That’s Right Nate

Gentle readers, I thank you for you patience from our usual format as we honor that which is truly special about the world of blogging.  I am proud of my contribution to political discourse in the country.   There were over 50 Natie awards this year in our biggest Natie awards yet.  The vast majority of these awards were for technical things like typography and layout and were awarded in a separate ceremony earlier this afternoon. The remaining two Naties are for video production and for contributor of the year.

Video Production: This year, we’ve been fortunate to air a large number of videos on this blog.   We’ve shown everything from music videos to campaign ads.  No, actually we’ve really only shown music videos and campaign ads.  Here are this year’s nominees for video of the year.   Double clicking on them will give you the video in full size:

Bye Bye Bush – Nate Peele Director

House Salute – Nate Peele Director

Republican Delight – Nate Peele Director

Texas Hold On - Nate Peele Director

Kimble for Congress Ad #2 -Larry Appleton Director

Kimble for Congress Spanish Ad – Larry Appleton Director

And the Winner is…Republican Delight.   When Michael Steele first put the word out for an edgier more urban Republican party, we were on it like Rush Limbaugh at an Old Country Buffet.  The resulting work gets across Republican values with the hip hop beats that keep it real for today’s urban youth.

The Natie for contributor of the year was difficult to award.  2009 was the first year when we have had guest commentators and Jack Kimble certainly has done more than his fair share of contibruting.   Some of our favorite commentators haven’t been around in awhile.  Zenyenta who was our first fan is no longer on the internet, Gina, Fraser, and Wrecks haven’t responded here in awhile.  Shannon has gone away, she’s drifting off to sea.   Steve has moved to Texas and doesn’t post nearly as frequently as he once did.   We’ve had some recent additions to our family in Cecily and Kodauzhf McJim, but neither of them have really had the sheet volume of posts needed to qualify.

We’ve had some tremendous followers on Twitter and I hate to mention them all for fear I’ll forget a few.   That’s the reason I’ve stopped doing Follow Fridays.   However, these people stand out for their support in Retweeting @chloebeetle @Kbenninato @KennethLibby @Dasani_01 @Aliceinthewater @Csmith2471 @Tab42 @Gottalaff.  Yeah, I knew I’d leave off people.  I’m trying to think in terms of retweeting instead of just basic support.

The winner for contributor of the year is Lola.  She’s been with this blog from very early on and she is largely responsible for my popularity in Brazil, which I understand is daunting.  She’s always been great about linking to my columns which she finds particularly interesting.  So there you have it the 2009 Natie winners.   For those of you who didn’t win this year, now you have something to aspire to for 2010.

The journalism Natie is the crown jewel of the Natie awards.   To be nominated, an article must seamlessly combine fact, analysis, and opinion to let the reader know not only what is happening in the world, but also to let them know what they should think about it.   This is the most difficult category to narrow down the nominations for and this year was especially difficult.   Last year’s winner Now Obama Has His Own Flag – I Bet the Colors Run set the bar very high, but I believe all 6 of this year’s nominees surpassed it in some way.  The nominees are:

1. Obama Endangers Rural Illinois (www.thatsrightnate.com)
2. A Patriot’s Guide to Disrupting Town Halls (www.thatsrightnate.com)
3. Obama’s Surgeon General is Just Too Fat (www.thatsrightnate.com)
4. Did Obama Murder Stimulus Critic Mark Sanford (www.thatsrightnate.com)
5. Report Attacking Conservatives is the Real Terrorism (www.thatsrightnate.com)
6. Obama Recites Presidential Oath on Koran (www.thatsrightnate.com)

In a very close vote, Obama Recites Presidential Oath on Koran is the winner!!

Wow, I feel very honored to have personally captured 3 Naties so far this year and to have all 4 of the winners be from my site.  The NATIE nominations remain a great place to find a half dozen of the most important and most influential blog postings in the past year.

The NATIE for reporting is for straight reporting.   That isn’t to imply that the other reporting on is somehow less heterosexual, but instead to point out the lack of opinion in the articles.  This is my “No Spin Zone” to quote the great Bill O’Reilly.   These articles attempt to give the fair and balanced coverage that a Fox News or Newsmax gives rather than Rush Limbaugh style opinion.  As a conservative blogger, I consider it my duty to provide the simple facts which show the rightness of conservative thought.    The nominees for the 2009 NATIE for reporting:

1. Texas Makes The Ultimate Sacrifice to Defend Marriage (www.thatsrightnate.com)
2. Obama Bungles H1N1 Vaccine (www.thatsrightnate.com)
3. How the Jack O’Lantern Kept Christianity Alive (www.thatsrightnate.com)
4. Arne Duncan Clears Himself in Student Death (www.thatsrightnate.com)
5. The Bristol Palin Abstinence Tour (www.thatsrightnate.com)
6. 75% of Oklahomans Can’t Name First President (www.thatsrightnate.com)

And the winner is How the Jack O’Lantern Kept Christianity Alive.

It is tremendously exciting to get back to my winning ways.   All of the stories had something I appreciated, but my faith is very important to me and the war to strip Halloween of all it’s Christian history must be fought.   I’m proud that my article earned some recognition for this cause.

The Natie Award for Opinion Blogging replaces the previous award for News Analysis.   This award is given to the article that best captures it’s authors opinions.  These opinions need not be backed up by facts or research, much like George Will’s columns.  Articles in this category enable the blogger to communicate with his reading public without facts or threat of litigation standing in the way.   In an amazing surprise all of the nominees are from www.thatsrightnate.com.  However, one of the articles is from Congressman Jack Kimble (R-CA) and another one is from Mrs. B. Wright marking the first time that articles not written by myself were nominated.    Here are the top 6 nominees:

1. Why Republicans Voted Against Funding Our Troops (www.thatsrightnate.com/ Nate Peele – Author)
2. That’s Why They Call it the First Amendment (www.thatsrightnate.com/Mrs. B. Wright – Author)
3. Racism, They Name is America (www.thatsrightnate.com/Nate Peele – Author)
4. Congressman Kimble’s Rebuttal to Obama’s School Speech (www.thatsrightnate.com/Congressman Jack Kimble – Author)
5. Obama Merit Pay Plan a Good Start (www.thatsrightnate.com/Nate Peele – Author)
6. Republican Party Must Become Sexual Predators by 2012 (www.thatsrightnate.com/Nate Peele – Author)

And the winner is That’s Why They Call it the First Amendment by Mrs. B. Wright.

This is a groundbreaking win as she is not only the first female to win a Natie, but the first person other than myself to win won.  On her twitter account @Wingnutte, Mrs. Wright sent out the following messages, “I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the NATIE committee. Let me be clear, I do not view this as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but as an affirmation of …but as an affirmation of the teapartiers, wingnuts, and all people who understand that fear is the greatest motive force in civilization.”   Truer words have never been spoken.

There is no award that is more respected or more coveted than the Naties.   Each year the Natie awards are given out to the blogs that best exemplify creative use of new media technologies to advance excellence in the fields of journalism and reporting.   The 2008 Natie Award for Investigative Reporting went to The Obama Ad that the Networks Won’t Play.   This award requires original content rather than commentary about something seen on another blog.   2009 saw many worthy articles in blogs across the internets, but the following truly stood out and are our 2009 Nominees:

1. How I Started an Internet Tidalwave (www.thatsrightnate.com)
2. Congressman’s Book Shields Children from Obama (www.thatsrightnate.com)
3. Debating My Daughter on Health Care (www.thatsrightnate.com)
4. I Interview Congressman Jack Kimble About Health Care (www.thatsrightnate.com)
5. The Healthcare Chart Obama Doesn’t Want You to See (www.thatsrightnate.com)
6. My Graduation Address to Sawyer Community College (www.thatsrightnate.com)
7. Bilandic Elementary School Memorial Day Celebration Lacks Focus (www.thatsrightnate.com)
8. Chicago Tea Party a Huge Success (www.thatsrightnate.com)

And the winner is How I Started an Internet Tidalwave.

It is a true honor to be nominated for even one Natie in a given category, so imagine my surprise when I discovered I had swept all nominations for the Investigative Reporting Natie.  I was particularly proud of the winning article, but I think all 8 are very strong.   I’d like to thank Congressman Kimble, my daughter Emily, and the administration of Sawyer Community College for their help and support.

As you know, winning the Natie in 2008 was a great moment indeed for this blog.  This year, award season has started early as we have been honored by Zenyeta with the prestigious…Actually I don’t know what its called, but we one it.   Unfortunately, like most awards there are strings attached.  I have no doubt, that I will soon be hit up for money for some foundation or scholarship fund that I’ll be expected to contribute to as an award winner.  As an award winner, I am tasked with selecting other blogs for the committee.  Those nominees are below:

Drinking Liberally in New Milford

Scootmandubious

Rotten Little Girls

Just an Earthbound Misfit

Equa Yona

Finally, I am supposed to write 10 honest things about myself:

1. I often have trouble expressing myself clearly because other people don’t share my enormous intellect.

2. Sometimes, I think I love too much

3. I believe that I am the greatest hope for the Republican party taking the White House in 2012

4. I believe that Obama’s iron fisted fascism is more frightening than his Pollyanna world view.

5. I rooted for the asteroid in Armageddon and never understood why it wouldn’t have been easier to teach astronauts to drill rather than teach drillers to be astronauts.

6. I taught myself English at a very young age by listening to my parents and I get really irritated when others are too lazy to do so.

7. I once considered voting for a Democrat to impress a girl.  Then I realized I could just tell her I did.

8. My bed is shaped like a rocket ship.

9. I love movie montages where characters try on clothes

10. I know 14 ways to disable an attacker with my barehands, a coat hanger, and a can of bug spray.

When it comes to journalistic excellence, no award captures what blogging is all about as much as this one does.  This is the most prestigious Natie and it is only awarded to those articles that have lived up to the ideals set forth in Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh radio show as well as many of the columns of Robert Novack.  The winner of this prize can look among his peers and reallize that he has accomplished something that most of them could only dream of.  The field was very strong for this innaugural award.  I won’t minimize it by mentioning that each of these stories is great in its own way.   I will merely point out that the winner is the greatest post of all.

1.  How Obama and McCain Will Affect the Middle Class
2.  Obama’s Connection to the Weather Underground
3. Now Obama Has His Own Flag — I Bet the Colors Run
4.  Media Threatens Palin’s First Amendment Rights
5.  Is Obama’s Birth Certificate a Forgery
6.  Disguising the Constitution to Save It

It is interesting that in this award Obama articles dominate the way that McCain articles dominated last night’s award.  The winner is Now Obama Has His Own Flag — I Bet the Colors Run.  It is rather ironic that the winning article would be one that I later had to apologize for when it turned out that the Obama flag was really the Ohio flag and the Clinton flag was really the Colorado flag and the South Carolina flag wasn’t an Islamist conspiracy.  However, I think the flag article spurred something of a national discussion and that was very useful for the country at that time.  For example, many people like myself had no idea that each state had its own flag.

One of the tough things about putting the Natie’s together this year has been the categories.  I have divided the awards into Analysis, Investigative Reporting and Straight Reporting which in no ways implies that any of my other articles are in anyway less than straight.  I will also have a Reader of the Year, Reader’s Choice, and Video award to round out the competition.  Let’s look at the definitions of the first four categories:

Analysis: Helps people to understand important issues
Straight Reporting: This is all about reporting with no personal opinion
Investigative Reporting: The main ingredient here is shoe leather
Journalism: Straight reporting, but I filter it through my opinion kind of like Fox News does.

Tonight’s award is for straight reporting.  Frankly, it is the most boring award to me because there is just less of me in theses stories.  Still, I like to think of myself as Bill O’Reilly meets Geraldo Rivera meets Edward R. Murrow without the Communism and reporting is part of the job.

The nominees are:

1. Bush to India, “Stop Eating So Much.”
2. His Courage was Forged in Hannoi: The John McCain Story
3. You’ve Been Left Behind Sucker
4. McCain Calls for Lower Teacher Standards
5. McCain Gets Tough on Himself Over the Economy
6. Polls Show McCain Dominating Real America

The winner of the award is You’ve Been Left Behind Sucker–the story of a website that allows you to help your unsaved friends and family when the Rapture comes.

As the end of the year approaches, everybody wants to celebrate excellence. Whether it is Man of the Year contests or Top 10 Movie Lists, it seems that everybody is celebrating excellence in one thing or another.  I intend to do the same thing, except I will be celebrating excellence in me.  The Naties (pronounced Nate-tease) are a recognition of what makes this blog so truly special.  It will serve to highlight old articles and celebrate the truly great from the merely great. The technical Natie awards were given earlier today in a separate ceremony.

The first Natie is going to be the Investigative Natie.  To be eligible for this award, the article in question must be original content from me.  It can either be a report of something I am doing or an investigative piece with an actual interview.  The nominees are:

1. Is McCain Poised for an Illinois Upset?
2. The Obama Ad that the Networks Won’t Play
3. We Have a Book Deal
4. Tom the Bartender on Politics
5. A Tale of Two Employees
6. Obama Hates Puppies

This year’s Natie goes to The Obama Ad that the Networks Won’t Play for its gripping look at the attempts of the mainstream media to supress any voice that is critical of Barrack Obama.