Good riddance to 10 of the faces of 2022

OPINION:

With all due respect to the late, great Frank Sinatra, it cannot be said of 2022 that “it was a very good year.” To the contrary, to borrow from the title of a children’s book, 2022 was in many ways “a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” year.

But 2023 holds out promise to be better, if only because 10 of the most “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” people in the country will be leaving the public stage in the new year, if they haven’t already.

We herewith count down the Top 10 faces of 2022 we won’t miss in the new year. Not to put too fine a point on it, but… don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

10. Nina Jankowicz (aka “Mary Poppins”): The Biden administration’s would-be anti-“disinformation” czarina’s career died aborning last spring.

The Homeland Security Department’s plan for her to lead an Orwellian “Disinformation Governance Board” imploded amid deserved ridicule after a February 2021 TikTok video resurfaced of Ms. Jankowicz’s musical parody of the song “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from the 1964 Disney film “Mary Poppins.”

Her lame parody skewering what she regarded as the spread of “fake news” was apparently Ms. Jankowicz’s chief qualification for the job at President Joe Biden’s Ministry of Truth.

9. Brian Stelter: The former host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” was shown the door after his program was canceled in a cost-cutting move in August, but he found what might be an even cushier sinecure in September.

CNN’s answer to Uncle Fester landed at the Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellowship at Harvard’s Kennedy School, but at least he isn’t a talking head on TV anymore.

8. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat: Republicans’ recapturing control of the House of Representatives in the midterms in November spelled the end of her dreadful House speakership and her loss of the gavel.

As an added bonus, we’ll no longer have to see the San Francisco liberal sitting behind the president during the State of the Union address.

7. Sen. Richard Shelby, Alabama Republican: The lame-duck senator represented the GOP in “negotiating” the terms of that horrific $1.85 trillion omnibus spending bill.

The six-term senator, 88, got rolled (and, by extension, so did Republican voters and the country) in those negotiations by a youthful-by-comparison 82-year-old fellow lame duck, left-wing Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat.

It’s not clear how many of the 4,000-plus earmarks Mr. Leahy snuck into the 4,185-page blunderbuss omnibus while Mr. Shelby was nodding off.

6. Sam Brinton: The “nonbinary, gender-fluid” nuclear-waste disposal chief can no longer boast of being able to hear his “stilettos clicking on [the] marble floors” of Congress after being fired amid felony theft and grand larceny charges.

The airport-luggage thief, a self-described “nuclear nerd,” apparently had too much … umm … baggage even for the Biden administration. 
 
5. Rep. Adam Schiff, California Democrat: “Adam Schiff will no longer be on the [Intelligence] Committee when I become speaker” in the 118th Congress, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the likely Republican successor to Mrs. Pelosi, said on Dec. 4.

Mr. McCarthy was renewing his vow to remove his fellow Californian from that plum committee assignment, accusing Mr. Schiff of lying to “the American public time and again.” This is the same Intelligence Committee member, by the way, who was the foremost pusher of the Russia collusion hoax—for which he has never apologized.

4. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Illinois Republican: Dubbed “Crying” Adam Kinzinger by Donald Trump, the teary-eyed lawmaker was one of two Republicans who willingly served as “useful idiots” on Mrs. Pelosi’s kangaroo court Jan. 6 Committee.

First elected to Congress in the Tea Party wave of 2010, he opted not to run for a seventh term in 2022 knowing he would likely lose to a primary challenger after alienating the Republican base.

3. Rep. Liz Cheney, Wyoming Republican: The other GOP collaborator on the Jan. 6 Committee’s Stalinist show trial was repudiated in the second-worst blowout primary defeat of any incumbent ever.

On Aug. 16, Republican primary voters in arguably the reddest state in the country banished the anti-Trump zealot to the obscurity she so richly deserves, as she drew a paltry 28.9% of the vote.

2. The Jan. 6 Committee itself: Special recognition here goes to sophomore Rep. Elaine Luria, Virginia Democrat, whose high-profile service on the committee didn’t save her from defeat in the 2022 midterms. Her loss contributed to the GOP’s nine-seat pickup and retaking control of the House.

The committee will be put out of our misery when it sunsets at the start of the 118th Congress, with zero likelihood it will be revived by the new GOP majority.

1. Dr. Anthony Fauci: “St. Anthony” to his worshipful devotees in the liberal media, he turned 82 on Dec. 24, and is retiring after 38 years as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

But Tony “Gain of Function” Fauci won’t be fading from the public eye anytime soon. Republican control of the House ensures he will soon experience less-sycophantic treatment from the majority in Congress in 2023 than he’s accustomed to.

GOP-chaired House committees will soon channel Ricky Ricardo in telling Fauci that he has “a lot of explaining to do” about all of his lies and half-truths about the COVID-19 pandemic and his role in it.

• Peter Parisi is a former editor for The Washington Times.