I watched the McLaughlin Group Saturday night, and they devoted the half hour to year-end awards. One of the categories was “Turncoat Of The Year.” Most of them nominated Johnny Jihad. Interestingly (at least to your feeble-minded correspondent), none of them nominated my choice. And they spent quite a bit of time discussing him in two other categories–“Worst Politician Of The Year,” and “Most Significant Political Event Of The Year.” That man was Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords.

I don’t know if he deserves the “Worst Politician” award, though he’s certainly a worthy nominee (he achieved none of the goals that he had hoped for with his switch from Republican to…well, whatever he is, though he did make Tom Daschle a front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2004).

But when it comes to being a turncoat, he made Taliban Johnnie look like a piker. While he was indeed a traitor, John Walker’s actions had no noticeable effect on the outcome, as far as we know. No Americans were shot who wouldn’t have been otherwise, no useful secrets were revealed, etc.

Dairy-Support Jim, on the other hand, overturned an election result singlehandedly (much more so than the Supreme Court can even be said to have done, particularly since the media recount showed that Bush would have won even with the rules stipulated by the marsupials on the Florida Supreme Court).

Before his decision, the Republicans were setting the agenda in both houses of Congress. After, Tom Daschle, protege of the obstreperous George Mitchell, was Senate majority leader. As a result, we got among many other things, no corporate tax cuts, and the idiotic federalization of airport security personnel. And there will be many more downstream effects, even if the Republicans can win back a majority next year.

So I think that he should have won the trifecta–worst politician (though perhaps Gary Condit can given him a run for the money), most significant political event, and turncoat of the year 2001.