2007: Winners and Losers

Once again, it's that time of year - the end of the year, where I sort out the winners and losers of the past twelve months.

It was hard to find any genuine winners of the year, since many tremendous achievements (Barry Bonds's new home run record) were negated by the dubious circumstances surrounding them (Barry Bonds's steroid use). Also, the quality of losers was thin. It wasn't that some people or institutions lost out badly this year; it was that that the magnitude of their disasters didn't rise to the level of the monumental disasters of even the most recent past, like Halle Berry's starring role in Catwoman, John Kerry's random acts of political suicide, or the Ford Motor Company's apparent collapse. Don Imus's bigoted remark comes close - even the normally unflappable Al Roker was offended! - but Imus has since returned to the airwaves in a triumph for political incorrectness. Political incorrectness, however, can't claim to have scored a major victory because Imus's remark was irredeemably tasteless. Which brings us back to the subject of trying to pick winners - many people came out on top, but at what cost?

Despite all that, I found some bona fide winners and, even more entertainingly, bona fide losers. And here they are, in my annual December deconstruction.

The winners? The envelope, please!:-D

Bruce Springsteen. Have to believe, Bruce is "magic" - and nothing can stand in his way. Seriously, Springsteen released his album Magic, his first album with the E Street Band in five years, to great acclaim and is now supporting it with a lengthy tour. "Girls In their Summer Clothes," a track from the new album, is one of his best songs in years. Not bad for a fellow who once vowed to keep rockin' until he was 50. (For the record, Springsteen is 58.)

Michael Moore. The merry prankster of the American left released his documentary movie Sicko, a critique on what passes for the American health care system film, to great public acclaim. Even some Republicans applauded. If we get public medical insurance in 2009, it will be because of this movie.

Martin Scorsese. He finally won a best director Oscar - ironically enough, for a reworking of a Hong Kong gangster film. And The Departed, a Boston Irish-American interpretation of the 2002 movie Infernal Affairs, was a good movie, classic Scorsese all the way. Please note that I did not joke about the Oscar statuette being as tall as its recipient.

Al Gore. He won an Oscar for his global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth and won something the violently minded Scorsese will never get - a Nobel Peace Prize. This award may make Gore a future President - or at least make people act on global warming before Greenland melts.

Boston Red Sox. New York Yankees fans joked in 2004 that the Red Sox would have to wait another eighty-six years to win a second World Series title after 1918, but the Sox's stupendous victory over the Colorado Rockies in the Series this year made fans of the Bronx Bombers eat their words.

Mike Huckabee. Few people knew who the former governor of Arkansas was at the beginning of the year, and those who did know him as the guy who lost a lot of weight and entered into a covenant marriage with his wife. But he's now a heavy favorite for the Republican presidential nomination and could even win the White House if he's the nominee and if his opponent is Hillary Clinton.

Chris Matthews. With the writer's strike having temporarily sidelined Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (both of whom are slated to return on January 7 in a bid to ride out the strike), Matthews is the only basic cable television personality speaking truth to power these days, much to his advantage. Let's play hardball!

Drew Carey. By replacing Bob Barker on "The Price Is Right" and continuing with his own game show "The Power of 10," the former sitcom star has increased his visibility exponentially.

New York radio. WXRK-FM returned to both rock and roll and its earlier call letters (albeit without DJs) and WCBS-FM returned to oldies (albeit without hits of the 1950s) after their new formats failed, making commercial radio in the Big Apple once again as diverse as the city itself.

Jay-Z. The entertainer legally known as Shawn Carter took hip-hop into the kind of conceptual territory normally associated with progressive rock, recording an album, American Gangster, that related his experiences on the street to the movie of the same name. Of course it got good reviews. And Jay got the girl - Beyonce Knowles.

Paul McCartney. Sir Paul's marriage is on the rocks, but his career is doing just fine, thank you. Macca bounced back artistically from his personal problems with Memory Almost Full, an album at least as good as his 2005 effort Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. His personal life isn't doing that badly either; at 65, the cute Beatle is still dating. Interestingly, his current album doesn't deal with his divorce much. When he makes that record, it's bound to be a fascinating one.

New Jersey. In a state known for corruption and ethically challenged politicians, the governor and the legislature did away with capital punishment - the belief in killing people to show that killing people is wrong - and claimed the moral high ground for the Garden State by being the first state to abolish the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to resume. In your face, Pennsylvania! :-O

Madonna haters. Madge kept an uncharacteristically low profile this year, giving her detractors - like me - a break from her antics. True, she poked her head out from under her rock to appear at the London Live Earth concert, and she briefly made news with a new record deal, but she largely kept out of sight and out of mind. Enjoy the respite, because it won't last into the new year. She has an new album coming out in March, she will almost certainly be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, ruining what's left of its credibility (Family - eligible since 1993 - was shut out again!), and her new movie - her directorial debut?!? - is premiering at a film festival in Berlin soon.

Steve Martin. His memoir got great reviews - much more than his recent movies - and he won a Kennedy Center honor. And to think that thirty years ago, he was just another wild and crazy guy.

King Tut. He gave his life . . . for tourism. Possessions from the Egyptian boy king went on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and although it was by no means as big as the Tutenkhamun exhibit of the seventies, it was still a fantastic success. How did you get so funky, Your Majesty? :-D

And now, my favorite part - the losers!

Britney Spears. Is it for the shaved head? Her attack of that car? The nasty split from her ne'er-do-well husband Kevin Federline? The custody battle that made you feel sympathy for Kevin Federline? Her obvious weight gain at the MTV Video Music Awards? Her kid sister ending up pregnant? No, mainly it's for being Britney Spears. And if she hadn't been Britney Spears, none of this stuff likely would have happened. :-p

Michigan. If you seek a hapless peninsula, by all means look about you in the Great Lakes State. The auto industry - briefly rocked by UAW strikes - is still caught in a quagmire, with Chrysler now in the hands of an equity firm. Governor Jennifer Granholm's attempt to bring different industries into Michigan to diversify the state's economy has failed, even with actor and Michigan native Jeff Daniels as a pitchman. Non-auto-related companies have been leaving, taking their jobs with them. Even an auto company has left - Volkswagen of America has announced plans to move to Virginia. When the state Democratic party attempted to move its presidential primary ahead of February 5 and the New Hampshire primary and violated party rules, the state was stripped of its delegates. The candidates refused to campaign there, and the party chose to ignore the results. (The primary is now set for a week after New Hampshire's, but the state party is still being punished; its delegates won't be welcome at the summer convention.) And of course, there is the tragedy of Detroit, the completely failed city being named the most dangerous city in America.

Teri Polo. In an interview from a few years ago, Teri Polo said she considered herself a success, but she might have to reconsider her self-assessment after this past year. Her comedy-drama series "The Wedding Bells," a TV show about a trio of sisters in the wedding planning business, was canceled by Fox with the speed of a Reno divorce. This comes on top of two cancellations she's been associated with in the past four years. Her only recourse? She'll appear in a third Meet the Parents movie. :-O Starring . . .

Ben Stiller. Did anyone ask Anne and Jerry's kid to remake the classic 1973 Charles Grodin movie The Heartbreak Kid with the Farrelly Brothers? Did anyone care?

The U.S. dollar. The once proud currency of the United States is barely worth the paper it's printed on these days. The British pound, which used to be only half again as valuable as the buck, is now worth twice as much, and the dollar briefly fell behind its Canadian equivalent (and may have done so again by the time you read this), as well as behind the euro and the currency of Latvia. Latvia, which only regained its independence from the Russians sixteen years ago.

Tom Cavanugh and Heather Graham. Having already associated themselves with failed midseason replacement TV shows in 2006, they co-starred in Gray Matters, released in 2007, which may have been the creepiest movie of the year, and certainly one of the least commercially successful movies of the year. The plot? A woman closely tied to her brother falls in love with his fiancee. Even Catherine Deneuve must have been freaked out by this storyline.

Larry Craig. Then again, maybe the storyline of Gray Matters wasn't so strange after all. ;-)

Marion Jones. Something happened at the 2000 Olympics, but only Miss Jones knew it was steroids. Until this year. Her confession ruined the faith many people had in both her and the Olympic movement.

Tom Vilsack. When the former Iowa governor announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, he immediately became a punch line for both his long-shot chances and his Eastern European surname - which Jon Stewart compared to the sound of a quacking duck. Vilsack's goose quickly got cooked; he became the only Democratic presidential candidate to quit the 2008 race before 2008 actually began, citing fundraising difficulties.

Gilmore, Thompson, Brownback and Tancredo. A law firm? A folk rock group from the seventies? No, these are the names ("Thompson" refers to Tommy, not Fred) of all of the Republican 2008 presidential candidates who withdrew before a single vote was cast.

The U.S. Justice Department. Its morale in the loo as a result of the politically motivated U.S. Attorney firings, several unfilled positions, the cluelessness of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and his ultimate resignation, the nation's chief law enforcement agency had a chance to get a fresh start with former jurist Michael Mukasey at its helm. Then Mukasey demonstrated an inability to determine the legality of waterboarding, suggesting that he will not be asked to stay on after 2008 should a Republican succeed Bush in the White House.

Congress. The Democrats took over Congress in January, vowing to change the course of the war in Iraq and spend more money on domestic concerns, but Bush and his congressional allies blocked them every step of the way. The dirty work of GOP leaders Mitch McConnell in the Senate and John Boehner in the House came at a price; Congress has even lower approval ratings than Bush does.

Critics of the Iraq War. The fabled surge of force in Iraq is working, which even Pennsylvania congressman and war opponent John Murtha admitted, but critics of the war will be back in full force in 2008 if the Iraqi government doesn't get its act together soon.

So where would I place myself on this list? I guess I'm a winner, because there's nothing left for me to lose.

Happy new year.