#6: Tony Hayward
One would think the CEO of a company that caused the largest manmade environmental disaster of all time would be consumed with anxiety and grief over the thousands of lives affected. Meet Tony Hayward, CEO of British Petroleum, whose post-disaster impulse was to make his company seem like the real victims and deny that the spill had much of an impact. “What the hell did we do to deserve this?” he asked. (A whole lot, it turns out.) In May, when addressing a group of reporters, Hayward claimed that “the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest.” Really?
But hey, at least he’s sorry.
#7: Kenneth Kratz
A guy who prosecutes on behalf of domestic violence and sexual-assault victims ought to know better.
The Wisconsin prosecutor—now forever branded the “sexting D.A.”—was caught sending dozens of suggestive text messages to a young woman while he was prosecuting her ex-boyfriend in a domestic abuse case. As much as we love a good soapbox rant, we’ll let the messages speak for themselves:
- Are you the kind of girl that likes secret contact with an older married elected DA … the riskier the better?
- Hey … Miss Communication, what’s the sticking point? Your low self-esteem and your fear you can’t play in my big sandbox? Or???
- I’m the atty. I have the $350,000 house. I have the 6-figure career. You may be the tall, young, hot nymph but I am the prize!
- I would not expect you to be the other woman. I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well that you’d be THE woman! R U that good?
And this from the man who founded and headed up the Wisconsin Crime Victims’ Rights Board. Kratz claimed the texts were just a “series of respectful messages” and refused to resign until he was “voted out.” It took a request by the governor—and leaked information from other victims—for Kratz to finally leave office and publicly apologize.
#8: Mel Gibson
Have you seen trailers for The Beaver? Poor Jodie Foster—her dark comedy looks like a YouTube parody of a Mel Gibson movie. But it wouldn’t be nearly as unwittingly hilarious if the already racist, anti-Semitic actor hadn’t disqualified himself from all present and future Husband of the Year awards right before the film was set to be released. For a print version of his (very NSFW) sweet nothings to Oksana Grigorieva, we recommend the version with kittens.
#9: Terry Jones
When the Pope, President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and half the world’s leaders tell you that maybe—just maybe—hosting a mass burning of the Koran is a terrible idea, you stop immediately, right?
Wrong. Terry Jones, the handlebar-mustached pastor from Florida, stuck to his bigoted guns until the absolute last second, pretended to back down, then changed his mind, then changed it again—but only because he thought the stunt had called enough attention to how “dangerous and radical” Islam is.
Radical is the key word here.
Not that I’m defending any of these guys, but it seems like they were mostly chosen for being anti-feminist, anti-gay or anti-progressive rather than actually ‘bad’. Again, not exactly cheering them on, but “Worst Men of 2010” are a bunch of people who cheated on their wives or were mean to gays? I guess the terrorist leaders, drug lords, serial killers, dictators and warlords instigating genocides in third-world nations didn’t make the cut because their places were already taken by Charlie Sheen and LeBron James. Whole article sounds like it was written by a feminist with an axe to grind.
I think you picked the best of the worst for 2010 and applaud your efforts and your seriousness of purpose. Too often in this era of fast fame and instant infamy, society loses track of the assholes who make a sizable dent in ethics and good judgment. It’s important not to let these creeps slip through the cracks. Maybe you should institute an “Asshole of the Month” Award.
Please… this list is idiotic, posted just to get comments so here you go: You have no idea what went on with LeBron James and his situation so dumping him on the same list as Mel Gibson and creeps like Ken Kratz is asinine. If this is the kind of stuff I can expect from this site, it will be a short eval and I’ll be moving on.
I’d add Paul Elam for trying to start a “bash a violent bitch month,” posting the identities and contact info of julian assange’s accusers and saying they deserve whatever comes of it, and for declaring that all women are pedophiles. But I guess you won’t do that b/c you host him. Oh well. Good men project, huh?
Charlie Rangel is a bad man.
Barack Obama lied alot. because of his position, his ‘bad’ threshold is lower. I think many of his policies are bad for men.
The CEO of BO isn’t a ‘bad man’ he was doing his job, it was the American regulatory system that screwed up
Who cares about Cage?
LeBron same but different, stupid people with too much money.
Bad men should have influence beyond on 6 second sound byte.
This is more a list of jerks.
Obama is public enemy number one.
http://americangrandjury.org/public/
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/08/17/thyere-is-no-president-obama/
Corrected Li:nk:
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/08/17/there-is-no-president-obama/
not y’all’s best effort.
Wow. What a bunch of jerks white dudes and Lebron are. You guys get that douche Olbermann to help with this?
Honestly, LBJ #2? Get real.