And in the early lead for Today's Hoot! is ...

Mark Steyn:

One reason I was looking forward to Election Day 2004 was so I could stop being viciously partisan. I loved Campaign 2000, couldn't wait to get up each morning and do another dozen cheap cracks about Al Gore's earth tones, inventing the Internet, being "raised" on a "farm." But my heart wasn't really in it this time round. Oh, to be sure, John and Teresa were a veritable production line of great material — going into Wendy's and inquiring what "chili" was, etc. — but, to be honest, I was going through the motions. It seemed unworthy of the epic times in which we live to beat up John Edwards. I longed to put aside the ketchup-heiress gags and get back to the great geopolitical sweep of history.

I assumed the Democrats felt the same. But evidently they don't, as was made painfully clear by their decision to mark inauguration week by getting Barbara Boxer and Joe Biden to do their bad cop/bad cop routine on Condi Rice. I'm loath to admit it, but one of the dopier sentences of my entire oeuvre was some mawkish pap written in the days after 9/11 saluting the sturdy Biden, the rock of Delaware, for his robust support of the president. He reverted to his usual showboating poltroonery about ten minutes after the first edition hit the streets. What the hell was I thinking?

I'd probably award the coveted trophy now, but the link is just a teaser for the National Review dead tree edition.