5. Kristopher Tapley, In Contention

Like his Top 10 Top 10 classmate Michael Wilmington before him, Tapley's taste for esoterica is less egregious than his inability to keep his meals down. Take for starters this blurb-spray spattering The Incredible Hulk with a monolithic, almost steroidal grandeur:

Louis Leterrier’s re-boot of the mean, green machine was one of the biggest, most exhausting (in all the good ways) film-going experiences of the year. But despite consciously pushing the action peddle to the metal in this effort, and therefore breeding suspicion that the filmmakers might overdo it, each set piece is more dazzling than the last. The film holds the second turtledove of a young studio’s seizure of what promises to be one of the greatest cinematic roll outs the comic subgenre has seen.

"Second turtledove"? Are there three French hens forthcoming? Tapley is even less convincing about his list's number-one film, Slumdog Millionaire, which he acknowledges likely wouldn't have "secured this brand of classification" in a year as competitive as 2007. Or: If it weren't for lists, we'd have no way of knowing that There Will Be Blood is better than Slumdog. Or The Incredible Hulk for that matter. Well! We're glad that's cleared up.

4. Joe DeShano, MTV News

While we're damning with faint praise, it's probably unfair of us to include MTV News video editor DeShano's year-end list; he's not a critic, but was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when some egg-nog addled Web overlord blasted his Top 10 solicitation to the entire staff instead of just the folks in Movies. But whether we attribute what followed to drunkenness or democracy, it's a spectacular example of why this tradition should be entrusted to more civilians in 2009. Never mind the trenchant accolades for Milk ("It’s interesting to see how a movie made about the late ’70s is still so relevant and poignant today") and Changeling ("Reminded me a little of Frailty, but that’s a good thing") — it's the MTV team spirit for No. 4 Twilight that puts DeShano over the top:

I remember a movie back in 1989 that got fans really excited. Long lines of people dressed like the characters. Everyone was excited about its particular genre again. That was Tim Burton’s Batman. What a glorious day that was. This movie is that for the younger, female generation. What’s better is that it isn’t necessarily some sappy love story. There’s action and vampires and, yeah, a love interest, but there are also subplots and interwoven texture, which are rare to the vampire genre. I actually liked this film a lot and love that it became a big hit, despite all odds. Good job, Twilight folks. I look forward to the sequel.

So do we, if only to get this guy back on the listmaking beat. Only 11 months to go.

3. Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun

Sragow's generally unqualified endorsement of the awful American Teen tests our tolerance for list contrarianism, but he steps even more forcefully on the fine line distinguishing unorthodoxy from a sideshow of look-at-me-I-liked-What Just Happened stunt criticism. It's the second-worst instinct of the Top 10er (we'll get to the worst), crystallized here with Flash of Genius commendations like, "[N]o actor had a better 2008 than Greg Kinnear, who was a deft light comedian in Ghost Town and delivered an inspired characterization of a wary obsessive here."

We could agree and demand that Mickey Rourke, Frank Langella and Philip Seymour Hoffman apologize for any shadows their towering, even more warily obsessive characterizations threw over Kinnear. Or we could just issue the conviction that critical crimes like these deserve, sentence Sragow to a year of Superlatives Anonymous meetings and check back in '09.

2. Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

Addict counseling isn't enough for Schwarzbaum, a bona fide Top 10 brutalizer who never experienced a year she couldn't blow to hell with her Molotov cocktail of hive-mind elitism alit with white-hot hype. When she's not condescending to readers with eye-rolling Dark Knight fangirlishness...

Watched again with the passage of time and the changing, too, of the American political landscape, Christo­pher Nolan's triumph of comic-book relevance, starring Christian Bale as a superhero uneasy with his calling in a city anesthetized to matter-of-fact evil, takes on new and even more poignant shadings of relevance.

...she is practicing bloody serial commacide in the name of WALL-E:

Years from now — yea, unto eternity — all who love movies will rank WALL-E among the medium's most profound, subtle, sophisticated, and gorgeously inventive specimens, ever. Never before have robots, Twinkies, a cockroach, and a lone, tenacious plant seedling intertwined so elegantly to tell a story of endurance, optimism, love at first sight, courtship, ecological destruction, postapocalyptic redemption, and... well, eternity.

So — you're big on eternity, Lisa? Then here's a tip: There are not 72 virgins waiting for you in the critical-terrorist afterlife. Cease fire, for God's sake.

1. Roger Friedman, Fox News

Friedman earned his second Listy championship with an unusual flair of imagination: Compiling the Worst 10 Films of 2008. Inspired! But however he decides to send the year off, his signature style of misspellings ("Just because Manola [sic] Dargis put [Synecdoche, New York] on her best of the year list, I had to make sure that sin-eck-doh-key was put in its proper place. ... Keener says she speaks Kaufman’s language. Well, they still need a translater. [sic]"), wild inaccuracies ("[Steven Soderbergh's] landmark 1989 film, sex lies and videotape literally created the indie film world") and vendetta-airing against Scientologists and the legacy-tarnishers of Soul Men withers against the genius that is eviscerating Valkyrie — which Friedman hadn't even seen:

But the reviews so far bear out my original assessment from the first trailer: Tom Cruise plays Jerry Maguire trying to kill Hitler in this ruined account of the 1944 attempt on the Fuhrer’s life. [...] I’ve joked about a tag line for the ad: “You had me at achtung.” But it seems on target. Cruise seemed to understand his predicament by taking a cameo in Tropic Thunder. But all that good will may be wiped out by this peculiar, misguided endeavor.

Slow. Clap. For Mr. Friedman, whose continued bar-lowering is no doubt appreciated by this year's runners-up. May all their examples reflect the symptoms of our deadly list-plague, and may their recovery — and yours — be swift in 2009. In the meantime, does anyone want to deliver an acceptance speech?

As enumerated since 2005 at this Defamer editor's alma mater, the annual survey of Top 10-list transgressions aims to improve both critical rigor and reader experience, all while helping save cinema from those who would rank it for no other reason than to see how much more profoundly their superlatives might resonate among those of their peers. Worse, the Top 10 impulse generally rewards the same rotation of 30-35 movies that such circle jerks — cheered on by high-rolling studio publicists — remind us are OK to single out from the 600+ released each year.

We can do better, as can the 10 critics comprised in this year's Top 10 of Top 10s. For their varying permutations of laziness, decontextualization, overstretching, vagueness, self-importance and all-around bad writing, we bestow the accompanying trophy, colloquially known around the Defamer office as the "Listy." May its autofellating icon (NSFW version here) remind the winners every day of their valued service to criticism and cinema in general. Let's hand out the hardware!

10. Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

As the court jester to David Denby's sulking imperial hack, Lane often enlivens The New Yorker's film criticism with much-needed bursts of wit, enlightenment and contrarian panache. But when he drunkenly crashes to bed at the end of each long year, ensuing depressions like "The Ten Best Films of the Year" qualify little more than whatever his editors appear to have overheard him muttering in his sleep. By our count, Lane endorses only five of the 10 films on his list — not even a list, really, but rather a stream-of-consciousness blog screed deploying the words "confused," "stuttering" and "compromised" to describe We Own the Night, Quantum of Solace and I've Loved You So Long, respectively. By the time he anoints WALL-E the year's highlight, his preciousness reasserts its will over his process. And just like that, it's 2009, and the cycle begins anew.

9. Michael Wilmington, Movie City News

A critic's Top 10 contrarianism is less a criterion for our consideration than is his or her ability to write engagingly, persuasively or at least logically about the year's picks. No one cares that Wilmington chose Shine a Light as his No. 1 film of 2008; it's troubling, though, to see him effuse about Mick Jagger, "He's the Stone that, like Sisyphus' rock, never stops rolling." Of course, Sisyphus's rock was his eternal curse for cheating the gods, which leaves us wondering if Keith Richards represents the wily Greek in this equation or simply the craggy, calcified hill over which poor, asthmatic Martin Scorsese pushed Jagger for two interminable hours. Such confusions litter Wilmington's lengthy copy, but he deserves bonus points for his description of Australia's "magical artificiality," the best euphemism we've yet heard for "gold-plated bullshit."

8. Brian Orndorf, eFilmCritic

eFilmcritic has earned its reputation as The Authority on critical abuses, from its comprehensive attacks on blurb whores to its assiduous attention to Ben Lyons' every misstep. But it could stand some housecleaning — particularly in Orndorf's room, cluttered with abstraction ("A fitting new chapter in the life of the big screen’s greatest hero, [Indiana Jones and the] Crystal Skull presented a buffet of amusement and thrills to be gorged on with as much repetition as possible"), obviousness ("A Swedish horror production with enthralling, unnerving romantic overtones, Let the Right One In is not a simple film to summarize or absorb") and overripe portent ("Revolutionary Road made for a spellbinding sit ... Not an easy sit by any means, Road nevertheless stuns with its dedication to the gnarled core of hope"). Orndorf's work is the list equivalent of that marginal American Idol dreamer dispatched with a "Pitchy, dawg" and Paula Abdul's sympathetic admonitions to try again next year. You are not going to Hollywood.

7. Marshall Fine, Hollywood and Fine

Anyone can make a Top 10 list, but veteran critic Fine infuses his with an unusual cross-breed of entitlement and boredom, rotely inflating the same late-year films (Revolutionary Road, Benjamin Button, WALL-E, etc.) as pretty much everyone else. It's an "I don't give a shit, but you should" blog-fart that hardly seems worth the effort, such as in Fine's praise of Button: "Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett strike sparks as destined lovers who take years to actually find each other." "Strike sparks," Marshall? Really? Extra-super-bonus points for his take on fifth-worst film My Blueberry Nights: "For the first time, critics noticed that the over-praised Wong [Kar-wai] had nothing to deliver, perhaps because there weren’t subtitles to distract them." Sophisticated!

6. Ed Gonzalez and Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

Speaking of sophistication — like, to the point of impenetrability — Slant's two-headed Gonschager hydra is approaching lifetime-exemption status on the Top 10 of Top 10s. Where in previous years it was fun to play "Who Said It?" with the duo's dense, overlapping favorites, their lists differed almost entirely in 2008, affording only the opportunity to play "They Said What?" with their unfavorable descriptor-to-noun ratio:

Gonzalez: Built on sensuous interplays between people and objects, reality and representation, José Luis Guerín's rapturously alfresco In the City of Sylvia uses a voluptuous language of spatial-temporal equations to conflate one's love of people with one's love of movies.

Schager: Hype and haters be equally damned, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is a complex contemporary morality play filtered through DC Comics's iconic cowled vigilante. Visceral and vital, this über-blockbuster is both cultural touchstone and preeminent example of the superhero spectacular's expansive potential.

We herewith predict: If ever a sixth inert gas is to be discovered, Gonzalez and Schager will find it.

Tomorrow: The top five!

Increases in digitally downloaded albums and songs were not enough to offset a nearly 20% plunge in CD sales in the U.S., according to year-end figures published Wednesday by the Nielsen Co.'s SoundScan service.

That's 90 million fewer CDs sold, which adds up to a hell of a lot of revenue, even if they were in the sale bin at Virgin.

Amid a flurry of problems, including the delays of several major artists' albums that had blockbuster potential, sales in many weeks near year's end were down 20% or more.

2008 Music Industry Year in Review: Not even Lil Wayne can make up for Axl Rose. [WSJ; pic via The Sun]

· The year's top-three meme-ready utterances: "Contract, Guy, Contract." "Google me, you dumb fuck." And "I THINK SHE ABOUT TO PULL SOME'N OUTTA HER PANTS!" Not necessarily in that order.

· Things were going great for the gays after finally welcoming Clay Aiken and Lindsay Lohan into the fold. And then came Proposition 8.

· Shia LaBeouf had his balls thwacked, hand shattered, pinkie nearly amputated and likeness stolen. But it could have been worse: At least he's not Mike Myers. Or Eddie Murphy. Or a Wachowski brother.

· With the tragic help of the late Heath Ledger — and despite the best saboteurial efforts of Momzo the Clown — The Dark Knight became the box-office phenomenon of the decade.

· Twilight, Iron Man, Sex and the City, and plunderrific Indiana Jones 4 were box-office sensations, Australia, Speed Racer and Zack and Miri Make a Porno went straight to Flopz™. And Delgo was Del-gone before we knew it.

· Lessons in love came hard to Anne Hathaway, who could have learned a thing or two about how to find a man from classy Bachelor contestant Stacey. Or, if she's after something more casual, Ben Lyons is always happy to oblige Hollywood's starfucking needs.

· The 2008 vintage of celebrity sex media proved disappointing at best, with Verne Troyer's frightening video tryst easily outmaneuvering Kristin Davis's racy amateur porn for the overall top spot. Linsday Lohan handily won the Glossy Nudes category, while Adrienne Bailon earned Best Nontroversy with a little help from the Worst Publicist in the World.

· Yet scandal-plagued tween darling Miley Cyrus ultimately emerged in a class by herself, devouring her clothes and going topless-ish for Vanity Fair. But so what, right? Teenagers fuck.

· After numerous teases and an awards-show casualty, the WGA strike finally concluded. Bored with all that peacetime labor harmony, a defiant SAG turned its own missiles on Hollywood.

· We were saddened to see the dissolution of power couples ranging from Madonna and Guy Ritchie to Star Jones and Al Reynolds. If only they had half the excuse that Sarah Silverman had for her temporary bust-up with Jimmy Kimmel.

· The View usurped The Hills as our favorite source of shrill, soul-debasing thrills.

· The Oscars and Emmys were nice and everything, but this year we finally discovered we're really more of a Video Music Awards kind of blog.

· A handful of doomed mini-majors were at the vanguard of the film industry's march toward recession. Harvey Weinstein, meanwhile, straggled behind the pack to bury his dead and plot his retreat.

· We got to know — like really got to know — the Jonas Brothers, Courtenay Semel, Dustin Lance Black and Tyler Perry. In 2009, we resolve to finally meet our beloved Archie.

· Scientology might have had its detractors, scandals and sword-swinging nemeses, but at least its members didn't go around Hollywood asking who this crazy Rosh Hashanah person is.

· We cornered Judd Apatow, Robert Pattinson, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Griffin, Stephen Daldry, John Cusack, Werner Herzog, Rob Corddry, Russell Brand, David Cronenberg, Etan Cohen, Vera Farmiga, Casey Wilson, Dave Holmes and Dennis Hopper into having a word with us. Not all at once, alas, though that would have been awesome.

· Tom Cruise slogged through '08 as well with an ailing studio and a bit of an eyepatch problem, culminating in his "Nazi apologia" Valkyrie. Katie Holmes avoided the whole mess by spending a few months on Broadway.

· The fearless leadership combo of Jeff Zucker and Ben Silverman continued to offer reason upon reason why NBC is your home for Must-Flee TV.

· ZOMG!!!! EARRRRRRRRRTHQUAAAAAKE!!!!

· Nothing surprised us more than Corey Haim's touching full-page contrition. Except maybe for Dolly Parton's unspeakbly filthy mouth.

· So long, Mr. Lisanti. You are missed. As are you, Miss McAleer. And you, Mr. Reinhardt. And you, Miss Friedman. And you, Mr. Graham. Happy new year to them and to you, Dear Reader. We'll see you in 2009!

KYLE

10 of my favorite posts:
· 7 MTV-Defining Stars Who Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Anymore
· What Elisabeth Hasselbeck's Choice in Pirate Shirts Can Reveal About This Election
· 'Star Magazine' Readers in Revolt After Mario Lopez 'Chesthairgate' Scandal
· EXCLUSIVE: MTV VMAs Host Russell Brand Takes the Defamer Pop Culture Test
· How the 'Anne Hathaway Loves Anal Sex' Rumor Fooled The Internet
· DreamWorks Assistant Thinks 'Rosh Hashanah' Is Newest Hollywood Power Broker
· 'Twilight' Star Robert Pattinson Wonders Why You're So Afraid of His Chest Hair
· New, Oversharing Adrien Brody Takes You Inside the Castle 'King Kong' Built
· Ten Hairy Hippies That Do Inexplicably Well With The Ladies
· Brooke Hogan on Sarah Palin: 'Who's That?'

5 of my favorite headlines:
· Sometimes There's So Much Booty In the World, It Feels Like Kevin Spacey Can't Take It
· Who Needs '90210' With This Lucrative Gig Impersonating Zach Galifianakis?
· Marcia Brady on Anal Sex: 'Ow, My Rectum!'
· McCain Scores Crucial Endorsement From One Half of 'The Cutting Edge'
· Pop Quiz: Is This Colin Farrell, or the Hot Homeless Dude Outside Trader Joe's?

5 posts with pictures you could get lost in:
· 'Brokeback Mountain' Author Not Interested in Your 'Zombie Jack Twist' Fan Fiction
· Arriving Astride Winged Serpent, Satan Himself Announces Rinna/Hamlin Reality Show
· Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens in 'Sex Shop Musical'
· Has 'Jennifer's Body' Removed the R-Rated Areas On Jennifer's Body?
· Scott Caan Gives Defamer Commenter a NSFW Christmas Present

STV

STV's Picks
·Teenagers Fuck (And Other Lessons From The Miley Cyrus Debacle)
'Spirit,' '7 Pounds' and 'Revolutionary Road': A Taxonomy of Trash
· Josh Groban: Emmy Laughingstock or Accidental Genius?
· Late Child Star Heather O'Rourke Writes Outraged Memo to God Upon
Learning of 'Poltergeist' Remake
· The Wachowskis Still in Hiding as 'Speed Racer' Circles the Drain
· Why You Don't Care About Eddie Murphy
· Empty Desks, Fire Sales, and Other Signs of the Weinstein Apocalypse

Fine Art
· BREAKING: Nikki Blonsky Injured, Arrested in Brutal Luggage-Defense Melee
· Sign Defamer's M. Night Birthday Card!
· Nikki Finke vs. Sharon Waxman: The Grudge Match Continues
· So Did You Hear The One About Jodie Foster And The 20-Something Endeavor Agent?

SETH

Posts of Note
· Gamut Of Implant Technologies Gather To Celebrate A Newly Anointed Playmate Queen
· Hollywood 2: Dawn Of The Ladies
· The Indiana Jones PlunderWatch Clock
· Defamer Transcription Service Presents: A Visit With The Trumps
· Liveblogging The Oscars: Choke On The Glitz
· Send Everyone Else Home: In The Bachelor's Stacey, We Found A Slut We Can Take To Mom
· Paris Hilton's Tear-Drenched Super Bowl Defeat
· Carrie Fisher Comes Full Circle
· Who Said It: John Cusack, Diablo Cody Or Bob Ross?
· SNL's Gay Minstrel Show

Headlines I Like
· 'Guitar Hero: The Movie' Rich In Ratnerian Themes Of Artistic Fakery
· Barbara Walters Recalls Riding In The Bus With Her Emotionally Retarded Surrogate Daughter, Rosie
· JC Chasez: 'Chace Crawford Is Not My Bum-Junkie'
· Hilton Flack Elliot Mintz Elicits Angry Statement From Nat'l Assoc. for the Advancement of Oompah Loompahs
· All The ऌs Have Been Crossed And The ऱs Dotted
· A Beaming George Takei Spotted Lingering Over July Issue Of 'Brides' Magazine
· Katie Holmes Poised To Make Her Broadway Escape In 'All My Sons' Revival
· 'Even I Draw The Line At Hitting My Own Mother,' Says Outraged Joker About Recent Christian Bale Arrest
· Easy-Meal Jihadist Rachael Ray Promised 72 Extra-Virgins In Paradise
· Fire Up Your Oscars: Here Come Da 'Milk'!

Misty Photoshop Mem'ries
· Brad Pitt's Cryptic New Tattoo Explained!
· Uma Thurman's 'Happy Stalked Actress Day' Card: A Defamer Recreation
· The Grazerhead Halloween Mask
· Ryan Phillippe Doing His Part To Prevent L.A. Real Estate Bubble From Popping
· Robert Downey Jr. Falls Deeper Down The Mustache Hole, George Clooney: Keeper Of The Stache
· For His New Murder Trial, Phil Spector Chooses Hives-Chic
· SAG Celebrity-Standoff Holiday Cards: Joyeux No-el and Happy Yea-nukkah!

Hero of the Year

In October, a young McCain volunteer named Ashley Todd told police in Pittsburgh that she'd been savagely beaten and robbed by a black man, who carved a "B" into her face, for "Barack," after seeing her McCain bumper sticker. The "B" was carved backwards and of course it was immediately revealed that she made the entire thing up. God Bless Her for distilling everything weird and wrong with October of 2008 into one easy-to-digest anecdote. Our children will sing epic ballads extolling her heroism and bravery. She is the future.

R.I.P. W.

George W. Bush's reign as official boogie-man of the left died this year, two years after his presidency. While it was part of Barack Obama's winning strategy to paint John McCain as Bush redux, he was much more successful in painting John McCain as John McCain, an erratic old coot who didn't understand things like "the economy."

Meanwhile Bush, who's been squatting, unwanted, in the White House doing nothing since the day after the 2006 midterm elections, spent the year on a goodbye goodwill tour, acting pathetic instead of mendacious, accomplishing nothing (which is far preferable to the "accomplishments" of the years of his presidency before he went out to lunch). No one remembers anything anymore, especially outrages, especially after an election year, and so Bush has oddly gone full circle, back to his pre-9/11 image as a hopeless-but-harmless dope in way over his head. Still: torture and Katrina. Also Dick Cheney, who is sabotaging the farewell tour with crazy interviews about how he REGRETS NOTHING. Did Bush destroy the Republican party for a generation? No, he didn't. Hell, he didn't destroy the Bush name even. They're unkillable—if George could survive his dad, Neil, and Marvin, Jeb can survive George. So drink a toast to the increasingly short memory of the American people, Jenna/Pierce '16!

Careers That Ended

John McCain, maverick. John Edwards, folksy effete populist. Oddly, just about everyone else who massively fucked up this year will remain employed. Even the Clintons!

Year of Bullshit

Lipstick on a Pig! God Damn America! Bittergate! We should have a "poll" of some kind, as to which one of those things was the stupidest distraction, but that would be depressing.

The Primaries

Here, this explains the primaries.

"Dad" Represents America In This Photo

Jackass of the Year

Mickey Kaus in a shocking upset! He just bugs us.

We tried to go back and read some of our posts from the beginning of this miserable year, to remind you of stories we once covered as if they mattered and immediately forgot, but christ, there were a lot of them and do you know how shitty the Gawker archives are? Here are some stories from late February and late January that you may or may not recall! We certainly don't remember writing about them.

Late January and Late February 2008 In Review

• Hillary Clinton, who was running for president when the year began, bought an hour of time on The Hallmark Channel in late January. No one mentioned this when Barack Obama totally ripped her off by buying a half-hour on every channel a couple months later, just because he could afford to!
• And Hillary's famous and wonderful and instantly iconic "3 a.m. Phone Call" ad ran in late February! We learned about it on Leap Day! Who knew then that by the end of the year she would not be answering any phone calls at any time because it's probably Mark Penn again, asking for money.
• The saga of Matt Drudge and Hillary Clinton was sordid and sad. She thought she had an "in" with him because he relies on her villainy to remain relevant, but he took far too much pleasure in taking her down to actually aid her in the primaries. So she baked cookies. With SATAN.
• In May of 2007, The Globe, one of the trashiest of the trashy tabloids, ran a photo of Barack Obama wearing a turban (fun fact: that post features my favorite dumb non sequitur joke of the year!). In February of this year, the photo mysteriously turned on on Drudge alongside a crazy story about how Hillary Clinton's people leaked it to him in order to smear Obama as a Muslim. It might be true! Mark Penn's strategy memos talked about painting Obama as insufficiently American, after all! On the other hand, Drudge might've just made it all up to fuck over Hillary some more. Who knows! Who cares! We did, then!
• Meanwhile Bill Clinton kept campaigning tirelessly, hitting up Nobu and Conde Nast.
• Oh god, remember Alycia Lane?
• For some reason there was a big debate over whether or not Hillary Clinton was funny. She is kinda funny. But being funny is bad, in politics. Just ask Mike Huckabee!
• We got all annoyed about "Garfield Minus Garfield" back in February and little did we know that it'd become a fucking book by the end of the year. Meanwhile the guys who invented "Arbuckle" continue to toil in obscurity.
• For a while we were all concerned about things like The Atlantic putting Britney Spears on the cover and Us Weekly doing wacky slideshows about the Obamas being Just Like Us and it all probably represented something seismic and epochal in Media and Culture but now honestly we're all just used to it.
• CNN supposedly banned Paul Begala and James Carville from the network during the early days of the primaries but that ban lasted about ten seconds. Meanwhile the Clintons waged war on MSNBC for its obvious pro-Obama biases, and they kept big-upping Fox for its fairness. Topsy-turvy!
• We all became delegate-counting experts, just like we all became Electoral College experts in 2000. Well, Hillary Clinton's campaign team forgot to become delegate-counting experts but they made up for it with infighting and hating the press.
• Bill Buckley, asshole, died.

Remember the GOP Also-Rans!

These guys were already finished by the time the year began.

Mike Huckabee, who used to be fat, and then got skinny, and is now kinda chubby again. Now he has a television show!

Rudy Giuliani finally gave up in January, after his brilliant "don't campaign anywhere except Florida, then lose Florida" strategy failed, just like his "put the city's emergency command center inside the city's biggest terrorism target" strategy, and his "leave your wife for your mistress at a press conference" strategy.

Oh man remember Fred Thompson? He was on TV, and he was southern, so he thought he was basically guaranteed the presidency. But it turns out that being boring and stupid doesn't play with voters (well, being boring doesn't play).

What Have We Learned?

Was this election actually remarkable in any way? Sure—we elected the first black president at the end of it. That's still pretty cool. But otherwise it was a fairly standard-issue rout, with the deeply unpopular second-term president forcing his party into nominating someone they didn't actually like that much and throwing him to the wolves without the resources of his more charismatic opponent. As usual the nation, in the midst of two wars, was distracted by bullshit until the pressing concerns of a cratering economy lent the proceedings a modicum of pretend seriousness. Still, presidential elections are all good fun for fans of "politics," and this one had Sarah Palin, which was kind of a treat, though it got exhausting. Anyway with Blago and Franken and Caroline Kennedy it is almost as if 2008 and its terrible election refuse to end! Maybe we will all wake up tomorrow and go back to caring about how Lindsey Lohan is a naked lesbian, again? Or maybe we'll all run out of jobs and money. HAPPY NEW YEAR CHARLIE BROWN.

Relive the Magic

There are like 20 pages of politics coverage available at this link.

10) Lindsay Lohan Celebrates Sobriety By Dropping Trou For 'NY Mag'

9) Megan Fox As Naked As Allowed By Canadian Film Regulation Law

8) Katie Holmes Marathon Mystery Deepens With New Questions About Unidentified Runner #6074: Updated

7) The Kristin Davis Sex Tape: The Graphic Novel

6) Joan Rivers Ejected From British Talk Show After Calling Russell Crowe A 'F***ing S**t': With Video!

5) DEFAMER EXCLUSIVE: Backstage Elisabeth/Joy Blowup Rocks 'The View'

4) Dolly Parton Threatening To Sue Howard Stern For Tossing Her Lovely Audio Book Into A Filth Salad (NSFW)

3) Mini-Me Sex Tape Conclusive Proof That Our Civilization Is Doomed

2) Paris Hilton's Tear-Drenched Super Bowl Defeat

1) The Tom Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientologists Don't Want You To See

#1 - The Tom Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried to Suppress

#2 - Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk

#3 - Sarh Palin's Personal Emails

#4 - Top Ten Angry On-Camera Meltdowns

#5 - Jane Fonda to America: C U Next Tuesday

#6 - The Dangers of Being a Television News Reporter

#7 - Kristen: The Definitive Gallery

#8 - Secret Video: The Scientologists Celebrate the Birthday of the Prophet Tom Cruise

#9 - Church of Scientology Claims Copyright Infringement

#10 - Descriptions of Goatse, 2 Girls 1 Cup, and Other Gross-Outs That Hopefully You'll Never Watch

Beautiful photoshop by Richard Blakeley

Panic, by its nature, is an unreasonable fear that seizes one suddenly. But it comes after a series of shocks that drain confidence and stoke worries. Such was the Panic of '08: a torrent of news, bad turning to worse, which by its very ceaselessness made the hardiest souls cringe.

One can point fingers, document the bonus-driven greed of bankers, explain the overly complex financial vehicles which spun out of control. But trying to explain it all away misses the point — that sheer chaos overtook the world of money.

March
Bear Stearns reveals massive losses in two in-house hedge funds from securities linked to subprime mortgages. CNBC stock shouter Jim Cramer insists the company is fine. Six days later, JPMorgan Chase agrees to buy it for $2 a share, with the government guaranteeing $30 billion in losses.

July
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, in an effort to bolster the stock price of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, gives their debt an explicit guarantee. His move backfired: Shareholders, seeing the prospect of a government takeover which would wipe them out, sell their shares.

September
Paulson announces that the government is taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Lehman Brothers, unable to find a merger partner or negotiate a government bailout, files for bankruptcy. As laid-off Lehman employees walk out of the office with their possessions boxed up, two men make out in front of a CNN reporter's live camera.

AIG, which had guaranteed billions of dollars in financial contracts linked to subprime mortgages, teeters on the verge of bankruptcy before getting an $85 billion infusion from the government.

Merrill Lynch sells itself to Bank of America. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley convert themselves into commercial banks. With that shift, there are no more investment banks left on Wall Street.

Banks stop lending to each other. Stocks plunge. Even the price of oil drops below $100 a barrel. Washington Mutual is seized by regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase.

October
Congress passes a $700 billion rescue plan. Stocks continue to drop as economic figures show the economy was faltering even before Wall Street's collapse. Ferrari-loving ex-Goldman Sachs banker Neel Kashkari is hired to oversee it. The former rocket scientist rapidly proves too geeky for the job. The Dow falls below 10,000, then 9,000. Citigroup tries to buy Wachovia and fails; Wells Fargo buys Wachovia instead.

Layoff fears hit Silicon Valley: Partners at Sequoia Capital, the venture-capital firm which backed Apple, Google, Cisco, and Yahoo, among others, urge their companies to cut costs quickly. Dozens follow suit in pink-slipping employees.

November
The contagion spreads to Detroit: U.S.-based automakers report dreadful third-quarter sales. The chiefs of GM, Ford, and Chrysler fly to Washington to ask for a bailout — in private jets.

Government bailout genius Neel Kashkari appears to be stress eating.

Citigroup stock drops 60 percent in a week, prompting the government to invest $20 billion and guarantee a $306 billion portfolio of securities against losses.

The S&P 500 drops to 1997 levels, wiping out a decade-plus of gains.

On Black Friday, a group of shoppers break into a Wal-Mart before it opens and trample a worker. Holiday sales prove dismal.

December
Post-Thanksgiving layoffs sweep the New York media. Yahoo throws a series of holiday parties, and then lays off 1,500 employees. Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis suggests only idiots actually lend people money. Everyone resolves to pretty much give up until Barack Obama's inauguration.

We scoured hundreds of one-sheets, banners, international posters and other materials for the handful that provoke, move, repel and entrance — sometimes all at once. Your mileage may vary, and a few notable omissions will have to wait a year for revisiting. But find below what we hope will inspire more studios and designers — for better or worse — to an improved 2009.

THE BEST MOVIE POSTERS OF 2008

The Bank Job: Most Jason Statham posters afford him little opportunity to do more than look fierce, threatened or thoroughly trapped. But this one-sheet for his nifty, underappreciated heist gem frames him exactly as we like him: A kitchen-sink bloke with style to spare. However badly he wants what's on the other side of that window, it probably wants him more.

Boarding Gate: Upping the stakes from last year's Brave One/Jodie Foster firearm-phallus campaign, the marketers behind Olivier Assayas's nonsensical thriller dispensed with implicitness altogether by placing Asia Argento's handgun squarely in front of her exposed panties. NB: When faced with the opportunity to have Angelina Jolie bend bullets from her groin-mounted firearm, Wanted's poster designers blinked in favor of something "a little more Moby-Dick-y."

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Universal could have thrown Marshall's decent ensemble on the one-sheet, but in a flash of brilliance, determined that even a bikinied Kristin Bell couldn't entice viewers quite the way a mysterious, vaguely misogynist, hand-lettering campaign probably could. $62 million in domestic grosses later, the move would influence another, less successful campaign this fall. (See Zack and Miri Make a Porno below.)

Funny Games: Michael Haneke's English-language remake of his own infamous, utterly despicable 1997 film was nevertheless remarkable for how it treated its leading lady. Often shot from behind or from her side, often stripped, tear-streaked and/or terrorized, Naomi Watts's performance is a marvel of experimental endurance that you shouldn't have to watch an otherwise awful movie to appreciate. Just check out the poster. You're welcome!

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay: Neil Patrick Harris. A unicorn. If only Valkyrie had thought of this.

THE WORST MOVIE POSTERS OF 2008

Chapter 27: When considering particularly bad poster art, it's tempting to imagine yourself in the late phases of the film's campaign development. But the stunning misconception guiding Chapter 27 to ruin actually freezes us in the moment when Fat Jared Leto's face is unveiled as Lennon assassin Mark David Chapman. And then we laugh and laugh and are eventually fired from the project. Which is just a long-winded way of us saying nobody fucking wins when Jared Leto gains 70 pounds for his art.

My Best Friend's Girl: If your leading man comes out to complain that his face looks like a vagina, then you've got a bad movie poster.

Righteous Kill: We've already griped at length about what specifically makes the Righteous Kill poster such a wreck. But, it turns out, we forgot something: 6. Tagline not a tacky-enough reminder of a man's actual murder at the hands of cops. They don't cut corners in England, apparently.

Space Chimps: We intended to keep this assortment to domestically released posters. However, this tres-rare artwork encapsulizes not only the reasons why Space Chimps crashed upon liftoff, but also why virtually all of Western Civilization hates us. If posters could be tried for international war crimes, this would have gone to the Hague months ago.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Loosely related to the Sarah Marshall campaign's crude sell, the poster for Kevin Smith's hard-R flop still undersold an A-list cast on the premise that viewers would rather read Harvey Weinstein barking at them than see the actual faces of Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. If any film needed the full-ensemble treatment — including Craig Robinson, Brandon Routh, Justin Long and porn vets Katie Morgan and Traci Lords, even all just sitting on a couch in Smith's basement — this was the movie. You know what happened next — and not just partly because we called it months ahead of time.

Sean Young Drunk-Heckles Julian Schnabel Off the DGA Awards Podium
We're not sure what Julian Schnabel ever did to Sean Young to have warranted this kind of drunken hostility at the DGA Awards—probably asked her if any more of those "delicious crabcakes are coming out of the kitchen, waitress?"—but it made for riveting morning-after gossip.

David Letterman Repeats a Monologue Nearly Verbatim on Consecutive Nights
This had to be some kind of Late Show writer's room plot cooked up after someone jokingly suggested they just rehash the previous evening's monologue to see if anyone noticed. Still, when the gags get bigger laughs the second night, and America is the butt of the joke, you have to ask yourself: was it worth it? Probably.

Jason Alexander Plays an Overacting Serial Killer on Criminal Minds


Some say the middling sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine has finally broken The Seinfeld Curse. This guest spot should be all the reassurance you need that it’s alive and well and wearing a Sheinhardt on a competing network.

Nick Nolte Explains His Mugshot Was Actually a Charity Snapshot
Nick, just embrace it. It’s mugshot history.

Steve Guttenberg Jogs Around Central Park Naked Below the Waist
This probably would have made more sense as a sequence in Can’t Stop the Music. As it stands now, however, using middle-aged Guttenjunk to scare passing strollers is probably not the best way to draw attention to your latest project.

G4’s Human Wrecking Balls: The Dumbest TV Show Ever Devised
The Idiocracying of America just took one giant leap forward with this show about two brothers who break solid objects with their bodies.

In Light of Recent Tragedy, New York Sorry About All Her Jennifer Hudson Shit-Talking
Sometimes, when you’re met with the unthinkable, you’ll be amazed at who emerges from the woodwork to become a rock in your hour of need. This isn’t one of those cases.

William Shatner Slightly Bitter Over George Takei Wedding Snub
So you’ve been left off the invite list to the gay wedding of co-star from your seminal, 1960s sci fi drama. Do you A) move on. B) go on YouTube to accuse him of being mentally ill? If you’re Bill Shatner, the answer is B.

Near-Fatal Traffic Collision Survivor Shia LaBeouf Gifts Jay Leno with His Severed Pinkie Nail
This wouldn’t have probably bothered us nearly as much had he given it to literally any other talk show host. Unlike Scarlett’s snotty Kleenex, however, you just know Leno would have tossed out the priceless LeBeoufian keepsake moments after the cameras were off.

Space: The Final, Chintzy-Looking, America’s Next Top Model Frontier
This entire sequence should be plucked out of its reality show context and projected on modern art museum walls around the world.

Trump Infomercial Hostess Weeps in the Presence of her Combforwarded Hero
Perhaps the most shameful single moment of the year.

John Mayer Thinks Jennifer Aniston is a Great Girl, Brah
Look, tabloid press lingering outside Equinox SoHo: John Mayer just wants his life back OK? Jen’s a great girl, but he just doesn’t lead people on like that.

Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and the Offensive Firefly Stereotype
We don’t know exactly what he’s supposed to be—all we know is that we refuse to endure a full movie of this mouth-breathing glowworm narrator, hand-drawn or not. Oh, and Randy Newman sucks.

The Big Brother Four-Legged BJ Monster
This broad-daylight, slurpy-sounding sex act is mitigated slightly by the fact that later on, one of the perpetrators asked the other to be “his first girlfriend” in his on-air testimonial. Wait a second—that just makes it worse.

The Bachelorette Stuns GMA with Her Astonishing Dumbness
Back when DeAnna Pappas was still engaged to Jesse the Snowboarder, but before she had revealed her choice to America, she admitted she was “two totally different people with each guy.” But all we saw was the same incredibly dumb person, over and over again.

Tara Reid Tries Unsuccessfully to Stage a Hyde Entrance
We're not really sure what this pap being "an ugly little Asian dude" has to do with Tara Reid's last grasps at a career, either.

Kevin Spacey Dumps a Whole Jamba Juice on Letterman’s Carpet
Simply charming.

Tom Cruise Introduces Oprah to His Leather-Bound Script Collection
There are no other books on the shelf.

Artie Lang Gets Cupcakeboarded
Does this really seem like a good idea? No. No it does not.

Milo Ventimiglia Offers Stunning Demonstration of Why We Need Writers
What's his power? Being a retarded Easter Bunny?

Baldwin vs. Garcia: In which 30 Rock star Alec Baldwin belittled his Thursday night brethren, mocking NBC for running hourlong episodes of My Name is Earl when the show is "done" and "cooked." In response, Earl creator Greg Garcia told Defamer that Baldwin was a"psychotic narcissist" who can't do math. Burn?
Olsen vs. Pratt: In which Mary-Kate Olsen ragged on former high school classmate Spencer Pratt while on Letterman (left). Why? Because Pratt sold a photo of Olsen to the tabloids back when they were teenagers. Publicity-whoring kids—they start so early these days!

Fanning vs. Woods: In which Dakota Fanning's attempt to portray herself as a normal cheerleader was thwarted by her Winged Creatures director Rowan Woods, who called her a "disaster" on set. One steely glance from the 14-year-old, however, and he took it all back in an email to Defamer.
Emanuel vs. Silverman: In which Endeavor head honcho Ari Emanuel told "high as a kite" NBC playboy Ben Silverman to tone down his carousing and meeting-missing. He did no such thing (Beijing Ben answers to no one!) and was summarily ripped a new one by Emanuel in the executive dining room at Universal.
Blonsky vs. Golden: In which Hairspray star Nikki Blonsky threw down with Top Model castoff Bianca Golden at an airport in Turks and Caicos. Instead of learning lessons of racial harmony through song and dance, Blonsky kicked Golden's mom in the vagina. No amount of pudenda glitter is going to cover that bruise.


Letterman vs. McCain: In which also-ran presidential candidate incurred the awesome wrath of David Letterman by ditching his guest appearance to chat with Katie Couric down the street. Lesson learned: don't mess with Letterman. Also: maybe the McCain/Palin ticket shouldn't do interviews with Katie Couric.
The, uh...let's not use the word "Retarded" vs. Tropic Thunder: In which DreamWorks was forced to yank a Tropic Thunder tie-in website for insensitivity to the mentally handicapped. Literally dozens protested the film's Westwood premiere, dressed in "Retardbusters" t-shirts that went ironically on sale at the Y-Que the very next day.

Piven vs. Mamet: In which a bored Jeremy Piven attempted to escape his Broadway duties by fishing around for an excuse to explain away his "fatigue," eventually settling on a reality TV doctor/bodybuilder who would diagnose his problems as the symptoms of an "avid sushi eater." David Mamet spoke for all of the Great White Way when he suggested that Piven undertake a new career.
Rudin vs. Weinstein: In which a cash-strapped, hit-deficient Harvey Weinstein bumped The Reader up to a 2008 slot, which left director Stephen Daldry little time to finish the film, put Kate Winslet in a difficult promotional jam, and induced tyrannical superproducer Scott Rudin to yank his name off the picture. Still waiting on that $1 million donation, Harve!


Hasselbeck vs. Behar & Defamer: In which the on-air arguments by professional shrieker Elisabeth Hasselbeck spilled backstage, where several Defamer operatives lay in wait. This led to a through-the-looking-glass moment where, after years of covering The View's hot topics, Defamer itself became the hot topic. It also led to the banning of poorly designed campaign t-shirts on ABC, forcing Hasselbeck to find refuge in pirate blouses and a spiked mug filled with coffee and everclear. We'll have what she's having—in 2009, we're gonna need it.

Best:

9. Boston Globe reporter tells married source "Don't shave" — This was almost a non-scandal, just a stale affair that happened in Miami the year before. But the emails! "I haven't shaven since I left Miami. Thought you would like that image :)"

8. Jared Paul Stern's wife cheats, there are pictures — At first we couldn't believe the former Page Six gossip writer's wife would have sex with a random business partner, but then there were photos. As if getting fired from the Post amid nasty extortion allegations wasn't sad enough on husband Stern. Tragic.

7. "Steve Ratner has paid my wife $500,000.00 to leave me." — The head of private equity at Credit Suisse was driven from his job by a man whose wife he slept with. The guy spammed a tawdry tale of humiliation into newspaper comments sections. A sympathetic feature in the Times only deepened the humiliation. The internet is to blame, as always.

6. Lara Logan, CBS News' Iraq-based homewrecker — She was a correspondent in Iraq, slept with a contractor named Joe Burkett (and this other guy, who works for CNN!) and then got pregnant. The first guy's wife was not happy. There was something about sexism and double standards but, really, it was just all awful and every involved came out looking pretty terrible, Logan very much included.

5. The "redneck" father of Bristol Palin's baby — Tobacco-chewing, self-described redneck Levi Johnston, 18, knocked up Sarah Palin's daughter right before Palin was named John McCain's running mate. His mere existence was a scandal to the coastal elites, who looked at him and were all "eww," especially during the convention. He still hasn't married Bristol like he promised!

4. Max Mosley's Nazi- or prison-themed S&M orgy tape — News of the World had five hours of video in which a British racing boss is disciplined by German-speaking women in some kind of make-believe prison-camp. Mosley denied it was a Nazi thing and won a suit against the tabloid for invasion of privacy. When will America learn to manufacture a proper, quality sex scandal with elaborate bondage and tons of video?

3. Madonna and A-Rod — They claim not to have slept together while Alex Rodriguez was married, but Madonna was, at the very least, emotionally close enough to the Yankees slugger to be named an "other woman" in his wife's divorce proceeding. The couple also felt the ned to meet at a New York restaurant in secret. Then, after the divorce, they flew all over the world together.

Maybe they really do just study Kaballah and stare at each other, but isn't Madonna getting kind of old for these games? Wait, sorry, that was sexist.

2. John Edwards cheats on his cancer-stricken wife, lies about it — Sure, other politicians have cheated on their sick wives and gone on to distinguished careers, but Edwards lied to the press, ran from National Enquirer reporters and hid in a bathroom, delayed any explanation for weeks and then issued a fishy, limited admission that, yes, he did screw former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter. But that love child isn't his!

No one's really convinced, and by delaying the inevitable Edwards became a political non-entity at the precise time his populist, anti-corporate message looked more prescient than ever.

1. Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his prostitute, Ashley Dupre, are busted — Many people enjoyed the comeuppance of Mr. Holy McSmartypants, the former Wall Street-busting state attorney general turned arrogant governor. The feds got him, for whoring.

One of Spitzer's hookers, Ashley Youmans (stage name Ashley Alexandra Dupre, hooker name "Kristen") had a MySpace account, had made video for Girls Gone Wild as a teenager, had a song on the internet, for sale and had made a music video. Everything was in place to explode her story.

Like Edwards. Spitzer, too, was ahead of the curve in calling out the rotting uselessness of then-respected American financial institutions . Oh well.

Worst:

• Miley Cyrus wears lipstick in Vanity Fair, let's panic: She's wearing only bedsheet at age 15! Sex! Aggggh! She's a terrible role model and probably a witch! No wait, that Jewish lesbian mystic hypnotized her and instilled devil sensuality into her! Actually, it turns out she's been doing silly sorta sexual poses with her cameraphone, on MySpace, for various boyfriends forever, and she quickly acquired a 20-year-old man, and then said she'd love to work with Annie Leibovitz again.
• John McCain maybe sexed a lobbyist, on a jet: The Times stuttered and stammered this accusation over months, and then couldn't bring itself to even make it. God. Like there were no other, more solid McCain scandals to go after?
• Sarah Palin cheated on her husband: Ya, that one really panned out decisively. It's actually pretty heartening that Katie Couric's old-fashioned journalism on old-fashioned topics is what made the difference. Not that sex isn't a relevant issue, but, come on: path of least resistance.
• Cindy McCain kisses another man!: They couldn't get this out before the election was over? At least then it might have drummed up some interest. Nothing has been heard about it since. Even if it pans out: Depressing.

10. From The Dagrolord in Why Doesn't Anyone Watch Gossip Girl?;
"Gossip Girl manages the paradoxical:

A gorgeous cast that is not in the least attractive."

9. From Colonel Mustard in Steve Doocy Is The Only Person Still Thinking About Madonna's Breasts:
"Watching Fox and Friends is sort of like watching a bunch of witches sip coffee and have a good time while roasting children on a spit. Like, they almost seem normal, and you kind of forget how evil they are for a second, and then one of them is picking baby out of their teeth with a rib bone."

8. From iplaudius in Rape T-Shirt Could Be Even Bigger Than Abortion T-Shirt:
"Ask me about my miscarriage."

7. From OMG! Ponies! in Sarah Palin's Personal Emails:
"God dammit. I'm doing a document review gig in Newark, reading through a company's emails and what am I doing on lunch-break?

Reading someone else's emails."

6. From La Cieca in Jakob Lodwick Thinks He's Diluting Mary Rambin's Brand:
"'I'm diluting your brand' is the new 'I'm crushing your head.'"

5. From ADismalScience in Jennifer Hudson's Family's Murder Is a Great Selling Point:
"Oh god, there is nothing worse than a gun violence debate. It's like watching chickens argue with eggs in the middle of a KFC."

4. From Botswana Meat Commission in Will HuffPo Pay Its Bloggers Some Mythical Day in the Future?:
"She looks exactly how I imagine the Huffington Post would look in human form."

3. From Pope John Peeps II in Candy Candy Candy:
"famous retard Thomas Friedman says:

Gum was a pre-911 candy, when americans could lounge over the disappearing flavour of their confection, and spend all day masticating uselessly. It was a candy of indulgence and softness, which allowed terrorism to strike. In the 90s there were many bubbles. There was the stockmarket bubble, the corporate governance bubble, the terrorism bubble and the gum bubble.

But now, global technologies have flattened the playing field on which candy is made. Young indian entrepreneurs can plug in their laptops and magically make candy. Candy can now emerge from the buttocks of young philipino boys. It grows on trees. I'm bathing in candy right now. When I was in mumbai, I saw a billboard for candy and I thought "oh my god. the world of candy is being flattened". but not just flattened, but flattened into bumps of progress. flatbumped into a flat, bumpy surface on which the whole world can slide smoothly. Over bumps.

America needs a strong, direct candy. They need a candy which can be chewed and swallowed. But swallowing is not enough. It must be swallowed all at once, violently, in a process I call "swONEllowing". This swONEllowing allows americans the sudden massive jolt of sugar to their systems that allows them to pierce the deceptive beards of jihadists living in the united states, to reveal their terrorist intent. It then allows all americans the sugar rush necessary to leap to iraq, and join our marines in taking a giant stick from house to house, and showing it to the iraqis. One might think that they wouldn't understand us, but will they understand getting anally penetrated by an assault rifle? The answer is yes."

2. From karion in The Most Abject Correction Ever:
"Talk about burying your lede."

1. From Nic Fit in Read These Stories To Figure Out What's Going On:
"Sarah Palin lives near a bank, maybe she can solve this thing."

10. Sarah Palin Reads Everything—this one is really one of the media's finest moments (by Katie Couric, who knew?), and Sarah Palin is the one fucking up. But it's about the media, so fuck it. Your almost-VP, ladies and gentlemen.

9. Anderson Cooper Fucks Up the Invisibility Thing—Remember that ridiculous "hologram" technology CNN rolled out on election night, as if they had extra money to throw around? The next day they tried to follow up with an invisibility technology, but Anderson "Equinox" C. fucked it all up. Ah well.

8. MSNBC Reporter Calls Spike Lee 'Uppity'—Hey that's RACIST.

7.
LA Times' Fake Tupac Scoop—Lesson: don't use serial con men as sources for front-page investigations.

6.
Jackass Reporter Mocked by iPhone Nerd—Comeuppance.

5. Jane Fonda Says Vagina Word—A celebrity saying "cunt" live on the Today show is mildly amusing. The fact that this video got more than half a million hits is just one more example of the difference between what people say they want and what they really want, and the reason we can't have nice, intellectual things.

4. Peggy Noonan Is Accidentally Honest—Peggy Noonan ironically exposes herself as even more morally bankrupt by lapsing out of character to tell the truth.

3.
Michelle Obama "Baby Mama"—Surprising this one could happen on a network like Fox.

2.
Martin Bashir's Babe-a-licious Speech—A gala speech at the Association of Asian-American Journalists: Not the best time to talk about how you'd like to bone your colleague.

1. Sue Simmons Says Bad Word—Well this one is pretty classic by now. Just what bad word did she say? We'll tell you: it's 'fuck.' You'll probably watch the clip even though you know that.

BONUS:
Richard Blakeley's Video Compilations of All-Time Stupid Reporter Tricks—Those are worth watching.

October
· Britney loses her kids.
· Charlie Sheen and his correspondences with ex-sad, jobless pig, Denise Richards
· David Letterman's classic post-jail Paris Hilton interview.
· Tell Me You Love Me introduces America to prop nuts and fake jizz.
· Danny Bonaduce piledrives Jonny Fairplay.
· Pamela Anderson weds the Paris Hilton sex-tape guy in Vegas.
· The path to war.
· IggyGate rocks a nation.
· That creepy thing about David Copperfield you could never quite put your finger on.
· The Great 2007 Fire of Everyfuckingwhere.
· The Great Strike Chair Dispute is a bad sign of things to come.
· Marie Osmond down n' out.
· Jerry Seinfeld demonstrates some Late Night hubris.

November
· The strike is on. (And on and on and on.)
· Ellen DeGeneres crosses picket lines.
· Shia LaBeouf's Walgreen's arrest.
· Fabio vs. Clooney.
· Michael Jackson's Ebony cover.
· Mickey Rourke's Vespa DUI.
· Dog the Bounty Hunter's gets caught N-wording on tape by his own son.
· The Incredible Picketing Baby: A strike star is born.
· Sharon Stone leaves little to the imagination.
· Matt Damon named the sexiest man alive.
· The hunkiest Bachelor ever refuses to play by The Bachelor rules.
· A live 30 Rock among the sweet spots in a bitter strike.
· Carson Daly's strike solution.
· Carrot Top scores!

December
· Kiefer's in jail :(
· Jodie Foster publicly thanks her life partner.
· Katherine Heigl puts her foot in it in Vanity Fair.
· Jennifer Love Hewitt's ass is a topic of much discussion.
· Dr. Phil's audience spared a taping of Dr. Phil.
· Quentin Tarantino horrifies early risers with his Golden Globe announcements.
· Steven Spielberg staying put.
· Jamie Lynn Spears is having a baby.
· A Return to Late Night.
· Last DUI of the year? Bet on it: Mischa Barton.
· Worldwide Pants the slacks of reason in the growing strike madness.

July
· The big fucking robots finally come—and conquer.
· Kwik-E-Mart's invade the area.
· Lindsay Lohan comes of drinking age.
· CAA assistants gather to greet Becks in the stairwell. He never comes.
· Live Earth's a dud.
· Rosie O'Donnell defiles Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
· Ed Limato squeezed out at ICM.
· Jon Lovitz's Andy Dick smackdown.
· Introducing, Herr Cruise!
· Filipino "Thriller."
· Lindsay Lohan: The Coke-Pant, Denalijacking arrest.
· McPherson to Silverman: "Be a man."
· Merry Miller's Holly Hunter interview disaster.

August
· Billion Dollar Ratner Week.
· Whoopi Goldberg arrives at The View.
· Lohan joins the Cirque.
· The Phil Spector trial field trip and he's greatest canine supporter.
· Big Brother's Amber is leery of Jews, and other BB intolerances.
· Merv Griffin dead, gay.
· John From Cincinnati drowns in an inscrutable riptide.
· Hey—it's Naked Leopard Man! (Thanks, Dave!)
· The Learning Channel not quite successful achieving its mission statement.
· Owen Wilson attempts suicide.

September
· Rita Cosby's outrageous Howie-on-Larry allegations.
· Bill Murray's drunken Swedish golfcart joyride.
· Jerry Lewis's gay telethon slur.
· Crazed Italian Brad Pitt fan-attack!
· The Britney Spears VMAs performance of a lifetime.
· Kathy Griffin: "Screw Jesus. This award is my god now."
· Acknowledging the Rubyfruit Mafia.
· O.J. Simpson's stolen-shit shakedown.
· An Emmys in the round.
· Kid Nation premieres, and homesickness abounds.
· Spector jury hung. Mistrial is declared.
· Sherri Shepherd admits she has no clue what shape the planet is.
· Leave Britney Alone!
· George Clooney's motorcycle accident.
· Kiefer Sutherland's U-Turn of Doom.
· Spielberg: "Completely Immaterial."

John ends up concluding that people who call other people douchebags are just jealous haters who are unable to comprehend the perceived douche's unique brand of genius. Like eyelinered, Ashlee Simpson-allied Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, for instance: "Pete Wentz has a truckload of ideas. Big, bold, colorful ideas. They're ideas that have never once had their edges sanded down, and for that reason some people might find him or his band too much to swallow. You know who else had that going for them in their day? Frank Zappa. And David Bowie. And Peter Gabriel. And Elton John. And the Doors."

Hear that? If you're going to call Pete Wentz a douchebag, you might as well call the Doors douchebags!

Reading this douche analysis reminded me of a year ago, when I had just started working at Gawker and was still capable of finding things funny and having ideas. The internet was like a fresh white blanket of new-fallen snow. People were still scandalized by the thought that Britney Spears had gone into a gas station restroom without wearing any shoes.

And one of the first things I did was declare the word "douchebag" to be so totally played out and hold a contest to see if anyone could come up with a better word for "douchebag" than "douchebag." No one could, because there isn't one.

Then I wrote a lot more posts about douchebags. Let's face it: some people are just douchebags! My definition differs from John Mayer's a little bit—I think douchiness has to do with being young, male, decently attractive and successful in a way that doesn't seem correlated to any kind of virtue, coupled with the kind of lack of self-awareness that leads people to muse, blogstyle, about why so many people call them names.

Interesting? Maybe. After a while, though, not so much! Which is why I am psyched to be writing my very last douchebag post of all time.

We cannot express enough just how much joy we derived from reliving the greatest recorded moments of the year; some of them we've now seen dozens, even hundreds of times, and yet they still offer us new discoveries—such as Barbara Walters observing, "Well, you can do both," upon it being suggested to her that it's impossible to simultaneously feed one's children, and know that the Earth is in fact not flat. Oop! We've already said too much. From us to you, enjoy.

• Defamer Clips

May
· Paris Hilton sentenced to 45 days.
· Hasselburger down!
· Bruce Willis's Sweary Night in Canada.
· Russell Crowe loses it rhapsodizing Brian Grazer.
· Chris Albrecht's bumpy night bumps him right out of HBO.
· Kirstie Alley the surprise hero of The Great Griffith Park Fires of 2007.
· Paris pardons Elliot Mintz.
· Who knew the Upfronts would wind up being a gigantic waste of time? (Ahem.)
· Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie zipline stunt.
· The Pinkberry question.
· An Idol winner.
· Rosie storms out of The View.
· Shhhhhh. It's sleeping Jakeypoo on a train.
· Lindsay Lohan's "usable amount of cocaine" DUI arrest.
· · Kevin Reilly is shitcanned, and a perfect storm rock star takes his place.
· Hey—remember that TB guy?
· Typo of the Year.

June
· Paris, In-n-Out-n-In.
· Isaiah Washington fired from Grey's Anatomy.
· The Jericho peanut campaign starts a new era of snack-food-based fan demonstrations.
· Rob Lowe commits birdiecide.
· Eli Roth's monstrous manhood.
· Clooney and Damon press their paws in Grauman's.
· Don't Stop Believin': The Sopranos is over.
· Paris finds God.
· Brian Grazer and Gigi Levangie call it quits.
· Innovative assistants have their benefits revoked, and quickly restored. Shmears for all!
· CAA needlessly sends its assistants for iPhones.
· Paris is released.
· How Studio 60 ended.