Mike Rice

Technically foul

This jerk is the latest coach to be inducted into the Bobby Knight Mean-Son-of-a-Bitch Hall of Fame. There was a time when a coach could call his players “Fairies,” drag them around by their shirts, smack ‘em once or twice and then pummel them with basketballs. Not now. Not when every cell phone records video and allows it to be instantly shared. Old timers say it’s a sad development, and Rutgers University’s Athletic Director seems to have agreed until the video went viral. At least this hall of fame is not as egregious as the Jerry Sandusky Pervert Hall of Fame. Rice only hurled his balls at player’s heads, not the opposite.

 

Diplomacy’s Odd Couple

 

Which one is Tweedle Dum?

 

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and Harlem Globetrotter Dennis Rodman bring a new level of idiotic behavior to the world stage with their unique version of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. Rascally sports figure Rodman plays Oscar as he transforms serious issues into basketball metaphors and carelessly leaves barbwire jewelry all over the apartment. Meanwhile, Kim fastidiously cleans up scores of dead citizens who have starved, died in prison or been tortured and executed – all out of Oscar’s sight. Critics are wary of calling this unique play a “bomb” for reasons Rodman will never understand.

 

Owen Pierce

“Stop me if I’ve told you this before.”

A sales executive in a large insurance company, Owen always has time to visit co-workers’ cubicles. He specializes in predicting Super Bowl winners – for the next ten thousand years. He invariably arrives at the busiest times, chatting interminably as workers pray for death. Ignoring obvious signs from trapped co-workers such as gnawing off their index fingers as an excuse to visit the company nurse, Owen blithely prattles on until he finishes all the stories everyone has heard time after time. He will never retire. He will never die.

Lance Armstrong

If I confess will you stop needling me?

While there is no longer any doubt about the despicable behavior of this “Doper-in-Chief,” Lance Armstrong was helped along by a huge crowd of supporters. In a society that values a “win-at-any-cost” mentality, the outrageous rewards for success outweigh all the moral objections. Armstrong’s true hypodermic needle injects an entire society that rewards liars, but only for as long as they are able to conceal the truth. Either that or he was just getting even for injuring his nuts on the crossbar of his Schwinn Hornet when he was a kid.

Wayne LaPierre

“The gun is merely a tool, and so am I”

The head honcho at the National Rifle Association is under fire from mental health experts for demanding armed guards in every school. Wayne LaPierre says this is to protect children from lunatics.  At the same time, LaPierre often says his members feel safer when they sleep with a gun. Some say this behavior is a sign of paranoia. So, does LaPierre want armed guards in schools to protect students from well-armed members of his own association? He might say, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

Frat Boys

It adds new meaning to being embedded

God only knows what David Petraeus and John Allen were doing with Paula Broadwell and Jill Kelley, but it smacks of bad frat boy behavior at a fourth tier college in the 60s. David left the United States Army as a four-star General and he resigned his CIA Director post as a first-class jerk. Paula apparently left the juicy parts out of her Petraeus biography, but managed to title it “All In.”  (Some of these “jerk” entries almost write themselves.) As for Marine Corps General Allen and Jill Kelley – if it wasn’t for their bad luck, they would have no luck at all. Kicked to the weeds are the Broadwell and Kelley spouses – both doctors. If only they could summon a cure for hubris.

The Non-Voter

Non-voter is a festering pustule on the buttocks of the electorate

Every election brings a wave of ennui among a certain segment of the population. These are the same folks who incessantly bitch about government and verbally eviscerate every politician who bothers to ask for support. Just as in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the images of these non-voters grow ever more ugly with every passing election, even though the non-voters are incapable of viewing themselves in the same realistic light of reason. Gaze into the mirror and if you don’t like what you see, go out and VOTE, or you will find yourself at the top of the Despicable Jerks list.