The
Top Ten Conservative Idiots (Week 47)
December
10, 2001
There's One Terrible President Edition

Christmas is fast approaching, but don't worry! We've done
your holiday shopping for conservative idiocy, and wrapped
them all up nice for you in a convenient ten-pack. Topping
the list this week is none other than George W. Bush, who
sets the standard for idiocy in a time of national crisis.
John Ashcroft (2) finally puts the brakes on his anti-constitutional
jihad. Bill O'Reilly (3) has a small problem with the honesty
factor. J.C. Watts (5) is back for the second week in a row.
Meanwhile, the Salvation Army (6) goes soft on pedophiles,
Enron execs (7) line their own pockets, Linda Tripp (8) loses
her house, and one crazy guy with a gun (9) gets a little
irked by some Christmas lights.
George
W. Bush
There is little doubt that the pivotal moment in George W.
Bush's presidency, and probably the most important moment
in his entire life, was when two airplanes collided with the
World Trade Center on September 11. It may also come to be
remembered as a defining moment for his own conservative idiocy.
According to the UK Guardian, when an eight-year-old in Florida
asked Bush what he thought after the first plane crash, Bush
responded:
"There's one terrible pilot." Perhaps sensing the sheer
vapidity of his response, he hastily added "It must have
been a horrible accident." It's such a typical conservative
reaction, to laugh at the incompetence of the pilot before
lamely acknowledging the suffering of the victims as an irritated
afterthought. Bush also claimed that he learned about the
crash by watching it on TV ("the TV was obviously on")
just before he started reading to a bunch of elementary school
children, even though published reports indicate that he got
the news by phone from Condoleeza Rice, his National Security
Advisor. There's one terrible president.
John
Ashcroft
John Ashcroft has gone completely insane.
In the last three months, he has led an all-fronts, full-scale
attack on our most basic constitutional protections. Vast
numbers of people are being detained for little or no reason.
Our privacy is being chipped away. Our "justice system"
now includes military tribunals, secret evidence, and wiretapping
of attorney-client conversations. And more of what we say
by phone or Internet is being monitored. But (predictably)
the Attorney General drew the line when he felt that gun rights
were being threatened. When the FBI asked to use gun purchase
records to see if detainees had bought weapons, he denied
the request. Apparently, in Ashcroft's world if you say the
wrong thing or if you look the wrong way then you've damn
near committed treason. But if you're suspected of terrorism
and you buy a gun, that's none of the government's business.
What would a terrorist want a gun for anyway? Everyone knows
that guns are for protecting freedom. (Duh!)
Bill
O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly likes to tell his viewers that his television
program is a "no-spin zone." It seems that he could
also be calling it a "frequent-lapses-into-outright-lying
zone." Last week, CNN's Bill Press exposed
this egotistical blowhard for the lying fraud that he is.
Press writes that after he appeared on "The O'Reilly
Factor," O'Reilly was trumpeting what a fair guy he was
because he let Bill Press, a liberal, on his show, but "you
wouldn't see me on CNN." It seems that O'Lie-ly would
have us believe that liberal CNN is afraid to have
him as a guest. If only it were true. Says Press: "Last
Spring, during a debate on the Don Imus show, my co-host Tucker
Carlson invited O'Reilly to be a guest on CNN's 'The Spin
Room.' He agreed. Then he ducked multiple requests and never
showed." Caution: You are about to enter a no-spine
zone.
Bob
Barr
Useless Bob has surely got a lock on Capitol Hill's coveted
"Brownest Nose" award. Barr's pathetic crusade to enforce
new laws on the DC area's Metro system, requiring that they
change all the signs reading "National Airport" to "Ronald
Reagan National Airport" has finally come to and end. The
winner - Bob Barr's ego. The losers - Virginian taxpayers.
Barr has fought tooth and nail to have the signs changed (at
a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars) by basically claiming
that tourists are incredibly stupid. "Honey, the map says
National Airport, but I swear we want Ronald Reagan
National Airport." "Gee, you're right. But I don't see a station
marked Ronald Reagan National Airport. Just this one here
called National Airport. Now I'm so confused I don't know
where I am or what my name is." The Washington Post
reported Bob as sniffing, "Entities that receive hundreds
of millions of taxpayer dollars should not allow the partisan
views of its leadership to be the deciding factor in which
laws they will or will not follow." Yeah, because there's
nothing partisan about Bob wanting to force an unwilling Metro
system to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just so he
can demonstrate how far his head is up Reagan's backside.
Oh, but I forgot - Bob's simply wants accuracy. This has nothing
at all to do with partisanship. So with that in mind I'm
sure you'll soon see him insisting that Metro change the name
of the Stadium/Armory station to its more correct title -
Robert F. Kennedy Stadium/Armory. Yes, in your dreams maybe.
J.C.
Watts
EDITOR'S NOTE: Whoops! Looks like we screwed this one up.
We failed to notice that this story, which was emailed to
us, was actually two years old. Unlike Rush and the conservative
media, we admit it when we make an error. But we still think
J.C. Watts is an Idiot and a Hypocrite.
J.C. Watts is a fine, upstanding American who knows the meaning
of those great Republican values like honesty, integrity,
and keeping your word. So when Watts promised the people of
Oklahoma's fourth district back in 1994 that he would only
serve three terms in Congress, they probably expected the
thick-necked former footballer to, well, serve three terms.
Such foolish constituents. Turns
out that ol' J.C. is gonna run again, "regardless
of what I said in 1994 about term limits." Whatever,
it was just a stupid campaign promise. It's not like he signed
a pledge or anything - oh, wait, actually, he did
sign a pledge. No doubt, he had his fingers crossed as he
was doing it. I wonder what Watts, the former associate pastor
of Sunnylane Southern Baptist Church, thinks about that pesky
commandment about "bearing false witness."
The
Salvation Army
It's the holiday season again, which could only mean one thing:
It's time to stiff the homophobic Salvation Army bell-ringers
at the mall. But for those of you who are still dropping change
into the little red bucket, consider this nugget
of conservative filth... Not only is the Salvation Army anti-gay,
but they are also pro-pedophile. According to a lawsuit filed
in Kenai, Alaska, the minister of the local Salvation Army
church molested three children, all members of his congregation.
The parents got in touch with the Salvation Army commander
in Anchorage, but instead of reporting the allegations to
authorities, the Salvation Army instead assigned one of its
officers to talk to the minister. One wonders what sort of
"talk" this officer had with the minister. Because
apparently that official also was indicted last spring
on charges of sexual abuse and second-degree sodomy of boys
under 14. So, according to the Salvation Army, consensual
sex between adults = BAD! Nonconsensual sex with children
= A-OK! Maybe this Christmas you should send your spare change
here
instead.
Greedy
Enron Executives
As if the Enron bankruptcy story weren't disgusting enough
already: Greedy corporate bastards lie about profits to the
tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Stock goes
into a nosedive. Execs lock the 401(k) plan so employees can't
sell as stock goes from $90 to zero in a blink of an eye.
Retirement accounts vaporized. Thousands out of work. But
last week, the story got even uglier. It turns out that Enron
handed out $55
million to its executives just two days before
declaring bankruptcy. Of course, this wasn't an example of
looting the store before it burned to the ground. Enron calls
them "stay-on" payments, "to retain key employees
in critical businesses" for 90 days. Considering that they've
done such a crappy job for the last few years, one wonders
what, exactly, these key employees will be doing for 90 days
that makes them so valuable. Figuring ways to move large sums
of money to secret accounts in Switzerland and/or the Cayman
Islands, perhaps?
Linda
Tripp
The Washington Post reports
that Linda Tripp is facing foreclosure on her home in Columbia,
Maryland. According to her lawyer, "it's been very difficult
for Linda to focus on where her career goes from this point
in her life." Ironically, she kept her job at the Pentagon
up until the end of the Clinton Administration, but was unceremoniously
fired the moment Bush took office. Poor Linda, none of her
old conservative friends are returning any of her phone calls
now. I guess sticking your nose in the private business of
the President of the United States isn't such a marketable
skill anymore. And speaking of noses... One wonders if Linda
would be in danger of losing her house if she hadn't blown
all that cash on cosmetic surgery.
Dumb
Gun Guy
Guns.
Where would we be without them? A gun is an excellent tool
which can be used for hunting, target shooting, home and personal
defense - but what the NRA won't tell you is that a
gun is also excellent for simple stress relief! Take the example
of James Craig Wilson of Vancouver, Washington. James, an
obviously levelheaded and well-balanced individual, was having
a splendid afternoon until he was suddenly faced with a shocking
personal trauma.
That's right - he couldn't get his Christmas lights untangled.
Now we all know that a situation like that would drive any
sane person into a wild and uncontrollable rage, but then
things went from bad to worse. While James was wrestling with
the lights in his driveway, his daughter returned home and
drove over them. Jumping Jehosephat! What's a man to do? James
decided that the best way to deal with this highly irritating
situation was to go round to the back of his house and start
firing his .45 into the ground. Sadly the local sheriff's
deputies showed up and had to explain to James that they weren't
so convinced about the therapeutic value of popping a cap
in your grass. Ah, responsible gun ownership at its finest.
Trent
Lott
And
finally, it seems that Shameless Trent will grasp at any available
news hook. Consider this bizarre attempt to score rhetorical
points using the death of George Harrison. We couldn't possibly
make this sound any more ridiculous than Roll Call did:
"Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) opened his
press briefing Friday with a somewhat odd reference to George
Harrison, the ex-Beatle who died last week after a battle
with brain cancer. 'Since September 11th, in honor of George
Harrison, I'd have to say it's been a hard day's night,'Lott
said of the workload on Capitol Hill. The response from reporters
was lukewarm, to say the least, because it seemed like an
awkward way of referring to the former Beatle's death. But
Lott tried again a moment later. The Minority Leader said
he's hoping bipartisanship will break out because 'In this
hard day's night, we still have some urgent and emergency
things' to get done. This comment also didn't elicit much
of a response from the crowd. In the hallway after the briefing,
Lott asked some scribes why they hadn't reacted more positively
to his tribute and then proceeded to read off the lyrics from
'Hard Day's Night.' After still failing to get a good reception,
he quipped, in apparent reference to the stimulus package,
'Money can't buy me love.'" See you next week!
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