Another week goes by and another collection of special people who contribute in a negative manner to the political discourse that fills our lives.  With special attention this week to those that make their negative comments in the name of God.

So let’s start with the Rev. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church who spent the early part of this week protesting in Washington D.C.   They held anti-Obama signs, anti-gay signs & anti-abortion signs as they marched outside….SIDWELL FRIENDS SCHOOL, which is attended by the Obama children.  The church website posted the following explanation for the site of the protest:  “Quakers?! Are you frigging kidding me? You pretend to be all non-violent, and you allow the most bloody, deceitful, evil, murderous bastard and his shemale sidekick to place their satanic spawn within your four walls?"   Note to the Westboro Baptists, the verse in the Bible where Jesus says, “Suffer the little children” didn’t mean to make the children suffer by calling them “satanic spawn”!   You people are real LOSERS!

Ex-Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA), who brought whole new meaning to the phrase “cold hard cash” was sentenced to 13 years in prison for corruption and is now a 13 year loser (with time off for good behavior)!

Senator David Vitter (R-LA) wins a nod as a loser due to comments by one of the challengers for his Senate seat.   “I'm not one to judge someone's sexual activity, but what annoys me is that he's so hard-core "family values," and he puts his wife and kids out there, saying he's a Christian family man. Then he's caught up in a prostitution scandal. He's a hypocrite”, said Stormy Daniels.   The porn-star-turned-candidate then went on to point out that if elected, she would be able to avoid sex scandals because all of her sex tapes can be found on the shelves at video stores.  You know you’re a loser when a porn star can claim the moral high ground.

The Catholic Church also made my personal list of LOSERS this week.    Not because of the church’s influence in getting the Stupak amendment passed; I might not like the legislation but if you support the Right to Life movement, it’s your right to petition your representatives in Congress.   However, if you are going to take a stand for the rights of the unborn, you should also be willing to support children AFTER birth as well.   For instance, take the case of Nathan Halbach, a 22 year old man who is dying of brain cancer.  His mother also has terminal cancer.   Nathan’s estranged father is Father Henry Willenborg, a Franciscan priest.  When the Church was asked to help pay for medical treatment…they refused!  Father Henry was never a “Dad” to Nathan, the least he could do for his son is to petition the Order to help make his son’s death a little easier.  But he didn’t.    And the Church also weighed in on gay marriage this week in D.C. by promising to stop all charitable work in the city if the D.C. city council passed a gay marriage ordinance.   I don’t remember Jesus making everyone take a morality “litmus test” before feeding them bread & fish.  I’m sure Jesus would be proud!   So for these two actions…I’ve got the Catholic Church on the LOSERS LIST!

Congressman Barney Franks (D-MA) gets a nomination for his comments to a local Fox News reporter.  When asked if he was present at the home of his lover in 1997 during a pot bust, he said he was but that he didn’t know the plants were there and since, "I not a great outdoorsman…I would not recognize most plants."  Now that may be true, but to put it in those terms leaves you open to a lot of silly news commentary.   Like Wolf Blitzer and Lou Dobbs who apparently can identify pot plants by smell and sight!  (Who also get a nomination for LOSER because people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.)  Congressman, there were a lot of better ways to have phrased your comments than you did!  But at least you improved on Bill Clinton’s “I didn’t inhale” line.

Tweeter-extraordinaire, Sarah Palin also gets mention this week.   Not for all of the factual inaccuracies found by the AP in your new book, not for your Oprah interview, not even for letting your book tour get upstaged by your daughter’s baby daddy’s “hockey stick”.   You get named LOSER because of your crazy assertion that moving the words “In God We Trust” from the front of the coin to the rim of the coin is part of the great Obama conspiracy!   The truth is that this change was made by the Bush administration and you are a LOSER when your conspiracy theories are so far out there that even FOX NEWS fact checks you.

Democratic strategist Ted Devine proved to be a loser this week when he responded to threats from various Democratic groups to halt donations to the party in favor of supporting specific candidates.   Many people do not want their money to help support Democrats who vote against Health Care Reform.   Mr. Devine stated that, “I think it is a very powerful point of influence when you go to people who rely on donations to fund very expensive campaigns and tell them the people they count on won't be there to support them because of their position on a single issue”.   Mr. Devine, only a LOSER forgets whose money it is to begin with that supports those “expensive campaigns”.  We'll spend it where we want.   And if quality reform DOESN’T pass….we’ll need that money for our increasing premiums!

And finally, Tea Party organizers in Danville, VA get listed as LOSERS for their announced plans to burn in effigy, Speaker of the House Pelosi and local representative, Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA) for their support of health care reform.    You can protest all you want…but you cross the line when you start burning people (even in effigy).   I know you feel you personally don’t have representation in Congress but the fact remains that more people from your district voted for Perriello than any other candidate.   So he IS your representation even if you don’t agree with him.   The neat thing about Democracy is that the majority rules!   I remember being called unpatriotic and treasonous for having a bumper sticker that read, “Somewhere in Texas there’s a village without it’s idiot”….that bumper sticker seems to pale in comparison to you LOSERS playing with fire.