The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 249

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 249

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 249

June 26, 2006
Saddam O'Reilly Edition

This week on the big list: Bill O'Reilly (1) shows he's completely insane; Dennis Hastert (3) gets involved in some shady dealing; and the Bush Administration (4,5) does some election-year fearmongering. Enjoy, and don't forget the key.

Bill O'Reilly

Once upon a time there was a splotchy-faced television pundit who got a job broadcasting government propaganda between the hours of 8 PM and 9 PM weeknights on the Fox News Network. He was an unpleasant little man with a loud voice and a penchant for falafel which almost got him into lots of trouble.

One day, the government announced that it was going to invade Iraq. The pundit could not have been more pleased. He banged his fists on the desk and shouted even louder, sometimes showering his guests with spittle. On May 8, 2003, he wrote:

It is absolutely eerie how closely the current Iraq situation parallels the rise of The Third Reich 70 years ago. I consider Saddam Hussein to be "Hitler lite" because he has the same virulent anti-Semitism, the same callous disregard for human life, and the identical lust for power that Adolf possessed. The only difference between the two villains is the size of the mustache.

The splotchy-faced pundit was not alone in his assessment. In fact, everybody agreed that Saddam Hussein was officially a "bad man." But they had reasonable disagreements on what to do about it.

The splotchy-faced pundit thought that the solution was simple. He thought that a man who murdered his own people and possessed hundreds of tons of weapons of mass destruction should be taken out, plain and simple, and hang the consequences because any right-thinking person had to agree that the world would be a better place without Saddam Hussein. This was, by pure coincidence, exactly the same thing that the government told him to think.

And so, thanks in part to the splotchy-faced pundit and his airwave-monopolizing friends, the government persuaded the people to invade Iraq. But after the troops had captured Baghdad and the president declared "Mission Accomplished," strange things started to happen.

First, the Iraqi people didn't throw the promised candy and flowers at the feet of the invading soldiers and started shooting at them instead. Then they started shooting at each other. Before you could say "They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat," the government admitted that there weren't any weapons of mass destruction after all.

Fortunately they found Saddam hiding in a rat hole and put him in prison, but for some strange reason it didn't seem to make any difference and before long the whole place was a big bloody mess. Soldiers, civilians, insurgents, you name it. Blood everywhere. Some people were calling it a civil war. Whatever it was, it was bad news.

But the splotchy-faced pundit had another idea - and this time it didn't come from the government. No, this time the idea was given to him by his neighbor's pet rabbit which spoke to him as he was walking out the door on the way to work. The pundit thought the idea was so great that he would talk about it on his radio show that day. And so he did:

...what you have here now is a tipping point in history. A tipping point in history. So you have to win the Iraq situation. Now, to me, they're not fighting it hard enough. See, if I'm president, I've got probably another 50-60,000 with orders to shoot on sight anybody violating curfews. Shoot 'em on sight. That's me. President O'Reilly, curfew in Ramadi, 7 o'clock at night. You're on the street, you're dead. I shoot you right between the eyes. OK? That's how I'd run that country - just like Saddam ran it.

After he finished his broadcast the splotchy-faced pundit went home, thanked the rabbit, pleasured himself with some falafel, and went to sleep. He dreamed about growing a mustache, shooting people between the eyes, and launching Keith Olbermann into outer space.

The end.

The moral of the story is: If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator.

Rick Santorum and Pete Hoekstra

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons!" cried Rick Santorum on the Senate floor last week as he waved a report by a Defense Department intelligence unit. "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist," he read.

Meanwhile, similar action was taking place on the floor of the House. Of the report, House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Pete Hoekstra said, "This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq."

Want to see it? Here it is. Hoekstra already had the juicy bits underlined.

Lord have mercy! They were right all along! Saddam Hussein was just 45 minutes away from using his remote-controlled airplanes to drop African yellowcake down our chimneys!

Er, not quite. Remember the Iraq Survey Group? The Bush administration sent them to thoroughly comb Iraq for WMDs in 2003 - a year and half later they released their findings in an official report. And the official report said that there were effectively no WMDs in Iraq. It read:

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter...

See? No WMDs. All they found was a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions, which according to an AFP report last week "were all made before the 1991 Gulf War and were too degraded for their intended use, US intelligence officials said today ... They were recovered in one, two or three at a time - not in large caches."

Hey, wait a minute - you don't suppose that those old, degraded, unusable, pre-1991 chemical munitions that were already dismissed by the White House in 2004 are the same ones Santorum and Hoekstra were screaming about last week, do you?

Gee, I hope not - otherwise those two are going to look like total dickheads.

Dennis Hastert and Friends

Back in 2000, the Clintons were found innocent of any wrongdoing in the Whitewater scandal - but not before Republicans spent six years and almost $80 million investigating the land deal. Of course, that was back in the days when Republicans were running a dogged campaign to clean up government, so that they could get elected and then do all the things they were accusing their opponents of doing.

For example, the Washington Post reported last week that "House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds."

In 2002, Hastert bought a house and a parcel of land in Kendall County, Ill., for just over $2 million, which he then sold in December of 2005 for nearly $5 million. Why the massive price increase? It's hard to know, but I can assure you that it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that in August 2005 Hastert just happened to secure two earmarks worth over $200 million to build a "Prairie Parkway" through Kendall County, with an intersection a few miles from his property. Perish the thought.

Similarly, a four acre parcel in Riverside County, Calif., owned by Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Naturally) definitely did not double in value because Calvert secured $8 million to build a freeway interchange nearby. And Rep. Gary Miller (R-Obviously) had no ulterior motive in mind when he appropriated $1.28 million for street improvements near a new property development that he happens to co-own in Diamond Bar, Calif.

But clearly no investigations are needed in these cases, because it should be obvious to everyone by now that the Republican party is the party of good clean government, and if it seems to you that they're simply using their power to enrich themselves personally, why, then you should move to France you damn commie terrorist.

So step right up, Republicans, and climb aboard the gravy train. But act now! You don't have long before you're either a) kicked out of office by a disgusted electorate, or b) Dennis Hastert drinks all the gravy.

The Bush Administration

There's a little over four months to go until this year's elections, and you know what that means - it's terror time! The latest news out of the Bush administration is that there is a "growing threat from 'homegrown' terrorist cells," according to the Boston Globe. No kidding. Here's what I found after just a few minutes on Google:

2001: According to the Feminist Majority Foundation in Arlington, Virginia, Over 170 abortion clinics and doctors' offices in 14 states and the District of Columbia received threatening letters claiming to contain anthrax. The envelopes had return addresses from the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Marshall Service with postmarks from Atlanta, GA; Knoxville, TN; Chattanooga, TN; or Columbus, OH. The envelopes were also marked, "TIME SENSITIVE: Urgent Security Notice Enclosed." When opened by clinic staff, all letters contained a white powder with a letter stating, "You have been exposed to anthrax. We are going to kill all of you. Army of God, Virginia DARE Chapter."

2003: A nurse has been charged with firing a shotgun at an abortion clinic in Asheville before it opened on Thursday, according to police. Brenda Kaye Phillips, 44, a registered nurse, was charged a misdemeanor count of damage to property for shooting at the Femcare Women's Clinic. The same clinic was the target of bomb four years ago.

2003: Klan leader David Wayne Hull was arrested at his Washington County, Pennsylvania, home on February 13 for allegedly planning to blow up an abortion clinic. Federal prosecutors charged Hull, a forty-year-old Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a small Pennsylvania-based group, with receiving, manufacturing, possessing and transferring a destructive device in violation of the National Firearms Act. At a preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh on February 18, prosecutors accused Hull of trying to buy hand grenades from a witness cooperating with the FBI. According to an unsealed criminal complaint, Hull told the informant he was "going to blow up abortion clinics." Authorities say that Hull told the informant he made his car a "suicide bomb on wheels." In July 2002, Hull attended the "Aryan Nations World Congress," convened by the Pennsylvania faction of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations. He is also a follower of Christian Identity, a racist and anti-Semitic sect whose adherents believe that white people are God's chosen people, descended from the lost tribes of ancient Israel, and that minorities are soulless "mud peoples."

2004: A man who was accused of plotting to firebomb abortion clinics, churches, and gay bars was sentenced yesterday to five years in federal prison. Stephen John Jordi, 36, pleaded guilty in February to a single charge of attempted arson of an abortion clinic. Prosecutors had asked Judge James Cohn to sentence Jordi under a federal terrorism law and sought seven to 10 years. Cohn refused, saying federal sentencing rules require that plots have an international component to be considered terrorism. "This crime was strictly domestic and in no way transcended national boundaries," Cohn said. Jordi and a government informant bought gasoline cans, flares, starter fluid, and propane tanks the day he was arrested last November after casing several South Florida abortion clinics and talking about bombing one in Macon, Ga., according to the FBI. Prosecutor John Schlesinger said he "respectfully disagreed" with the judge's decision not to sentence Jordi as a terrorist.

2005: A 24-year-old Shreveport woman and her 18-year-old boyfriend have been charged with attempting to bomb an abortion clinic. Authorities say Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe were arrested and booked into City Jail. Hughes was charged with manufacturing and possession of a delayed incendiary device. Dunahoe was charged as an accessory. Hope Medical Group for Women wasn't damaged when someone tossed a Molotov cocktail at it about 10:45 the night of December 12th.

2005: A suspicious fire damaged an abortion clinic, and federal agents launched an investigation, authorities said Tuesday. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined local authorities in the investigation of the blaze late Monday at the Presidential Women's Clinic. No one was injured. Details on the extent of damage were not immediately available. It appeared that lighter fluid or some other accelerant was used to start the blaze, fire department spokesman Phil Kaplan said. A July 2004 fire damaged another Palm Beach County abortion clinic and a 2003 blaze damaged one in neighboring Broward County.

2006: Evidence teams plan to put on protective gear and seal the room as they search for any clues left behind on a contraption that investigators are calling a "weapon of mass destruction." Technicians will be looking for fingerprints and any other evidence that may have been left on the device, which was pumping a mix of water and a caustic chemical into a sex shop when neighbors found it Sunday morning, detectives said. The evidence crew will be breathing the air inside the room, but won't have any unprotected contact with the plastic jugs, duct tape, and hoses that make up the device. In Waldo, people have held prayer vigils and protests aimed at an adult bookstore along US 301, trying to keep the "Cafe Risque" from opening its doors on time.

2006: A man who told police he made a pipe bomb to attack an abortion clinic was arrested Thursday, shortly before the device went off in a friend's home while authorities tried to disable it, according to court documents. ... Weiler faces four federal counts including making a destructive device and possessing an illegal handgun. He was being held Thursday. Phone messages left at Weiler's home were not returned. A car in the driveway had a frame around the front license plate that read "Choose Life" and "God is pro-Life."

Oh, silly me - those aren't the "homegrown terrorists" that the Bush administration is talking about. No, they're talking about the rag-tag group of black men from Miami who were arrested last week for allegedly trying to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago even though they had no weapons, no explosives, no money, and had never been in contact with Al Qaeda. According to the UK Guardian:

Even the FBI admitted as much. John Pistole, the bureau's deputy director, described the plan on Friday as "aspirational rather than operational" and admitted that none of the seven (five US citizens and two Haitian immigrants) had ever featured on a terrorist watch list.

In essence, the entire case rests upon conversations between Narseal Baptiste, the apparent ringleader of the group, with the informant, who was posing as a member of al-Qa'ida but in fact belonged to the South Florida Terrorist Task Force.

At a meeting "on or about 16 December" according to the indictment made public as the men made their first court appearance in Miami, Mr Baptiste asked his contact to supply equipment including uniforms, machine guns, explosives, cars and $50,000 in cash for an "Islamic Army" that would carry out a mission "just as good or greater than 9/11".

In fact, the conspiracy seems to have extended little further than those words. By last month, it had all but fizzled out, amid squabbling among Mr Baptiste's followers.

But what a coup for the Bush administration just months away from the mid-term elections! Hey, did I mention that one of the men was an illegal immigrant?

The Bush Administration

One useful consequence of the "homegrown terrorists" propaganda blitz is that it gives the administration a breather from the Iraq mess. (Did you think we were supposed to be "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here?" Sorry, that's so 2004.)

The administration, along with their Republican friends in Congress, has been claiming for a couple of weeks now that things in Iraq are steadily improving, and that if we just stay the course then victory is just around the corner. Now let's find out what the American Embassy in Baghdad really thinks about the situation in Iraq. According to a cable obtained by the Washington Post from "AMEmbassy Baghdad" to "SecState in Washington, D.C.":

-- "Personal safety depends on good relations with the 'neighborhood' governments, who barricade streets and ward off outsiders. The central government, our staff says, is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or coopted by militias. People no longer trust most neighbors."

-- Iraqi staff at the embassy, beginning in March and picking up in May, report "pervasive" harassment from Islamist and/or militia groups. Cuts in power and rising fuel prices "have diminished the quality of life." Conditions vary but even upscale neighborhoods "have visibly deteriorated" and one of them is now described as a "ghost town."

-- Two of the three female Iraqis in the public affairs office reported stepped-up harassment since mid-May...."some groups are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative." One of the women is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats.

-- It has also become "dangerous" for men to wear shorts in public and "they no longer allow their children to play outside in shorts." People who wear jeans in public have also come under attack.

-- Embassy employees are held in such low esteem their work must remain a secret and they live with constant fear that their cover will be blown. Of nine staffers, only four have told their families where they work. They all plan for their possible abductions. No one takes home their cell phones as this gives them away. One employee said criticism of the U.S. had grown so severe that most of her family believes the U.S. "is punishing populations as Saddam did."

-- Since April, the "demeanor" of guards in the Green Zone has changed, becoming more "militia-like," and some are now "taunting" embassy personnel or holding up their credentials and saying loudly that they work in the embassy: "Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people." For this reason, some have asked for press instead of embassy credentials.

-- The overall environment is one of "frayed social networks," with frequent actual or perceived insults. None of this is helped by lack of electricity. "One colleague told us he feels 'defeated' by circumstances, citing his example of being unable to help his two-year-old son who has asthma and cannot sleep in stifling heat," which is now reaching 115 degrees.

-- Fuel lines have grown so long that one staffer spent 12 hours in line on his day off. "Employees all confirm that by the last week of May, they were getting one hour of power for every six hours without. ... One staff member reported that a friend lives in a building that houses a new minister; within 24 hours of his appointment, her building had city power 24 hours a day."

-- The cable concludes that employees' "personal fears are reinforcing divisive sectarian or ethnic channels, despite talk of reconciliation by officials."

So how long do you think it's going to be before the Bush administration asks Bill O'Reilly to step in and clean up the mess?

Don Goldwater

Not so long ago, the GOP was desperately trying to make illegal immigration a felony (see Idiots 241). But now Republican gubernatorial candidate Don Goldwater has come up with an even better plan - one that the whole nation is going to love! Goldwater's solution is so perfect that we really should find a worthy name for it. Let's see... it should finally stop immigrants from entering the country illegally, so let's call it "Don Goldwater's Final Solution." According to the Associated Press:

Don Goldwater, nephew of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, caused an international stir this week when EFE, a national news agency of Spain, quoted him as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them "as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting."

Labor camps, eh? I guess if it's good enough for Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Kim Jong Il, it's good enough for the U.S.A.

But according to Goldwater, these aren't really labor camps at all - this is simply a "work program" in which immigrants are forced to perform labor and get nothing in return. Er, while they're living in a camp. See? World of difference.

Immigrants enter the country illegally because they can find work, and are drastically underpaid by unscrupulous corporations looking for cheap labor. Goldwater's plan would simply cut out the middleman and force immigrants to work for nothing. I think there's a word for that, let me see here... ah yes:

slav · er · y n. The state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveholder or household.

Actually, come to think of it, that's not a bad idea. Perhaps Don Goldwater should expand upon his idea - instead of putting illegal immigrants in camps, why not hand one out to every household for personal use? They could perform menial labor around the house - cooking, cleaning, babysitting, etc. - and at night they could be chained up in the garden shed. Any escapees could be shot on sight by National Guard troops who are patrolling the streets enforcing the curfew.

Oh, didn't I mention the curfew? Well obviously we'll have to have a curfew.

Dick Cheney

The beauty of this whole labor camp idea is that it could be used as an effective tool against all kinds of troublemakers, not just illegal immigrants. Take Steven Howards, for example, who was arrested in the presence of Dick Cheney at an economic summit in Vail, Colorado, last week. What kind of mischief was Howards up to? According to the Secret Service, he "wasn't acting like the other folks in the area," and "his behavior and demeanor wasn't quite right."

The Secret Service declined to describe how the other folks in the area were acting, nor did they explain what "wasn't quite right" about Howards' demeanor. Nonetheless, according to the Vail Daily News, "officials are reviewing possible federal charges." Send him to the labor camps, I say! We can't have people going around acting differently when the vice president is in town. (Especially not the executive directors of established non-profit environmental organizations.)

But the good news is that Dick Cheney won't end up out of pocket while taking part in these distressing appearances where people occasionally act differently near him. This week he's going to be in Grand Island, Nebraska, to raise money for Adrian Smith, the Republican nominee for the 3rd Congressional District race, where taxpayers will be footing the bill for his security. Likewise, he was in Nashville last month for an event which raised a quarter of a million dollars "toward Republicans' efforts in the 2006 mid-term elections, along with campaigns to get out the vote." Taxpayers had to shell out for that one too.

But if you're a taxpayer who's concerned that Dick Cheney is taking your hard earned cash in order to raise money for Republican candidates and would like to show up at one of these events and let him know, be careful - apparently the First Amendment doesn't cover people who aren't "acting like other folks in the area" these days.

Rush Limbaugh

Remember this from two weeks ago?

ANN COULTER: This is the left's doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9-11 commission, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we are allowed to respond to. No. No. No. We have to respond to someone who had a family member die. Because then if we respond, oh you are questioning their authenticity.

(snip)

MATT LAUER: So if you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?

ANN COULTER: No, but don't use the fact that you lost a husband as the basis for being able to talk about, while preventing people from responding. Let Matt Lauer make the point. Let Bill Clinton make the point. Don't put up someone I am not allowed to respond to without questioning the authenticity of their grief.

Well it hasn't taken long for the word to spread among conservatives: the "left's doctrine of infallibility" is HOT! Here's Rush Limbaugh on Rep. John Murtha last week:

This is the thing: his reputation, folks, Murtha's reputation and image is one of a great war hero, great Marine, been around for a long time, and so he's infallible. He's got credibility. You can't criticize Jack Murtha! Why, he was a Marine! Why, he fought for his country! Why, you can't attack him! The left always throws out these people that you "can't attack," they say. "Why, have you no shame going after Jack Murtha?"

Can you guess what's coming next? Do you think it might possibly be an attack on Murtha, a decorated veteran of Korea and Vietnam? Do you think that Rush has covered himself by playing the Coulter Card? Let's find out...

Well, Jack Murtha, I don't care if he's a Marine or if he was a dogcatcher. If Jack Murtha is going to insert himself in a political sense, which he can and he should, he's a member of the House of Representatives, well, then by golly we're going to respond in kind, and he's stupid.

How's that for supporting the troops?

The Pentagon

Back in the early 1970s, the mental health community all agreed that homosexuality should not be classified as a mental disorder. Unfortunately somebody forgot to tell the Pentagon.

Last week the Associated Press reported that:

A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position.

The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.

Tell you what, instead of killing the Taliban, why doesn't the Pentagon just hire them? I'm sure nobody would be able to tell the difference.

Karl Zinsmeister

And finally, we introduced the new White House chief domestic policy adviser Karl Zinsmeister in Idiots 246 and he was back with a vengeance last week, making some frankly disturbing comments about America's favorite pasttime. And I'm not talking about baseball. It turns out that Zinsmeister has an entirely warped view of - ewww! - sex.

In an interview with PBS given before he got his new job, Zinsmeister says, "family breakdown ... is the root not only of our poverty problem; it's the root of our crime problem, the root of our drug problem; it's the root of many of our social pathologies." And what's the root of family breakdown? You guessed it - shagging.

"It's something - it's intense; it's fire. It drives people to insanity. ... People fall in love with prostitutes. People kill prostitutes. All kinds of things happen in the heat of sexual passion, so my point is because it's fire it needs to be governed and treated with respect and treated carefully."

Er, people kill prostitutes? What people? And where were you between the hours of midnight and 2 AM last night, Mr. Zinsmeister?

Seriously though - who besides Jack the Ripper goes around saying that the "intense fire" of sex "drives people to insanity" and makes them "kill prostitutes?" Who besides Jack the Ripper and the White House chief domestic policy adviser, that is?

See you next week!

--EarlG