I debuted this blog a little more than a year ago, and one of the first orders of business were to proclaim the winners of two new awards — “Enlightened Redneck of the Year” and “Elitist of the Year.” The honors went to Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, respectively.

With a new year about to end, it’s time to recognize this year’s winners.

First up is the award for enlightened redneck, and this year, millions of Americans get to share the honor. The award goes to tea party activists across the country, who earned the scorn of elitists everywhere for daring to take a stand against last year’s king of elitism.

Giving the award to tea partiers was a no-brainer. Bigots like actress Janeane Garofalo maligned as racist rednecks those of us who oppose Obama’s policies. But “redneck” is not a synonym for racism, and people who want Obama’s policies to fail are, in a word, enlightened to the havoc his ideas will wreak.

There are two Americas, and tea partiers live in the one ruled by the common sense hard-work ethic of enlightened rednecks:

I was tempted to give this year’s elitist award to Garofalo (or to Chris Needham, the NBC Washington bigot who trashed my fellow West Virginians and me last week). But instead, that dishonor goes to Stephen Fowler of “Wife Swap” fame.