Nancy Pelosi earns a dubious distinction — top honors in Dave Barry’s humorous look back at 2006, coming out Sunday.  Six mentions of Pelosi.

A sample:

Fidel Castro is rumored to be seriously ill after publication of photographs showing worms crawling out of his eye sockets. Cuban authorities insist that the aging leader is merely recovering from surgery and that, for the time being, government operations are in the capable hands of Nancy Pelosi.

The Washington Post’s gossip column “Reliable Source” presents the craziest, wackiest local stories of 2006.  What a delicious year-in-review list columnists Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts serve up:

• Dick Cheney’s openly gay daughter Mary announces she’s pregnant and plans to raise the child with her longtime partner.
• Allen Iverson’s bad day in D.C.: His Rolls Royce gets ticketed downtown while he was being deposed by a guy who claims the baller’s security beat him up in a nightclub.
• Hilary Duff calls boyfriend Joel Madden’s hometown of Waldorf, Md., “ghetto”; later fires D.C. drummer Shauney Baby for stealing her spotlight.
• Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney attacks a Capitol Hill police officer with her cellphone when he fails to recognize her with a new hairdo.
• Jenna, Jenna, Jenna!: The blonde First Twin is psyched out by a fake proposal from her boyfriend; ditches her D.C. school teaching job for a Panama internship; parties in Argentina; and gets falsely linked in the tabs to a Buenos Aires hottie.
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes cut a swath through D.C. — do the hokey pokey at Six Flags with Dan Snyder and party on the Fed Ex Field; later return the favor by inviting the Skins owner to their Italian wedding.
• Karl Rove and Madeleine Albright have a historic face off in court — when they end up on the same jury.
• Entourages collide, and bottles of bub go flying, when Diddy brings a posse of 40 to downtown club Lima.
• Dozens of reporters chase Borat through the streets of Washington as he takes his guerilla press conference from the beleaguered embassy of Kazakhstan to the White House.
• Rapper DMX claims a Maryland woman who bore his child “raped” him after a night of drinking; she sues him for defamation.
• In an astonishing couture coincidence, Laura Bush shows up to the Kennedy Center Honors wearing the same dress as three other women.
• Jessica Simpson forgets the words to “9 to 5″ and breaks down onstage at the Kennedy Center during her tribute to Dolly Parton.
• K-Fed steps into a wrestling ring in D.C. to tell the world: “My name is not K-Fed!”

Vote at WashingtonPost.com for the number one story of 2006.  But also post your thoughts here.

Farewell, 2006: a year in which celebrity babble reached all-time heights.  There’s nothing quite like, for instance, Lindsay Lohan saying, “I just left an AA meeting.  I haven’t had a drink in seven days. Or anything.  I’m not even legal to, so why would I? I don’t drink when I go to clubs. I drink with my friends at home, but there’s no need to.”  Unsure if one of those friends is Al Gore, although she can surely use his help.

But our interests here aren’t celebrities talking about alcohol.  Our interests are celebrities babbling about politics.  Unless, of course,  alcohol colors a celebrity’s geopolitical views.  That’s when we sit up, notice, and throw our head back in laughter.  Which is why Mel Gibson leads The Top Ten Funniest Things Celebrities Said About Politics in 2006.

The complete list:

1.  Mel Gibson: “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” (July 28)

2.  Arnold Schwarzenegger: “To link me to George Bush is like linking me to an Oscar.” (October 11)

3.  Sharon Stone: “A woman should be past her sexuality when she runs. Hillary still has sexual power and I don’t think people will accept that. It’s too threatening.” (March 27)

4.  Pamela Anderson: “The bust of Colonel Sanders stands as a monument to cruelty and has no place in the Kentucky State Capitol.” (Jan. 13)

5.  Bobby Brown: “Cigarettes kill more people everyday than any terrorists I’ve ever seen — on television.” (June 6)

6.  A tie:

Rosie O’Donnell: “Don’t fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers.”  (Nov. 9)

and

Rosie O’Donnell: “Apparently ‘ching-chong,’ unbeknownst to me, is a very offensive way to make fun, quote-unquote, or mock, Asian accents.” (Dec. 14)

7.  Meadow Soprano: “9/11, 9/11. Bush is using it as an excuse to erode our Constitutional protections and you’re falling for it.” Carmela Soprano: “Well, I voted for him.” (April 16)

8.  Kevin Federline: “I want to go to Africa — it’s a place where you can really help people. And I’m into the safari animals.” (Oct. 31)

9.  Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast: “Please join me in praying that I don’t say something we all regret. If you’re wondering what I’m doing at the prayer breakfast, so am I. I’m certainly not here as a man of the cloth. Unless that cloth is leather.” (Feb. 23)

10.  George Clooney , accepting a Supporting Actor Golden Globe for “Syriana”: “I want to thank Jack Abramoff, you know, just because … I don’t know why … Who would name their kid Jack but the last word’s ‘off’ at the end of their last name? No wonder that guy’s screwed up.” (Jan. 18).

As a special bonus to this list, a twist — a politician saying something funny about a celebrity.  Let’s lower the house lights and give a warm Extreme welcome to Japan’s former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, live from Graceleand.  Mr. Minister?

PRIME MINISTER KOIZUMI: It’s like a dream. I never expected President come with me to visit Graceland. There’s Elvis song: To Dream Impossible. (Singing Elvis song.) (Laughter.) My dream came true. Thank you very much for — thank you. Thank you very much for treating me nice, the Elvis song. (Singing Elvis song.) Thank you.

PRESIDENT BUSH: We’re going to go have some barbeque, thank you. (June 30)

For Extreme Mortman’s other 2006 year in review specials, check out Top Ten Funniest Political Moments Of 2006, and Top Ten Funniest Political Quotes Of 2006.

Let’s take John Kerry at his word. It was all meant to be a joke. OK, we’ll believe him.  But not without a price. For trying his hand at stand-up, Sen. Laugh Riot earns top spot among the Top Ten Funniest Political Quotes Of 2006.

The complete list:

1) John Kerry: “If you make the most of (education), you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” (Oct. 30)

Of course, with a joke so brilliantly funny and insightful, there were bound to wannabe imitators.

2) A tie:
Ted Stevens: “The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes.” (June 28)

and

Larry King on the Internet: “I’ve never done it, never gone searching…. The wife loves it. I wouldn’t love it. What do you punch little buttons and things?” (Nov. 14)

3) Joe Biden: “You CANNOT go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts without an Indian accent.” (July 6)

4) Hugo Chavez describing President Bush: “The devil is right at home. The devil — the devil, himself, is right in the house. And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today.” (Sept. 20)

5) President Bush to legally blind reporter Peter Wallsten “Are you going to ask that question with shades on?” (June 14)

6) Rep. Bob Wexler: “I enjoy cocaine because it’s a fun thing to do.” (July 21)

7) Sen. Jeff Sessions: “I talk to those who’ve lost their lives, and they have that sense of duty and mission.” (Dec. 5)

8) Tony Snow to Helen Thomas: “Thank you for the Hezbollah view.” (July 18)

9) A tie:

George Allen: “I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops.” (Sept. 19)

and

Los Angeles Times correction: “An article in Section A on Wednesday about friction in the Republican Party between gays and religious conservatives said Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) had a campaign manager who is gay. The Allen staff member who is gay is his communications director.” (Oct. 19)

10) Prince George’s County, MD, County Executive Jack Johnson: “I always fly business class or first class. I think the people of Prince George’s County expect me to. I don’t think they expect me to be riding in a seat with four across and I’m in the middle.” (Nov. 20)

We weren’t sure whether to include a quote by Mayor Ray Nagin; after all, hasn’t New Orleans suffered enough?  But then we caught HBO’s Comic Relief special for Katrina relief and reconsidered.  Heck, if Robin, Billy, and Whoopi can find humor in a disaster while on stage in Las Vegas, then why can’t we recognize Nagin’s home-grown humor?  Here then, a bonus: The Eleventh Funniest Political Quote of 2006.
11)  New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin: “This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.” (Jan. 16)

Click here for Top Ten Funniest Political Moments of 2006. And stay tuned for the third installment: Top Ten Funniest Things Celebrities Said About Politics in 2006.

Try to name the funniest moments in politics this year, and you’ll immediately think of violent assaults with deadly, hilarious weapons. Yes, this was the year that politics met broad physical humor. And crime. Lots and lots of crime. Face it: Crime pays — with huge belly laughs.

Here then the list of the top ten funniest political moments of 2006 — a year experts will surely call the funniest ever for politics.  Warning — don’t read further without first donning your body armor.

1) The year opens with a bang.  The opening of lawyer hunting season is ceremoniously marked when Dick Cheney shoots Harry Whittington.

2) Cynthia McKinney hurls a cell phone at a Capitol Police officer.  The cell phone is swiftly wrestled to the floor and detained for questioning.

3) Jack Abramoff wears black hat, black coat to court.   The disguise doesn’t help.  Everyone notices him except for a traveling band of Chasidim.

4) Court documents show Rep. William Jefferson kept $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer.  Federal investigators still poring over boxes and boxes of frozen pizzas.

5) Wonkette puts this one best: “The front page of Tom DeLay’s legal defense fund website. The featured clip is Stephen Colbert’s interview with Robert Greenwald, director of an anti-DeLay documentary. The DeLay team, in a mass email, claims that Colbert ‘cracks the story on real motivations behind the movie,’ presumably with questions like ‘Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?’ which really get to the heart of Greenwald’s nefarious secret agenda. Stephen Colbert? Very probably funny. Tom DeLay? Hysterical.”

6) Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson sue for “gross invasion of privacy.” Makes sense. After all, a cornerstone of the Wilson-Plame family is the sacrosanct value of privacy. They really hate publicity.

7) Katherine Harris runs for Senate.  Her campaign highlight is one perfectly-positioned blanket.

8) Borat make benefit glorious press conference in Washington outside Kazakhstan embassy — then leads two dozen reporters on pied piper-style march to glorious White House benefit.

9) President Bush — both of them — gets big laughs at the White House Correspondents Association dinner.

10) Fights breaking out in other countries’ parliaments are always hilarious. This year we were treated to an actual food fight — or at least one legislator in Taiwain chewing over a proposal on opening direct transport links with China.

Clearly a Taipei personality.

Stay tuned for Extreme Mortman’s next year-enders: Top Ten Funniest Political Quotes in 2006 … and Top Ten Funniest Things Celebrites Said About Politics in 2006.

All of which made 2006 the funniest year ever for politics.