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Saturday, June 14, 2008 12:00 AM

Bad Dad Gift Guide

From Darth Vader to Pete Doherty, Salon presents a lighthearted list of the 10 worst fathers ever and the presents they deserve.

The letters thread is now closed.

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Friday, June 13, 2008 06:31 PM

Great article.

I especially like this line: "He kills his wife, cuts off his son's right hand and dresses like Condoleezza Rice."

But I'd put God at number one. He poorly designs us, can't find it in his allegedly all-loving heart to forgive his design flaws, cleaves a kid from him, has us torture that kid, and only then is all peachy.

Sorry, W, your dad slides to number two.

Friday, June 13, 2008 06:53 PM

Lighthearted?!

This has got to be one of the dumbest, most in-poor-taste articles I have ever read on Salon. What is happening to my beloved online mag?

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:00 PM

thank you

this article is hilarious ~ and strangely meaningful!

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:10 PM

Man Bashing

Where was the 10 worst mother list for mothers day? There is alot more material for that one as a child is much more likey to be abused by his mother than father. And before anyone says this list is supposed to be a joke, if it was a one off it might be but when it is only the latest in a long pattern it is part of the philosophy of the site.

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:10 PM

Man Bashing

Where was the 10 worst mother list for mothers day? There is alot more material for that one as a child is much more likey to be abused by his mother than father. And before anyone says this list is supposed to be a joke, if it was a one off it might be but when it is only the latest in a long pattern it is part of the philosophy of the site.

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:19 PM

How CLEVER!

G.H.W. Bush is the worst father. Never saw that coming. And yet Bill Clinton is nowhere to be found. Of course not. Teach your daughter by example that women are cum-dumpsters to be used by men, and you're a prince among men. Fuck off.

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:21 PM

Open season on men again

So DemiGod Hillary does not get the nomination (even though she did nothing to warrant it).

THEREFORE all men must be destroyed, lambasted, badmouthed, trashed, and otherwise painted with the same nasty brush.

Like others, I do not recall reading about the WORST 10 MOMS on the weekend before Mother's Day.

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:35 PM

bravo

Started out thinking this article was a bad idea, but oh, it is too too funny to criticize. LOVE the darth vader comment, and amen to G Herbert Walker etc.

Agree with comments with respect to "where is the mommy article" only because I want MORE!

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:38 PM

Vasectomies

Urologists and Family Practice physicians perform vasectomies. I have yet to meet a General Surgeon who does vasectomies. By the way, this is the sterilization I recommend for all of my patients (I'm an OB/GYN). :)

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:43 PM

what no Alois Hitler?

oh wait it's a "lighthearted" list

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:50 PM

Like others, I do not recall reading about the WORST 10 MOMS on the weekend before Mother's Day.

Maybe not like this but can you remember the bad mom bashing on broadsheet just before mothers day....one or two articles if I'm not correct....

Friday, June 13, 2008 07:54 PM

http://www.radaronline.com/features/2007/05/joan_crawford_kathy_bush_worlds_worst_moms_1.php

Here you go hun....

Friday, June 13, 2008 08:02 PM

Nomination: Roger Clinton, Sr.

The stepfather of Bill Clinton; a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his wife and, at times, his son Roger, Jr.

How anyone thought it was remotely funny to nominate George Herbert Walker Bush, Navy fighter pilot, decorated war veteran, Congressman, cabinet member, Ambassador, two-term Vice President and 41st President of the United States. Oh, and father of the 43rd President of the United States. Not that raising a future President is a lock on father of the year. Witness the aforementioned Roger Clinton and the securities cheat, philanderer and absentee father Joe Kennedy, Sr.

Have a lousy fucking father's day, Steve Almond. If you know who he is. Oh, and fuck you, too.

Friday, June 13, 2008 08:12 PM

Okay, if you want something horribly serious about why G. Bush made the list:

His daughter died.

No funeral.

They didn't fly the body back to Texas.

George and Babs went golfing the next day.

W didn't even know that his sister had been sick.

Now, that's sick. Even sicker than neocons who still worry about Clinton's wayward semen.

I nominate every fundy/neocon dad who has a gay kid and still votes against that kid.

Friday, June 13, 2008 08:17 PM

Here are more reasons why God should be number one:

Is the all-time abortionist when he floods the whole Earth: so many unborn babies!

Promises no more big floods, but year after year, slips around that promise with lesser floods, aborting even more unborn babies.

Will still hang a rainbow in the sky after a lesser flood, as if that makes it all okay.

Makes people gay, but allegedly hates 'em.

Is pro-slavery and was happy to oversee the enslaving whole tribes, including those he considered to be his fave kids.

Friday, June 13, 2008 08:26 PM

cute article

but what is Roy Scheider's picture doing there? As for the man bashing and GHWB bashing, they're all big boys, they can take it. They certainly don't need us to rush to their defense. We just wanna enjoy.

Friday, June 13, 2008 08:30 PM

Respect for Families of the Dead but Not for Families of the Living???

First, although satirical, good luck with the onslaught of negative responses this piece is sure to elicit. Although somewhat amusing, I couldn't help but feel it was in poor taste, except for the fictional dads. And the God the Father quip is sure to anger many, perhaps rightly, as a religiously intolerant slam on Christianity (as far as I know, it wouldn't be insulting to any of the world's other religions).

Second, any bad dad list that's going to stoop to the inclusion of living people that leaves off O.J. and Dick Cheney (mainly because he ought to make every opposite-of-The-Good list there is) is not worth its salt.

Third, I find it incongruous that Salon closed the Tim Russert comments thread associated with the War Room mention of his passing today (one presumes from comments there that the closure was due to some distasteful posts which it seems were subsequently deleted). So, if a thread is closed out of respect for family and friends of the dead, how about some respect for family and friends of the living? This bad dad piece would be pretty unhappy reading for some folks. (It might have helped if Steve Almond, tongue-in-cheek, had self-deprecatingly included his own dad, no offense to Steve's dad intended.)

[Lastly (off-topic), since the Tim Russert thread is closed, is it just me or do people who could potentially be problematic for Cheney/Bush/et al. if they were to tell all, seem to go visit Saint Peter a tad early? E.g., Cliff Baxter, Ken Lay, Tim Russert(?). Had Russert yet disclosed all he knew with respect to the Plame case, probably one of the most clear-cut, demonstrably treasonable/impeachable offenses committed by this Administration?]

[Really lastly, kudos to Steve Almond for his stance on Condi Rice while at Boston College.]

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