This year's winners: the Republican Presidential hopefuls, shown here at their 27th debate in Roger Ailes's fevered dreams.

Douchebags of the Year

Snow Whitey and
The Seven Dweebs

Editors' Note: With awards season upon us, surely none is more anticipated than the Spy's Annual Douchebag of the Year Awards. Like the Golden Globes, you have to work hard to win; but unlike those super-prestigious tchachkes, they are not to be had merely by shtupping obscure LA Eurotrash. All you have to do is reveal to the world your true self, and for 2012, who could doubt that this year's winners showed us what they were really made of.

It was a year in which douchebags strode the Earth like colossi.  They brought the government of the most powerful nation in the world to a screeching halt in their efforts to repeal to the New Deal.  They ended a 50-year reign of douchebaggery when it was revealed that they had conspired to cover up the rape of children.  They assured Barbara Walters that they would never, never kill their own citizens, having done so on innumerable occasions.  And they spit on an eight-year old girl, calling her a "whore" because her sleeves did not reach her wrist.

All mighty efforts, and in any normal year, any would qualify as meriting the Spy's Golden Nozzle.  But in 2011, one band of douches, one happy few, towered above all others, at least in part because beginning in the fall, you couldn't turn on a television or open an internet page (well, most internet pages) without running into one or more of them, invariably looking, acting, and talking creepy.

With persona as repellent as the policies they espoused, these eight epitomized everything that is wrong about American society, where greed, intolerance, and racism, wrapped in a American flag and drizzled in crude lies about the incumbent President, are passed off as patriotism and "family values."

Without further introduction, we give to you our 2012 Douchebags of the Year, in no particular order of douchebaggosity:  Wilfred M. Romney, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Jon Hunstman, Herman "the Ladies' Man" Cain, Rick Santorum, Newton Gingrich, and Ron Paul.

At least two of this year's winners – the ones with the funniest names – have previously appeared in the Winner's Bag, Wilfred in 2008 and Newton in 1994.  As that distinguishes these two douches from the others, at least in terms of perseverance, we'll start with them.

Wilfred M. Romney was born to be President. Just ask him. He was born privileged, did his graduate work Here, and then made a pile of jack flipping and stripping formerly sound businesses.  He took home hundreds of millions (taxed at 15% thanks to a scam perpetuated by his fellow tycoons); thousands lost their jobs; at least five of his deals ended up bankrupt.  To Wilfred this process of plunder is known as "job creation."

To be fair, he was not solely guided by the desire to create jobs. When the illegals he knew were mowing his lawn were brought to the attention of local media, he promptly shitcanned them with the fully adequate explanation: "For Pete's sake, I'm running for office here."

As for our family man, Newton Gingrich, he had to be singled out for the blitheness of his hypocrisy.  Having made his political reputation in the 90's by blaming Democrats for child murderers, he now whines that Wilfred's rich buddies were being mean to him by pointing out, for example, that he had trousered millions by shilling for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Characteristically, with their cash fresh out of his pocket to pay his Tiffany's bill, he demanded the jailing of Barney Frank on the grounds that Frank had been too supportive of the same firms that had paid Newt so handsomely.  Well done.

The other six are all first time winners, each in his or her own way more than worthy.  We were going to rank them in order of vileness, but in the end we called it a six-way tie.  We'll start with the funniest one, which has to be Texas Gov. Rick "All Hat" Perry.  Clearly, you don't have to be able to do much more than comb your hair without wetting yourself to attain the Texas Governor's Mansion, as long as you obediently do the bidding of what Russell Baker called "the hard-eyed money men" who installed you there.

But it takes more than saddlebags full of plutocratic pelf to impress the Republican primary voter.  You have to be able to spit out one or two sentences in a row.  Doesn't seem like much, yet it was an arroyo too far for All Hat.  And bonus douching for railing against giving even a dime to the poor and powerless, while collecting both a salary and a pension for serving in one job, all thanks to the taxpayers of the State of Texas, who are, due to that hellhole's regressive tax system, either poor consumers or out of state schmucks filling their tanks with Texas T.  

And what can we say about great-on-a-date Herman Cain?  Someone once said of Boss Tweed, "He seen his opportunities and he took 'em."  So too with the Ladies' Man.  In 2010 he was an obscure motivational speaker peddling books and tapes out of the trunk of his car.  This year, he made millions by peddling the same crap under the guise of a Presidential campaign, only to learn that some skanky ho's don't like it when they find out that the job opportunity Cain offered was located in his pants.

Things also went South quickly for Zontar's Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann.  The next android they send out will need to be programmed not to look blank as instructions are beamed to it across interstellar space.  By the way, for someone who rails against big government in all its forms, including the evils of preventing cancer, has she ever gotten a paycheck from what Howie Carr would call the dreaded private sector?  Schlox News doesn't count.

Then there's Mr. Integrity himself, Ron Paul.  He speaks his mind, which he's mostly out of.  We should get out of Afghanistan.  We shouldn't go to war with Iran. We should repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Uh-oh. Once the cuckoo came out of the clock, there was no putting it back. As for straight talk, we enjoyed his lame-o efforts to explain away the paranoid racist anti-Semitic ravings published in something called the "Ron Paul Newsletter." He said he never read it. We hate it when people get the crazy idea that somehow we are responsible for the content of publications put out in our name by our employees.

Then there's Rick "Jesus Wept" Santorum. We had a Skype call with the Eternal One from his Throne of Heaven after the Iowa caucuses and all the Source of All Blessings could say was: "What a douchebag!"  Who are we to disagree?

That brings us to Jon "Thanks Dad" Huntsman.  Some may claim that he shouldn't be included on this list because he's not unspeakably vile.  But really: serving as President Obama's Ambassador for two years and then quitting to run against him is at best a dick move.  And although he doesn't spill hatred with every sound bite, he's really just a smoother hypocrite than his fellow Utahan Wilfred.  Any rich man's son who spritzes the Republican vinegar-and-water about the need to cut taxes on skillionaires and spending on the poor and wretched into every orifice of the body politics is, let's face facts people, the very definition of a douchebag.