An FP Exclusive: Santa’s List for Christmas 2010

It’s Christmas and according the editors at FP, that means it’s time for a Naughty and Nice list. The problem is: I’m not sure what naughty or nice means any more. (Could be a result of living in the morally compromised world of Washington.) Besides, the whole idea that Santa only has two lists suggests a kind of Manichean justice that I don’t think reflects well on the whole North Pole enterprise. What’s needed is more nuance. And so that’s just what you’ll get here. A list of the the best gifts of 2010 for some of the best — and worst — people of 2010.

Julian Assange: You want to play spy? You have a hankering for Nordic women? The Russians love you? We read your OK Cupid profile. So how about for you, a marriage made in heaven: a January wedding in beautiful Novosibirsk with Anna Chapman? She will certainly get more secrets out of you than she did the party boys she hung with in New York. What’s more, the two of you will instantly replace Naomi Watts and Sean Penn — er, I mean, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame — as our two favorite celebrity spies. Which in turn will give us the pleasure of naming you our oxymorons of the year.

Glenn Beck: You were everywhere this year, making our skin creep with your ubiquity. So, there’s only one very 2010 gift for you: a lifetime supply of bedbugs.

Silvio Berlusconi: So you — like all those young women breezing through your bunga-bunga parties — know what it’s like to be confronted with the ugly remnants of fading manhood, a complete set of emailed pictures of Brett Favre’s junk. 

David Cameron: You — and your political cousins like New Jersey governor Chris Christie — are showing great courage by understanding that the only path back up into the light is hard work and real sacrifice down in the darkness. So for your inspiration and listening pleasure, the musical stylings of formerly trapped Chilean miner Edison Pena showing what it’s like to truly be happy with life.

Rahm Emanuel: You’re a shoe-in to become the next mayor of Chicago. Which means that even though you mastered being a Washington tough guy, you’re going to have to bring your game up a notch. So, for this holiday season, your special gift will be a full set of the Mel Gibson audio tapes. Take a listen — and look, if it doesn’t work out, maybe you too can move on to a movie about a talking beaver.

The French national soccer team: You’ll all participate in a production of Jean Paul Sartre’s “No Exit” — an irony given your early departure from the World Cup — in which you are trapped with an orchestra of your favorite ex-hookers, strippers, and angry wives and girlfriends all playing the Marseilles on vuvuzelas — for eternity.

Kim Jong-un: What do you give a guy whose father has already bequeathed him a country? Well, if the country is North Korea, you need a soundtrack. We think the most appropriate choice for a regime whose time is running out is “Tik Tok” — and frankly, if this leads to Ke$ha ending up in Pygonyang, it’s another win-win for civilization.

Hamid Karzai: Have we got a show for you! It’s called Lost. Take that anyway you want.

Larry King: This was the year you said good-bye. Finally. The only more painful exits to watch have been the ones that are hospitalizing the cast of Broadway’s “Spiderman.” But Larry, you were so good at blowing smoke up the sensitive receptacles of your various guests, we will honor you with a trip to the only smoke-blower that did it better than you this year: Iceland’s own Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

Kate Middleton: Marrying into that family, the most appropriate gift we can give you is our sympathy. But just in case, we’ll throw in the escape slide that Jet Blue flight attendant Steven Slater used to escape his lousy job. (And if it’s any consolation, if things keep going the way they have been you might also get the distinction of being the wife of the last King of England.)

Bibi Netanyahu: If settlements mean that much to you, how about a nice little apartment for two that you can share with say, Helen Thomas. That’ll hopefully get you out of the house and back to the serious work of the peace table in 2011.

Barack Obama: A toast to a year that has actually turned out rather well for you, with the perfect drink: one that’ll give you the energy you need and the alcohol you will want, with a name that will constantly remind you of the Hill majority and minority leadership who will continue to make your life miserable. To you…the last few cases of Four Loko. Savor them.

Christine O’Donnell: For you, a lesson in how witchcraft is done right from a 20-year-old who read more studying for finals last weekend than you apparently have in your entire life. Christine, step aside and let Emma Watson show you how it’s done while she and the rest of us wait for the end of the Harry Potter saga to come to theaters near us in just a few months.

Tea Partiers: May you conduct your next tea party on a Carnival cruise.

Tiger Woods, Jesse James, and John Edwards: You three gentlemen need something for those overworked libidos, a way to scratch that itch without getting you into so much hot water. So, for all of you, for the foyers in your bachelor pads: state of the art airport scanners. They will live very little to your very active imaginations.