Top Ten Best 'Bad Guys' on the Big Screen ever

Back in the good ol' days of cinema, you could always tell the good guys from the bad guys: the good guys wore white hats, and rode white horses, while the bad guys wore black hats and rode black horses. You could spot winners and losers simply with your peripheral vision, easy as falling off a log. Not anymore. Bad guys can wear whatever they want, and ride whatever they want. It's tough, but the discerning movie goer can still pick out the villain without even breathing hard. Some actors pull off villany better than others, and here is the definitive list of 'best' of the bad:

10. Steve Buschemi: Easily recognizable as the slimy, shifty ne-er-do-well in many films today, and is a favorite scuzz ball to Joel and Ethan Cohen. His slimiest role ever had to be his portrayal of dirtbag Carl Showalter in 'Fargo', and eventually he gets his as a co-consipirator feeds him into a wood chipper.

9. Peter Boyle. This excellent bad guy may surprise most of you by making this list, since his hit TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond" had him playing the loveable slob father in law that we all enjoyed so much. However, Peter Boyle gave one of the most impressive portrayals of evil as 'Sheppard,' the general manager of a space station on a moon of Jupiter, Io in the 1981 movie 'Outland.' Sean Connery eventually does him in, but Peter Boyle gets in his licks, and is completely hatable in this excellent flick.

8. Frank Langella. This most excellent bad guy came to my attention as the evil 'Skeletor' in the 1987 sci fi flick 'Masters of the Universe.' Langella was also most evilly excellent as the manipulative chief of staff Robert Alexander to imposter U.S. president 'Dave,' a 1993 feel good movie also starring Sigourney Weaver as the fist lady. Frank Langella's scheming Bob Alexander in 'Dave,' of course gets screwed in the end, and that's the way we like our villains to end up: screwed.

7. Ronny Cox. No credible 'Top Ten' list can ever be complete without a mention of the 1987 'Robocop' flick and its great cast of characters, both good (Peter Weller, Nancy Allen) and bad (Ronny Cox). Cox plays VP Dick Jones, who on the surface is a respected businessman working for a law enforcement vendor to the City of Detroit, but underneath it all he is a slimy, filthy pus bag who mingles with the local underworld criminals as easily as Jay Leno works a cocktail party. In the end, Robocop guns down the evil Dick Jones, who falls through the window of a skyscraper to his death, assuming the hail of Robocop bullets didn't kill him first. Either way, a satisfying end to a truly hateable bad guy.

6. Bruce Dern. Bruce can sneer into the camera better than virtually any other Hollywood heavy. When Bruce gets his three-day stubble going, musses his hair up some, and cranks out that nasty sneer of his, let the hissing and booing begin...a truly detestable bad guy, Bruce Dern. Best bad guy role: Joe Danby, one of the ne-er-do-well Danby clan in James Garner's great flick, 'Support Your Local Sheriff.'

5. Arnold Schwartzenegger. Even though he comes off as a good cyborg in the latter two 'Terminator' movies, he pulls off one most excellent heavy as the first 'Terminator' out of the future to snuff out Sara Connor, mother of the leader of the human resistance in the future. Best line: 'I'll be back....' And of course, Arnie gets his in the end, but it sure did take lots of effort to put him down. This role may have not been the 'best' bad guy ever, but he certainly was the toughest bad guy ever. Hands down.

4. Mr. T. Although his most memorable line is mistakenly quoted from his series 'The A Team,' ('I pity the foo'), this phrase was first uttered by Mr. T at the age of 29 during his role as Rocky's nemesis Clubber Lang in 1983's 'Rocky III.' Rude, menacing and obnoxious, Clubber is truly hatable. Just what we all want in a bad guy. Best line: 'I don't want no has-been messin' in my corner.' (this to former champ Apollo Creed, Rocky's trainer at the time).

3. Anthony Hopkins. In his role as the cannibal Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins truly captures the spirit of evil in the sequel to "Silence of the Lambs" when he removes the top of a victim's cranium, slices a piece of brain out, grills it and serves it hot to the still living victim. Ugh.

2. Gene Hackman. Hackman is another one of those actors who gets great good guy parts, but has the breadth of talent to really belt out a nasty bad guy performance. His role as the bully sheriff of old western town of Big Whiskey is one for the ages. Hackman truly shines as rotten 'Little Bill' in Clint Eastwood's Oscar winning film 'Unforgiven.' Best exchange: Hackman to Clint: 'you just shot an unarmed man!' Clint: 'well, he shoulda armed himself.' Classic.

1. Alan Rickman. Completely unlike Gene Hackman, Alan Rickman is a bad guy's bad guy. He has NEVER played a good guy in his entire film career for good reason: he's evil personified. It's hard to choose which was his best bad guy role, whether it is Alan Gruber as the terrorist in Bruce Willis' 1988 flick 'Die Hard,' as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Kevin Costner's 1991 film 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,' or (one of my favorites) as Elliot Marsdon in Tom Selleck's 1991 classic 'Quigley Down Under.' Lately he has been up to his evil ways as Severus Snipe in the Harry Potter films. An all around evil guy, Alan Rickman rules as the heaviest of heavies.

Dumbest Commander in Chief Ever

Who is the dumbest Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces ever? If you said Jimmy Carter, you would be close. Carter's clumsy efforts at looking like he knew what he was doing during the Iran hostage crisis ranks him right up there (or down there, depending on your point of view). Carter was God awful as a military leader. Just pathetic.

But he is not the worst. Now that Barack Obama has had to make some tough calls militarily, he has botched every single one of them. He has to be considered the dumbest CIC ever. He vowed to close Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, blustering on the campaign trail that this torture chamber was giving a black eye to the U.S. and was a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. Turns out, Obama had to eat every one of these stupid remarks. Gitmo will remain open for the foreseeable future. Duh. Where else are you going to detain unlawful combatants, picked up on the battlefield, with no uniforms, shooting at Americans while hiding behind women and children? If justice were served, each and every one of them would be lined up against a wall and shot at dawn, but that's a topic for a different time and place. For now, Gitmo is perfectly suited for detaining these animals. And it only took Obama three years to figure that one out, and you just can't get any dumber than this guy.

We're talking about the dumbest CIC ever. Barack Obama was told by his generals that an additional 80,000 boots on the ground were needed in Afghanistan or the U.S. would start to suffer casualties from lack of ground strength (and for dumb ol' Barry, that means 40,000 troops wearing a pair of boots each, as I am sure math was never his forte at Harvard). It took him months and months to do something, and he came up with a measly 25,000 troops. After 4 months of dithering.

And now Libya. This situation is simply delicious for all of those 'I told you so' types (like me) that foresaw this very situation. When Barack was faced with a military crisis, we all knew he would fold like a cheap deck chair: look at his performance to date with all of the turmoil in the Middle East. I would give him an F. He has not had one single action that anybody would call decisive, much less effective. He has voted 'present' on all of his calls as Commander in Chief. That may have worked in his South side Chicago district, but we can all see that this tactic of punting on hard decisions does not work at all in the Oval Office.

And Libya is great to point this out. It has virtually no impact on American security, and its oil production is a puny 2% of the world's total supply, and watching these tribal savages kill each other is irrelevant to American security. Let them destroy each other, it is no skin off of any U.S. nose. But watching Obama flounder around like a child playing 'army:' priceless.

He has set the bar very, VERY low for future Commander in Chief's, and I just can't see America voting in anyone with credentials approaching Obama's in the future. We see what we get when we elect a coward who votes 'present' when tough choices are called for.

The dumbest CIC ever. Barack Hussein Obama.

What do you call 'conservatives' who hate Sara Palin?

That's an easy one. These days, every talking head, every conservative wonk, all of those 'in-the-know' pundits shout to the roof tops one cacophonous message: 'Sara Palin is an idiot.' What do we call these guys, these conservative Sara Palin haters? Blue Bloods. Snobs. Elitists.

Those conservative voices in and around the GOP who detest Sara Palin have lately been described as members of the "Ruling Class." You know them, they have the social pedigrees from old monied families, went to private schools, the folks who were born on third base and truly think they hit triples. And Sara is simply not one of 'us,' they say. More accurately, she is not one of 'them.'

Sara Palin graduated with a communications degree from the University of Idaho (the Vandals), a public school. Oh, the shame. She says 'you betcha.' How uncouth. She can gut a moose. Blue bloods can't even imagine such horror. Accordingly, she is unfit to lead, and more likely an idiot. Charles Krauthammer suggests she is a populist, and George Will opines that in the big picture she isn't an idea candidate.

Not an idea candidate? She coined the phrase 'drill, baby, drill.' I like that idea. A lot. And so do most Americans. She believes in life, and not killing innocent unborn children. Another idea I am fond of. She believes in living within our means, and putting the kaibash to all the untold ridiculous 'bridge to nowhere' spending. Another new idea that has legs.

No ideas? Who are these guys? These blue blood conservatives are simply jealous of Sara Palin's popularity, and are threatened by her potential. How will they look to their Ruling Class counterparts on the left at the inside-the-beltway cocktail party? With a President Palin in the Oval Office, how exactly would that conversation go: 'say, Charles, I hear your girl Palin has opened up ANWR to drilling. You must be so proud.' And of course Charles, who's face has just turned to crimson with shame, simply turns to the servant and barks 'more chardonnay, you, and make it quick. And while you're at it, see if you can dig up some brie, too.'

William F. Buckley, Jr. once quipped "I'd rather be governed by the first 100 names listed in the Boston phone book than by the entire Harvard faculty." I think William F. Buckley, Jr. would be perfectly at ease with the prospect of a President Palin.

She is clearly preferable to another blue blood in the Oval Office. But just not to the blue blooded, snobby brie-eaters among us.

Newt Gingrich: no chance for the GOP nod

Don't get me wrong, I really loved the job Newt Gingrich did back in the good ol' days, navigating the Republican way to a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years way back in 1994.

Those were glorious days indeed. We had the gavel in GOP hands, and got down to work: we of course agreed to vote on all of the bills within the Contract with America in the first 100 days. We got that done (not all of them passed, and sadly term limits was among those that went down to defeat), but Newt and the boys were off and running.

Then things started to go awry for the former fiery back bencher and now Speaker of The House of Representatives, and just like the 111th Congress that followed in Newt's footsteps (only under the leadership of the hated Nancy Pelosi), he over-reached and soon got clobbered on too many issues (like the 'wither on the vine' thing, and wanting school children to starve, and the 'Gingrich who Stole Christmas'), and he resigned as Speaker in disgrace only four years later. I would like to add that none of those issues had any validity, but it didn't matter. Newt Gingrich was politically radioactive.

During that time, Newt packed the baggage into his resume, walking out on his cancer stricken first wife, dumping her overboard for a newer model (Marianne), then when Marianne gets diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, unceremoniously dumps Mrs. Gingrich #2 and hooks up with some new arm candy twenty-something years his junior, an office staffer (Callista Blizek) with whom he was having an affair, and who subsequently became Mrs. Gingrich #3. Then he made a second career out of becoming a lightening rod character in politics for the next decade or so.

And now he wants to run for president?

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Can anyone seriously believe that Newt Gingrich has a snowball's chance in hell to get the nomination? With his baggage? Newt is arguably the smartest guy in the room, and that pertains to any room he walks into. He has a great idea every two or three days, and writes a book to promote those great ideas perhaps every six months or so, like clockwork. Although I am primarily an economic conservative, Newt's social life is just a bit much for even me, and I am not even close to being considered by anyone as 'St. Fredd The Pious. '

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Newt Gingrich has become a political train wreck. And if you think none of this tawdry, salacious stuff will get brought up in the ensuing campaign of 2012 by St. Barack The Pious' campaign, I have some Mississippi delta property I would like you to consider. Prime riverfront property, mind you....well, today at least. Tomorrow it may be in the middle of the river, but that's why it's selling at a bargain price today. For you only.

But as a viable GOP candidate, Newt's got no chance. Not with the Tea Party zeitgeist, anyway. Recall, it was both Newt and former GOP Chairman Michael Steele who threw their support behind Dede Scozzafava ('R'-NY) in that New York house race for District 23, rather than the true conservative in the primary, Doug Hoffman. Turns out, Dede was a dues paying, card carrying RINO, who always brought the three bean salad to the summer RINO picnics (and more than a few Democrat picnics), and who eventually threw her support behind the eventual contest winner, Democrat Bill Owens. Everybody knew Dede Scozzafava was a raging liberal, even Newt, but none of the Old Guard GOP aparatchiks cared a whit. Doesn't anyone remember that but me?

The Tea Party will remember that, and you can take that to the bank. Newt Gingrich is a staunch defender of the GOP 'Old Guard' who is at odds with the American People as is expressed within the Tea Party sentiment of no more business as usual.

When Newt threw his support to Dede the RINO, he effectively ended any political chances at the Oval Office that he ever had. And even those former odds were slim. Now they are none, since Slim has been sighted working the one-arm bandits in Laughlin, Nevada.

Newt's got no chance for the GOP nod. ZIP, zero, nada.

Democrat party losing legitamacy by throwing temper tantrums

Legitimacy as a political party is slipping away from the Democrats, bit by bit. You can see it on the news, with their bus loads of union Democrat thugs screaming 'Fox Lies!!' over and over. Like that is going to win the argument.

'But that's all they got. They ain't got nothin', as those who hang around union halls and job banks might put it. When public opinion comes solidly down on the opposite side of them, as is the case in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and South Carolina, they reach for some more arrows in their quiver to allay the threat of the gravy train drying up. But this time, all the arrows are spent. They truly got nothin.' Nothing but screaming, pouting and throwing temper tantrums all in vain at keeping their ill gotten taxpayer money flowing into the union and Democrat party coffers.

These Wisconsin state senators are looking like complete fools and morons, hiding out in Rockford, Illinois. They are like petulant pre-teens, running away from home because mom said they couldn't go to the junior prom after trashing mom and dad's house by holding a party when the folks were out of town. And they run away to their best friend's house, and everybody knows where they are.

I am not sure that running away from home to the next door neighbor's house ever worked in getting a spoiled brat's way, and it's not going to work this time. Democrats are screwed and they know it. Their gig is over, the light is shining on their skulduggery in bilking taxpayers out of lucrative pensions, Cadillac health plans and living retirement in the lap of luxury for life.

We taxpayers have had enough of that! When we have to scrimp and save in down times, during rainy days putting off our vacations and new cars until better times return. But not public union employees, oh no. They truly believe in their heart of hearts that they are exempt from downturns in the economy. Well wake up, you ne-er-do-wells!

People are not going to put up with this nonsense. Not any more. Now you layabouts will see how the other half lives. You know, the folks who pay your way.