The
Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 68)
May
20, 2002
Bush Knew Edition
Sometimes
things happen that are just so disgraceful that it's hard
to make jokes about them. Last week was one of those times.
The first six slots on this week's list are all related to
last week's bombshell revelation: Bush Knew. We could
have easily used all ten slots for this story, but frankly
we just got so disgusted that after a while we had to give
up and look for other things to talk about. Proceed with caution,
this top ten list is positively shameful. (Don't forget the
key.)
George
W. Bush
So, George knew all along - he just didn't want to tell anyone.
It was revealed
last week that the Bush administration was warned back in
August that Al Qaeda would soon attack America in a memo carrying
the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Funny
that they forgot about that memo in the eight months since
September 11. Of course, the Bush Administration is claiming
that there was nothing they could have done (except put John
Ashcroft on noncommercial
aircraft, keeping George out
of Washington, etc.) and that they had no idea that Al
Qaeda would use hijacked aircraft to attack targets on American
soil. Um, except that a 1999 CIA report acknowledged that
"Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom
Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives
(C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House."
Wait a second though - who was president in 1999? That's right,
Bill Clinton! Better blame him. Unless of course you consider
the fact that while the last two administrations have known
about this threat, Al Qaeda didn't manage to attack
America on Bill Clinton's watch. No, they only managed it
after our friend Dubya cheated his way into office and told
the FBI to back
off the bin Ladens. What a coincidence. Now Bush and his
cronies are desperately trying to blame Democrats for their
own stupid f***-ups. Nice try, but we have a feeling it's
not going to work this time.
Dick
Cheney
Meanwhile, as the administration reeled from these accusations,
Dick Cheney kicked into damage control mode to accuse
skeptical Democrats of playing politics and asking "incendiary"
and "irresponsible" questions. That's right - if
you ask any awkward questions about the administration's complete
and utter failure to communicate terrorism warnings to the
public, and want to know why they covered up the fact that
they had this knowledge for eight months after the attacks,
then you're playing politics. Got that, survivors
and relatives of the disaster? Just shut your mouths.
But hang on a second - wasn't it Undisclosed Dick who wanted
Tom Daschle to back
off on congressional investigations into the events leading
up to 9/11? Gee, I wonder why... could it be because the nation
may have found the results of the investigation "incendiary,"
and that the administration's behavior was thoroughly "irresponsible?"
George
W. Bush (again)
But here's a funny thing - George W. Bush didn't seem to have
any problems with using the 9/11 attacks for political gain
when he appeared at a record-breaking GOP fundraiser last
week. The RNC were selling
photos of "the defining moments of 'The First Year' of the
George W. Bush presidency," for $150 a pop - one of the photos
was of George W. Bush making a phone call from Air Force One
on September 11. So, George, just to recap: if questions are
asked about why you didn't tell anyone that you knew there
were suicide-hijacking threats, that's playing politics.
But if you sell September 11 photos to make a profit for your
political party, despite the fact that you ran like a frightened
rabbit, that's returning honor and integrity to the White
House. Did I get that right?
Ari
Fleischer
Poor Ari had his work cut out for him last week. Sweat oozed
from his brow as he castigated all and sundry for playing
politics, and then proceeded to blame his boss's incompetence
on everyone from congressional Democrats to Bill Clinton.
Unfortunately Ari is still a terrible, terrible liar. According
to the Associated Press, he claimed that, "information
was passed to the airlines and airports more than once last
summer." Funny - one only has to surf over to the fair-and-balanced
Fox News website to discover
that, "no warnings indicated that a Sept. 11 scenario
was credible or possible," "we�re not aware of any warnings
or notifications of any specific threats," and "we were not
notified by the federal government," according to spokespersons
from United Airlines, Delta Airlines, and the Massachusetts
Port Authority. So which is it, Ari? Better be careful of
that spin - you're liable to get dizzy, and we don't want
you puking all over the press corps. Oh, wait a second. You
already kinda do that anyway.
Ari
Fleischer (again)
And so it comes to this: the most disgraceful and transparent
piece of hypocrisy I think this list has ever seen. First
of all the White House puts pressure on congressional Democrats
to "back off" any investigations of the events leading
up to September 11 - not that they have anything to hide,
of course. Like, for example, that they might have known something
was going to happen beforehand. But it turns out that now
everyone knows what a lying bunch of bastards they are, the
administration are bending somewhat on the concept of an investigation.
Don't get too excited though - according to our old friend
Ari, the White House doesn't want "a fishing expedition" that
becomes "an endless waste of taxpayer money in an open-ended
congressional investigation." Heaven forbid! Heaven forbid
that we should endlessly waste taxpayers money on an open-ended
congressional investigation into why the World Trade Center
was demolished! After all, we just spent the last eight years
endlessly wasting taxpayers money investigating a blow
job fer chrissakes, which is obviously far more
important! ARRGH!
Porter
Goss
Don't worry, Dubya... The Republicans have got your back.
After the stunning 9/11 revelations last week, many Democrats
(and even a few Republicans) were calling for an investigation
of, ahem, What did the president know, and when did he
know it? Fortunately for Bush, he's got a bunch of un-American
lackeys to carry his water for him in Congress. Consider Porter
Goss, chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Goss
insists that no investigation is necessary, because his committee
has already looked into the events of 9/11 and (surprise!)
found nothing. Boy, I feel much better knowing that Porter
Goss has cleared the President and the entire United States
government of any wrongdoing. For good measure, Mr. Goss shared
this nugget
of Ashcroftian wisdom: "The only thing that this uproar does
is give aid and comfort to the enemy and I don't think there's
anybody who wants to give aid and comfort to the terrorists."
Shameful.
J.C.
Watts
Did
you hear who celebrated his first birthday last week? All
the Congressional Republicans were there for the party, and
they even ate a delicious
cake. Give up? Our good friend Bush Tax Cut is
one year old! And what a year it's been. (Lost your job? No
worries... have some cake!) Of course, while the American
people are suffering, stupid Republicans are spinning. Never
mind the dramatic economic downturn (and budget deficit upturn)
since the Bush economic package was signed into law - there
is absolutely no relationship between the two events.
Unless you consider this piece of Nobel-worthy economic spin,
courtesy of Representative J.C. Watts: "I hate to think where
we would be on the economy had we not passed the tax relief
bill." Me too, J.C. I hate to think about a year of Clinton-style
economic prosperity and budget surpluses, which was squandered
by a bunch of dumbass Republican knuckleheads.
Jeb
Bush
Crying Jeb bent over last week and showed us that he has "hypocrisy"
written all over his ass.
Despite the fact that his daughter Noelle - who was recently
arrested for attempting to purchase the controlled substance
Xanax using a fake prescription - was sentenced to treatment
rather than jail, Jebby is coming down hard against a proposition
that would treat regular people like members of the Bush Royal
Family. The Florida ballot proposition would require
that first- and second-time nonviolent drug offenders be given
treatment, as opposed to jail time. The proposal include consequences
- in some cases more severe than the current drug court penalties
- if an offender fails the treatment program. But this isn't
good enough for Jeb. "This amendment would destroy the
best drug court system in the country," he said. Yes,
we must lock up all those nasty drug-abusers! Uh - unless
we're related to them, eh Jeb?
Lowell
Ponte
With the smell of blood in the air, conservative idiots across
the country are trying their hardest to place the blame for
9/11 on Anyone But Bush. The favorite scapegoat is
(of course) Bill Clinton, but the GOP will try anyone until
the charges stick. (Heck, Ari Fleisher even tried to pass
some of the responsibility off on Dianne Feinstein, for crissakes.)
But conservative columnist and radio personality Lowell Ponte
takes the cake for kookiest effort to shift blame. His culprit:
Jimmy Carter. "Jimmy Carter is therefore part of the
reason why Osama bin Laden operatives slammed airliners into
the World Trade Center and Pentagon last September 11th,"
Ponte pontificates.
"And yet, with the blood of perhaps a million people
dripping from his hands, Jimmy Carter continues to stalk the
world in his sick quest to be given a Nobel Peace Prize. In
fact, Jimmy Carter arguably has done more to undermine and
destroy world peace than any other human being now alive."
I guess that whole Israel/Egypt thing was just a fluke.
Capital
Christian School
And finally, even though the big news was in Washington
last week, the world continues to turn (for now) and conservative
idiots are cropping up all over. Take the Capital Christian
School in Sacramento, CA, for example. The school recently
expelled a kindergarten student three weeks before the end
of the school year. What was the five-year-old's crime? Did
she bring some children's Tylenol to school? Was she caught
in possession of a potentially dangerous Blue's Clues pencil
sharpener? No - I'm afraid it's much more heinous than that.
The kindergartner was expelled because the girl's father had
stopped paying his half of her tuition and her mother had
taken a job as a stripper to make ends meet. That's right
- upon discovering that her mother was so poor the only way
she could provide for her child's education was by dancing
nude, the school did the decent, Christian thing and kicked
out the stupid kid. How dare she force her mother into such
acts of debauchery! See you next week!
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