Alberto Gonzales

People en Español

• Eligibility: Tejano from outside Houston
• Claim To Fame: Officially, he’s the former U.S. Attorney General, but most people know him as the Uncle Tómas of the White House.
• Why He’s Embarrassing: Gonzales systematically fired a staff of U.S. Dept. of Justice attorneys in 2005 and 2006 without explanation only to tell Senate hearing committees later that he had no recollection of the events. He was also seriously implicated in the NSA Domestic Eavesdropping Program and became so universally reviled in Washington, that a number of members of both houses of Congress from both parties publicly said Gonzales should resign or be fired by Bush. This he impudently refused during months of Senate hearings until, finally, in August of this year, he put us all out of our misery. Only to play the race card and imply that his humble background should excuse him from any mistakes he might have made.

• Eligibility: It covers people en español. And also in English, which is so meta.
• Claim To Fame: As of 2007, it is the Spanish-language magazine of largest readership in the United States, but really it’s famous for naming Beyoncé as the most beautiful Latina of this year.
• Why They Are Embarrassing: People en Español burst onto the scene in 1996 with all the cultural relevance you’d expect from Time Warner. Legend has it the idea for the magazine came after a 1995 issue of the original People was distributed with the cast of “Friends” on some covers and a dead Selena on others. The Selena cover sold out while the Wonderbread cover did not and a magazine for clichéd Latinos was born. After eleven years of top sales, earlier this year, People en Español realized a lot of Latinos in America don’t speak Spanish, so the periodical began publishing an English version of the Spanish version of the original publication. Go, identity.