Fourth of July weekend means pool parties, American flag shirts and an ill-advised combination of alcohol and fireworks. America's birthday also means barbecue grills nationwide will be cooking up over 150 million pounds of beef, 90 million pounds of chicken, and a couple veggie patties for the annoying vegan in your life. What does all this grilling have to do with the 232nd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence? Absolutely nothing. Americans just enjoy any excuse to stuff their faces with the charred carcasses of animals not cute enough to be house pets.

In honor of all the delicious meat and flavorless soy grilled up this weekend in celebration of America's independence, 23/6 takes a look back at some of the metaphorical grillings that have taken place in the 365 days since last 4th of July in: The Year in Grilling.

GENERAL PETRAEUS SENATE QUESTIONING

On the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, General David Petraeus was grilled by members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees over his Iraq War strategy. The interrogation gave salivating Democrats a chance to show off their best General "Betray-us" material, but it was actually skeptical Republicans who cooked Petraeus over the most flames. For instance, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel asked "Are we going to continue to invest American blood and treasure at the same rate we are doing now? For what?" Okay, maybe that doesn't sound too searing, but trust us, for Congress that's like roasting a pig at a luau.

MICHAEL MUKASEY CONFIRMATION

Senate Democrats grilled Michael Mukasey in a two-day confirmation hearing last October after George Bush nominated him to replace scandal magnet, Alberto Gonzales as U.S. Attorney General. The hearing was going swell with only a few bumps in the road, such as Mukasey's listing of a company called "Dial-a-Porn" as one of the 10 "most significant matters" he had litigated. But the process hit a wall when Mukasey dodged repeated questions about if he considered waterboarding to be torture. As Senate Dems squirted lighter fluid over the coals, he eventually admitted waterboarding would "probably seem like torture" to many Americans, but also added that "hypotheticals are different from real life" making Mukasey that burger you thought was fully grilled, but ended up still being raw in the middle.

ABC NEWS DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL "DEBATE"

Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News hosted an alleged Democratic presidential "debate" between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in April that Tom Shales of the Washington Post accurately referred to as "shoddy" and "despicable." This inane gotcha-fest was most notable for its non-grilling of the candidates. Instead of discussing any one of the numerous issues facing the country, the network television audience was treated to gossipy, toothless questions like "Senator Obama, do you think the Rev. Wright loves America as much as you do?" ABC News proved that just because you have a barbecue, doesn't mean you know how to grill with it.

ROGER CLEMENS CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY

In February, multi-millionaire rent-a-pitcher, Roger Clemens was grilled by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about using illegal performance enhancing drugs. Despite the testimony of trainer Brian McNamee that he had personally injected Clemens in the buttocks "four to six times" with testosterone, the chemically enhanced Texan still claimed that his unprecedented career surge was achieved naturally. The most delicious cuts of meat served up in this congressional grilling were Clemens' insistence that best friend Andy Pettite "misremembered" being told that Clemens had received HGH injections, and McNamee's revelation that he had also injected Clemens' wife Debbie's buttocks in their master bedroom. Pass the ketchup syringe!

SCOTT MCCLELLAN'S BOOK

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan raked the Bush administration over the coals in his book, "What Happened." Some of the menu items at McClellan's cookout: accusing President Bush of "self-deception," accusing the Bush administration of selling the Iraq War with an aggressive "political propaganda campaign," and for dessert, scolding the news media for being too accepting of the very lies he himself told them.

DONDA WEST'S PLASTIC SURGEON WALKS OFF LARRY KING

Jan Adams, the plastic surgeon who operated on hip-hop star Kanye West's mother the day before she died, abruptly walked off the set of CNN's "Larry King Live" before King even had the chance to ask him a single question. For King, this was like opening up the grill and being lucky enough to find a hotdog that had already been cooked.

Posted by: Tim Saccardo      I’m a fan of Tim Saccardo