Yesterday, I offered a list of all the things I wanted to forget from 2005. Unfortunately, it turns out there was just too much gunk clogging up my internal hard drive to get rid of with a single cleansing. So here is another attempt to delete all of last year's political and cultural spam.
I'd be a happy woman if I could forever put out of my mind:
Scooter Libby, novelist. Scooter Libby, letter writer. Scooter Libby, tree expert.
"Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."
Judy Miller's non-entangled "entanglement" with Scooter Libby.
That the New York Times wrote 15 editorials depicting Judy Miller as Judy of Arc, compared her to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, and claimed "If Judy Miller loses this fight, we all lose."
"Valerie Flame."
Arthur Sulzberger, charter member of the Lucky Sperm Club.
The wall-to-wall, over-the-top, and utterly uncritical TV coverage of the interminable internment of Pope John Paul II.
That President Bush interrupted his vacation to fly back to Washington to sign the Schiavo bill in the middle of the night.
That not a single Democratic Senator formally objected to the pro forma voice vote that sent the Schiavo bill to the House.
How the Schiavo spectacle allowed the reptilian Randall Terry to be born again as a media figure.
Bob Woodward's self-inflicted demotion from Watergate hero to Plamegate goat.
That just weeks after Time's Viveca Novak provided Karl Rove with a possible get-out-of-jail-free card, the president nominated her husband to the Federal Election Committee.
That, with the war on terror in full-swing, the FBI has a squad exclusively devoted to cracking down on sexually explicit material involving consenting adults.
That instead of meeting with Cindy Sheehan, President Bush went fishing, took two-hour bike rides, cleared brush, attended a Little League ball game and raked in millions at a GOP fundraiser.
That only one high ranking officer involved in the Abu Ghraib/Guantanamo outrages has even been demoted.
That a study by the Army's Surgeon General found that 30 percent of soldiers coming home from Iraq are suffering mental health problems.
George Bush's recess appointment of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador.
Karl Rove's claim that "liberals saw the savagery of 9/11" and wanted to "offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
That, for the fifth year in a row, President Bush couldn't find the time to address the annual convention of the NAACP.
The illogical but endlessly repeated lie that we have to fight the terrorists over there, so we don't have to fight them over here.
That Osama bin Laden is still on the loose
That 36 million Americans live below the poverty line -- 12.9 million of them children.
The Movie Multiplex from Hell: "The Dukes of Hazzard," "Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo," "The Pacifier," "Aeon Flux," "Son of the Mask."
The iPod Party Mix from Hell: Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps," The Pussycat Dolls' "Don' Cha," Papa Roach's "Scars," D4L's "Laffy Taffy," and Lindsey Lohan's "I Want You to Want Me."
All the precious media oxygen consumed by coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and the Natalee Holloway story.
The endless magazine covers devoted to the breakups of Nick and Jessica and Brad and Jen
That the Kyoto Protocol took effect -- and that the United States was not a part of it.
That Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." And that the leaders of the new Iraq are friendly with him.
That we passed the 1,000 mark of people executed in the U.S. since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
Pat Robertson, assassination advocate
Lawrence Summers, feminist scholar
Michael Crichton, climatologist
Bill Bennett, criminologist
That a company that makes snoring remedies paid $37,375 to have its logo temporarily tattooed on a 20-year old Nebraska man's forehead.
That Nicolas Cage named his son Kal-el.
The death of Pat Tillman. And the way the Army tried to cover up the truth behind his death.
The over-hyping of the role "A Purpose Driven Life" played in the surrender of courthouse escapee Brian Nichols -- and the under-hyping of the role crystal meth did.
That, according to Brit Hume, his "first thought" following the London bombings was to notice the falling futures market and think: "Hmmm, time to buy."