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The DoubleX Guide to the Worst Cads of 2010

Ranking the dastardly behavior of Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, and their icky peers.

After we ranked our Worst Cads of 2009, we questioned whether we would make such a list again. There was no way we could match last year’s gallery of cheaters, skanks, and thieves, we reckoned. What could top the all-around boorishness of Tiger Woods and his army of mistresses or the cringeworthy e-mails from South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to his Argentinean love? But as early as March, when news broke that tattoo enthusiast Jesse James was cheating on his then-wife, Sandra Bullock—who, by the way, had just won an Oscar—with an alleged white supremacist, we realized that 2010 might even surpass 2009 when it came to louts.

This year’s list has a nice mix from all walks of celebrity—there are athletes (Brett Favre, Tiki Barber, Tony Parker); actors (Mel Gibson, David Arquette); and, for good measure, a politician, former Indiana Rep. Mark Souder. The family-values-obsessed Souder gets extra points for hypocrisy: He had an affair with a foxy staffer and he made a pro-abstinence video with her. Why, one respondent asks, is it always the “outspoken prudes” who are “secretly freaky”?

As we did last year, we have created a kind of Zagat guide for cads. Input from DoubleX contributors forms the basis for all the ratings and reviews; their comments are shown in quotation marks. We searched long and hard for a female addition to the list, but just like last year, we came up short. (We considered adding the author of the infamous “Duke Fuck List” but ultimately concluded that her treatise was more amusing than awful.)

This list needn’t be the last word on the cads of 2010, so please do add any troglodytes of either gender we may have missed in the comments below. We don’t know what to hope for in the coming year: On one hand, we’d like for all people to treat one another with kindness, but the hubbub surrounding many of these cads is so much fun, we’d probably be a tad disappointed if no celebrities were caught with their pants down.

Click here to view a slide-show essay on the worst cads of 2010.

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