Closing Arguments: 2008's Biggest Villain?

The biggest scandal of the year was the $700 billion bailout plan to Wall Street and corporations by Congress with little or no oversight on how the bailout money was to be used or to be paid back. None of it would trickle down to stockholders so they will get hammered twice -- loss of stock value and a big tax bill.
The corporate scoundrels get their 15 minutes of public shame and only to go home on their private jets and get into their jacuzzis and watch their giant TVs and then try and figure out how to screw us somemore.

Illinois is a shameful disaster and we deserve to be the butt of jokes. Blago is the biggest disaster of the year.

It's hard to choose just one person who caused the most harm this year. There have been so many trusted individuals/corporations who have been in the web of deceipt. It makes it very difficult for people to trust anyone when our country has been through so many of these circumstances. I thank you and others who have brought truth to light. Don't stop. People who have violated our trust and now we are paying to bail them out should have to pay the highest possible price. As Americans, we should rise up and refuse to bail out such scoundrals! Just like the auto executives who come to ask for the bailout and then walk away to their private jets and high-living lifestyles, while the average citizen works to pay this off and can barely put food on the table...it makes me livid! And what can we do - especially when our elected officials vote to make us pay!

congress is the big scandal. Pass laws to help the banksters. Then giving them our money after the crocked scheme blew up. Without even knowing where it going.

Wow! There were so many this year! As a resident of Illinois, my first inclination was with the latest news of Blagojevich appointing a political croney to Barack Obama's Senate Seat.
It has certainly tainted the magnificance of President-Elect Obama's historic acheivement and threw mud on the entire state.
However, I think the Big 3 Auto makers coming to Washington on their private jets and expecting a no-strings bail-out takes the number one spot!

It is indicitive of the greed and arrogance of corporate America and the cause of the deterioration of our economy. It is only exceeded by politicians like Sen. Corker of Tennessee, who tried to blame the union autoworkers instead of the incompetance of the CEO's for the misery inflicted on all Americans.

Survey says: George Bush!

Bush! enough said.

Bernard Madoff is the worst, or should we say that he is the worst to have been discovered so far. It will be a long time before the effects of hyper-entrepreneurialism are fully known and fully understood beyond the obvious conclusion -- enterprise gone beserk has transformed our country from democracy to plutocracy. Can there be a reversal?

None of the people that was mentioned in your list can top the worst "villian" compares to the person whom I have in mind. I believe our president George W Bush is the worst of all of them. From the unfavorable war in Iraq, our energy crisis and the financial market melt down, it all starts from the leadership. GW Bush did not lead. He is too busy to line his pocket with the Arab oil countries and did not lead the nation with the proper attention which he should as our president. I am so shameful of this man. No wonder the Iraq reporter through his shoe at him. He is the laughing stock and the most shameful villian of them all.

George W. Bush caused the most pain to the most people in the worst possible ways. He should be imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.

Pres. George W. Bush is my pick as The Biggest Villain! He has really left the country in a hole that may take generations to overcome. Are these "family values", lies, war, moral decay in industry, millions loosing homes, every child left behind, all of our retirement money gone and no health care or social security. We should have stayed out of the Bushes!!!

Geo. W. "43" Bush

You can debate who created the biggest scandal but the worst person holding public office has been George Bush. If you read "Chimp O Matic" on the Google webpage, you quickly gat a sense of how dumb this man is. He can barely put two sentences together without making a mistake. Most everything wrong with America today can be linked back to him. He's a man with the "sadim" touch. That's the midas touch only backwards. Everything he touches turns to crap.

Definitly #6 The ponzi schemer.... But the Government played i big role in this debacle too..... or should i say... did not do very basics to stop crooks like madof and other rich execs this past year especially... This is the first time that i can say i have little confidence in our government

The biggest villain of 2008 was the SEC. Because of their inability to enforce current regulations, be will probably now be bombarded with all kinds of new regulations. They could have prevented the financial crisis as well as the Madoff scandal.

Overwhelmingly....Americans seem to get this one right! The #1 villain of 2008 was the federal government under the unforgettable leadership of George W. Bush. It was the deregulation which has led to the credit & mortgage crisis; schemes where the likes of Madoff were able to get over on so many unsuspecting people and our continued dependence upon oil where the auto industry has remained hypnotized and stagnant.

Biggest villain? George W. Bush

John Edwards. What a scumbag. For cheating on his wife. Then claiming the affair wasn't that bad because it occurred while the cancer was in remission.

Barack Obama is the biggest villain of the year for lying to the American people about who he is and what he would stand for if he had any backbone to begin with.

The media including abc has much to do with this great wrong in electing a crook.

GOD BLESS GEORGE W BUSH!

Kwame Kilpatrick, former Mayor of Detroit, Michigan. Convicted of lying to a Grand Jury to coverup a sexual scandal and unscruptulous business practices.