The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 327

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 327

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 327

March 3, 2008
Bubble Trouble Edition

This week George W. Bush (1,2) retakes the top spot, despite John McCain's (4,5,6) spectacular effort. Tim Goeglein (7), Michael Mukasey (9), and Jack Kingston (10) bring up the rear. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

George W. Bush

Ever since he came to power in 2001, George W. Bush has been comfortably enveloped in a bubble of tight security; wrapped in a blanket of propaganda by his closest aides. Which might explain why:

On August 6th 2001 he ignored the President's Daily Briefing entitled, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US."

On December 21 2001, just three months after the 9/11 attacks, he said "all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me."

On May 1 2003, he stood in front of a big "Mission Accomplished" banner and said, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

At the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner in 2004, he took part in a tone-deaf "comedy" video which mocked his own inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

On September 2 2005, after ignoring the trapped and dying victims of Hurricane Katrina for several days, he showed up and told the completely incompetent guy in charge, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Now, you may think that losing Congress to the Democrats would have done something to break Our Great Leader out of his comfort zone and perhaps pay attention to what's going on in the world. But just like George W. Bush, the bubble is still pretty thick.

For example, compare this story from last week...

The sluggish U.S. job market deteriorated further last week, adding to troubling signs for an economy that barely grew in the final quarter of 2007, according to government reports on Thursday.

(snip)

Separate data showed gross domestic product, which measures total goods and service output in the United States, rose in the fourth quarter at a glacial annual rate of 0.6 percent, slowing almost to a halt from the rapid 4.9 percent pace in the previous three months.

The growth rate was the same as the Commerce Department's first estimate delivered a month ago, defying expectations of an upward revision and heightening fears that the world's largest economy may slip into recession this year.

...to this story from last week:

President Bush said Thursday the country is not recession-bound and, despite expressing concern about slowing economic growth, rejected for now any additional stimulus efforts. "We acted robustly," he said.

Or compare this statement from Bush's press conference last week...

BUSH: I, frankly, have been focused elsewhere, like on gasoline prices...

...to this exchange from the exact same press conference:

QUESTION: What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now - facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing -

BUSH: Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gas?

QUESTION: A number of analysts are predicting $4 a gallon gasoline this spring when they reformulate.

BUSH: That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.

But to be honest, I'm not complaining. You see, it just makes this story so much more reassuring:

President Bush predicted Monday that voters will replace him with a Republican president who will "keep up the fight" in Iraq. "I'm confident we'll hold the White House in 2008," Bush told donors at the Republican Governors Association annual dinner...

(snip)

"When I say I'm confident, I am so because I understand the mentality of the American people," Bush said. "And I understand the mentality of our candidates. And there's no question in my mind, with your help, 2008 is going to be a great year."

George W. Bush

The good news is that George W. Bush won't be expected to leave his bubble after his term ends next January. If he ever needs to be reminded of what an awesome, awesome president he was, he can just swing by the George W. Bush presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. According to Think Progress:

In Nov. 2006, President Bush launched "an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library. That campaign finally paid off last week when officials at Southern Methodist University announced that the Dallas-based university will be home to Bush's $200 million library - despite protests from faculty, administrators and staff.

However, the George W. Bush Presidential Center will come with a catch. It "will also feature an institute - independent of academic governance of the university - to sponsor research and programs designed to "promote the vision of the president" and "celebrate" Bush's presidency. One university professor said that "(a)cademics everywhere should be concerned about this" adding that it "goes against the idea of dispassionate inquiry"

The professor in question, Benjamin Hufbauer, said:

...the model agreed to at SMU was "totally different" from the approaches at other universities with presidential libraries. The institute that is part of the complex "has a partisan agenda - that's very significant," he said.

"Academics everywhere should be concerned about this. Clearly this goes against the idea of dispassionate inquiry, of looking at things on the basis of fact and merit. If it's ideological, that's opposed to the mission of a university," Hufbauer said.

So I guess now we know why Bush is so fond of saying that historians will judge his presidency - because $200 million sure buys a lot of history.

Bill Cunningham

Thanks mainly to conservative talk radio, John McCain has not been on particularly good terms with the GOP base. But that all changed recently when the New York Times published a story about McCain and his exceedingly friendly friendship with a female lobbyist. (See Idiots 325.)

If there's one thing wingnuts hate more than John McCain, it's the New York Times. (I don't know why - they seemed pretty keen on the Times when the administration wanted to invade Iraq.) And so an uneasy alliance formed, with the talkers defending McCain from the evil, devilish, left-wing media. Even Rush Limbaugh started to come up with lame excuses for supporting the guy he's been trashing for the past eight years. (See Idiots 325.)

Unfortunately it all came crashing down again last week, when local GOP officials tapped radio big mouth Bill Cunningham to open for McCain at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In the GOP stronghold of Cincinnati, right-wing radio host Bill Cunningham whipped up a crowd of more than 300 supporters by using Barack Obama's middle name often, ripping Hillary Clinton as a first lady and referring to former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as an "ugly, old woman."

Some people cheered, while others sat shocked.

"At some point the media will stop taking sides and start covering Barack Hussein Obama the same way they cover Cheney and Bush," Cunningham roared.

McCain quickly realized that one of his supporters had gone a bit "off message."

Afterward, he walked up to a crowd of reporters and apologized for Cunningham's words. He said he respects Clinton and Obama and called them "honorable Americans."

McCain said he had no idea who brought Cunningham on stage, that he didn't invite Cunningham and had never met him.

Yeah right.

He said it will never happen again. He said he refuses to make disparaging remarks about his opponents.

Except when he accuses them of "accepting defeat to terrorism."

But anyway, McCain's apology didn't go down too well with Bill Cunningham. First he complained to CNN:

A conservative radio talk-show host said that "he's had it up to here" with Sen. John McCain after the GOP presidential candidate repudiated the commentator's remarks about Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at a campaign event.

"John McCain threw me under a bus -- under the 'Straight Talk Express,' " Bill Cunningham told CNN on Tuesday, referring to McCain's campaign bus.

And then to Fox News:

Cunningham says he was told by party officials to give the audience red meat to warm up the crowd that came to see McCain. He says he did and the crowd loved it, but McCain then threw him under the bus. Cunningham says McCain has now lost his support.

"I'm gonna follow the lead of Ann Coulter. I've had it with John McCain," Cunningham told FOX News' "Hannity & Colmes."

"I'm going to endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton for president because she would do a better job in the Oval Office, I think, than the liberal John McCain. I'm done with him."

Cunningham said McCain "embarrassed himself," and then made up a name of his own for the Arizona senator, "John Juan Pablo McCain," an apparent reference to McCain's sponsorship of immigration reform legislation.

Yes, it certainly seems as if navigating the waters of conservative support will be a treacherous business this year...

John McCain and John Hagee

John McCain's handling of Bill Cunningham demonstrates that he truly is a man of principle who means what he says and will quickly denounce and reject any supporter if their rhetoric crosses the line. Um, unless that supporter happens to be a massively popular leader among conservative Christians that McCain can't win the general election without.

Last week McCain was endorsed by John Hagee, "a San Antonio pastor with a worldwide broadcast ministry" according to CBS News, who has a portfolio of bigoted statements that would make Jerry Falwell blush. For example:

"I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."

Or...

"Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist."

And then of course there's...

The San Antonio Express-News reported that Hagee was going to "meet with black religious leaders privately at an unspecified future date to discuss comments he made in his newsletter about a 'slave sale,' an East Side minister said Wednesday." The Express-News reported:

"Hagee, pastor of the 16,000-member Cornerstone Church, last week had announced a 'slave sale' to raise funds for high school seniors in his church bulletin, 'The Cluster.'

"The item was introduced with the sentence 'Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone" and ended with "Make plans to come and go home with a slave."

And let's not forget Hagee's comments about the Catholic church, which he likes to refer to as "'The Great Whore', and 'apostate church', the 'anti-Christ', and a 'false cult system,'" according to the Cleveland Leader.

Meanwhile, as Matthew Yglesias at The Atlantic points out:

Barack Obama never sought support from Louis Farrakhan, never appeared on stage with Farrakhan, never pronounced himself proud to be backed by Farrakhan, but was nonetheless asked on national television to specifically disavow the man. People don't want to put a political coalition that includes Farrakhan in office.

McCain and his staff actively sought out Hagee's endorsement, he appeared and campaigned with Hagee, he said he was proud to be backed by Hagee. Hagee is, in short, part of McCain's political strategy.

But all this seems to be of no concern to John McCain. Last week his campaign released a statement which read:

"Yesterday, Pastor John Hagee endorsed my candidacy for president in San Antonio, Texas. However, in no way did I intend for his endorsement to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee's views, which I obviously do not.

"I am hopeful that Catholics, Protestants and all people of faith who share my vision for the future of America will respond to our message of defending innocent life, traditional marriage, and compassion for the most vulnerable in our society."

Perhaps we should label this John McCain's First Law Of Integrity: the amount of strength used to reject bigots shall be inversely proportional to the size of their audience.

John McCain

Pacifying the rabid right is obviously not the only thing John McCain needs to do if he wants to win in November. According to the Associated Press, he said last week that "to win the White House he must convince a war-weary country that U.S. policy in Iraq is succeeding."

Now why does that ring a bell?

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." -- George W. Bush, May 24, 2005

Oh yes, of course.

But what happens if McCain fails to catapult the propaganda? Well it's quite simple:

"Then I lose. I lose," the Republican said.

Wow, bold words from this straight-talking presidential candidate. You know, a lesser man would probably be quick to back off that remark.

He quickly backed off that remark.

"Let me not put it that stark," the likely GOP nominee told reporters on his campaign bus. "Let me just put it this way: Americans will judge my candidacy first and foremost on how they believe I can lead the county both from our economy and for national security."

Okay, well let's see how McCain stacks up on national security and the economy. Here's George W. Bush's 2001 plan for catching Osama bin Laden:

"He's on the run. We're going to get him running and keep him running and bring him to justice."

And here's John McCain's 2008 plan for catching Osama bin Laden:

"If I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice."

Hmm. Well, maybe McCain's plan for the economy is better.

At a recent meeting with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Republican presidential candidate John McCain admitted he "doesn't really understand economics."

I guess not.

John McCain

What with all this confusion on national security and the economy - not to mention having to walk a fine line to figure out which mad-eyed racists it's okay to be supported by - McCain doesn't seem to know where he is or what he's doing any more.

"I will conduct a respectful debate," McCain told the crowd at Texas Instruments, per ABC News' Bret Hovell. "Now, it will be spirited because there are stark differences. I am a proud conservative, liberal Republica -- conservative Republican," he said, catching himself. "Hello?" he said as the crowd laughed. "Easy there."

A proud conservative liberal Republican, eh? Well I guess that should cover all the bases.

Tim Goeglein

You may not be familiar with the name, but Tim Goeglein has quite an impressive resume. He's been working inside the White House since 2001, where, according to the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, he's "the Bush administration's liaison to religious organizations." Watching The Watchers also notes that he has served as "a former TV news producer and communications director for Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), (and) is a graduate of the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indiana University."

I wonder what Ernie Pyle would make of this?

A Fort Wayne native and White House official acknowledged Friday he copied large portions of an essay that appeared in a Dartmouth College publication and presented them as his own in a News-Sentinel column.

"It is true," Tim Goeglein wrote to The Journal Gazette in an email. "I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses."

He said he wrote to the author of the essay, Jeffrey Hart "to apologize, and do so categorically and without exception."

Nancy Nall, a former News-Sentinel columnist who writes a blog from her home in Michigan, detailed the nearly word-for-word similarities of eight paragraphs of Goeglein's 16-pargraph essay about college education, which appeared in the News-Sentinel Thursday, and Hart's column, which was written about a decade ago.

Oh dear. Still, at least he apologized for this transgression, right? I mean, it's not like he's made a habit out of doing this, right?

The newspaper said that 20 of 38 columns Goeglein had written for it from 2000 to 2008 "have been found to have portions copied from other sources without attribution."

Um.

WHNT-TV

Last week, CBS' 60 Minutes ran a report that, according to the New York Times, "strongly suggested that Don Siegelman, Alabama's former Democratic governor, was wrongly convicted of corruption last year." The report also implicated Karl Rove in the political prosecution of Siegelman.

But wouldn't you know it - when time came for the report to run, the CBS affilliate for northern Alabama, WHNT, suddenly experienced mysterious "technical difficulties" that blacked out the entire segment. WHNT then ran a trailer which read, "We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring 'The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.' It was a technical problem with CBS out of New York."

Scott Horton of Harper's magazine (who also has a good synopsis of the Siegelman story here) decided to check this out. He writes:

I contacted CBS News in New York and was told that "There were no transmission difficulties. The problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters."

It's okay though, because WHNT generously decided to re-broadcast the segment - at 10pm, right around the time that the Oscar for best actor was being announed over on ABC. How convenient!

Michael Mukasey

Still, at least the Justice Department's Alberto Gonzales/Karl Rove problems are all in the past. Now that Michael Mukasey is the new attorney general, perhaps we can see some movement on these disgraceful corruption cases. Mukasey could start by dealing with the contempt charges against Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers which the House passed a couple of weeks ago, 223-32 (see Idiots 325) after they blew off subpoenas to appear before the Judiciary Committee.

Wait, what's this?

Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused Friday to refer the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury.

(snip)

Mukasey said Bolten and Miers were right in ignoring subpoenas to provide Congress with White House documents or testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.

Oh. Well, I guess Mukasey has far more pressing matters to deal with right now. For example...

The FBI took up the Roger Clemens case Thursday, told by the Justice Department to investigate whether the star pitcher lied when he testified to Congress he never took performance-enhancing drugs.

Jack Kingston

And finally, as you may have noticed from Bill Cunningham's remarks, if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee this year the right-wing plan of attack will go something like this:

Barack Hussein Osama Muslim Communist Unpatriotic Terrorist!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, it really does look like the GOP wants to finally cement its status as the tiny party of clueless angry xenophobic bigots in 2008, and it's up to folks like Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Naturally) to spread the word on TV. During an appearance on Live With Dan Abrams last week, the following exchange took place:

ABRAMS Now, isn't this pure sleaze? I mean, the notion to sort of attack Obama based on the fact that he's not patriotic because they got a picture of with his hands down when the Pledge of Allegiance was being played?

KINGSTON: Well I think that there's just questions that the American people want to know about, I mean, when, when, if you listen to why he doesn't wear an American flag button it's a very convoluted answer, and, you know, American flag buttons, I've been in politics, you've been around politicians a long time Dan, everybody wears them, from a mayor to county commissioner, to members of Congress, to the president. And it's curious that suddenly there's a guy that doesn't want to do it.

Ooh, yes, that is curious! You know, the more I think about it, the more it seems that Barack Obama hates the United States of America. After all, the guy doesn't wear a flag button. Case closed.

Now for the fun part:

ABRAMS: Congressman, first let me ask you, you're not wearing a lapel pin are you?

KINGSTON: I will wear one and I have worn one. I'm not making a statement about it.

ABRAMS: But you see my point? I mean, I had no idea you were going to show up without a lapel pin, but it seems kind of absurd that you're saying that Barack Obama's patriotism should be questioned because he's not wearing a lapel pin, and then you come on the show not wearing one.

See you next week!

-- EarlG