contraception as in not supporting Planned Parenthood. Oddly enough, he toned down his anti-abortion rhetoric around us. One of my colleagues bluntly asked - with Boehner standing right there - if the opposition candidate was going to be brought to our auditorium for equal time. Uh, no, replied the communications executive from our company. The tepid reception then became chilly.

Boehner trotted out some folksy feel-good shit about working as a janitor at this pharma company when he was a teenager. That wasn't hardly enough to sway us. He - and the communications executive - were the butt of many snide comments. But we scientists were a minority in that town, i.e., we could actually think critically so our votes against Boehner counted for naught. Boehner sailed right through the election and has continued to be re-elected, continuing to validate the impressions I formed of the majority populace of the suburban Cinci area. Granted there are nice things about Cincinnati (Skyline chili cheese coneys, embattled enclaves of rational people, the Aronoff Center for the Arts, Sawyer Point, Jungle Jim's and low housing costs - but low for a reason), yet I was never happier to move away from southwest Ohio to the Lands of the Devil (Northeastern US) - and I'm a cornfed Midwestern hick!

Here's what Allan Uthman, Ian Murphy, Paul Jones and Tyler Bass had to say about Boehner. That "bound by ideology to destroy nation?" Yeah, that's accurate.

39. John Boehner

Charges: A Tom Delay disciple of shameless hypocrisy, Boehner won't stop weeping openly on the House floor -- real crying, from his tear ducts. It's not passion; it's the pathetic noontime inebriation of an obvious, documented alcoholic. Job title, "Minority Whip," is ironically hilarious. Bound by ideology to destroy nation.

Exhibit A: His name is Boner.

Sentence: Afflicted with voodoo hex that makes him cry poisonous spiders.

Exhibit A is actually inaccurate. It's "bay-ner" but in the greater scheme of destroying our nation, it doesn't much matter how one pronounces it. They also forgot to include "Newt Gingrich's ball sack washer" among the charges.

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