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The
Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 113)
June
9, 2003
Franken Spanken Edition
 You
are about to enter a Thin-Skin Zone - because that pathetic
crybaby Bill O'Reilly is in the top two spots of our
list this week, after receiving a much-deserved verbal drubbing
from Al Franken. Meanwhile, George W. Bush (3) is puttering
around the Middle East in a golf cart, and we learned that
Dick Cheney (4) was putting pressure on U.S. intelligence
agencies to cook their reports. We've also got a couple of
homophobes, the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts (6)
and John Ashcroft (7). In Congress, we've got Bill Frist (8)
still pushing his ridiculous filibuster-busting scheme, and
Tom DeLay (9) helping cover up the fact that we still haven't
found any WMDs in Iraq. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!
 Bill
O'Reilly
Poor, downtrodden Bill O'Reilly was "ganged up on"
by two liberals last week at a book expo in Los Angeles (after
Tucker Carlson failed to show up, not that anyone noticed)
and proved to the world that he really is a blustering wimp
who simply can't take it. O'Reilly, Molly Ivins and Al Franken
appeared at the expo to discuss their new books, but when
Al Franken started to have a go at O'Reilly's uncorrected
"mis-speakings" things started to heat
up. See, some time ago O'Reilly lied repeatedly about
getting a prestigious Peabody Award for "Inside Edition."
(It turns out that the show did receive an award, but it was
a Polk - and it was a year after O'Reilly left.) Yet for some
reason, plain-speaking, "no-spin" Bill has never
admitted that he tried to pass off this falsehood as the truth,
and instead tries to blow it off like it was some kind of
verbal gaffe. So when Franken decided to point this out to
Bill, Mr. Fair And Balanced exploded. First, O'Reilly
hilariously contradicted a statement he'd made earlier in
the afternoon claiming that he doesn't "call people names,"
by immediately referring to Franken as an "idiot,"
a "propagandist," and "vicious." He then
resorted to the same tactics he used on Jeremy Glick, the
son of a 9/11 victim (see Idiots 98)
by screaming at Franken to "Shut up! Shut up!" Ah
yes, that's our Bill - always trying to "elevate the
discourse." (To see the video of Bill's mature and statesmanlike
performance, click here.)
 Bill
O'Reilly (continued)
After the book expo, O'Reilly hammered the final nail into
his credibility coffin when asked about the "idiot"
comment by a reporter. His response: "If I said it, I
misspoke." Wait a second. If I said it? Misspoke?
Surely that's not... spin I'm hearing is it? Fortunately
Bill quickly cleared up the matter, adding, "I stand
by my description." Uh... so did you misspeak or not?
I'm confused. Anyway, it wasn't long before oppressed Bill
was back on his syndicated national radio show and top-rated
cable news show, complaining about how he was at a "decided
disadvantage" (oh, poor baby) and lying about Franken
going over his time limit by twenty minutes - it was actually
about five minutes, but hey. Bill then elevated the discourse
to this
level (and if you're interested, we also have a link to
the audio):
"In the Old West, and I would have loved to have been
in the Old West, Al and I, we would have had a little shootout.
We would have gone out on Willshire Avenue, six shooters.
Now he's a much smaller target than I am, about 4'11, but
he's wider and it would have been, you know, Clint Eastwood
time, you know, I would have the sharout, shirapi (sp?) and
I had my squint, and I would have put a bullet right between
his head. Would have been wrong. Would have been wrong. But
that was the Old West, and I would not have known any better,
so I wouldn't have been held accountable, because I wouldn't
have - but now I do. Now, in 2003, that would have been wrong."
Aw, whassamatter Bill? Did the nasty man upset you? You can't
even speak properly!
 George
W. Bush
Bush toured the Middle East last week for some postwar fist-pumping
and photo-opping, er... I mean, for an important round of
sensitive diplomatic negotiations. During one such event,
Bush gleefully chauffeured Mideast leaders around in a golf
cart. As the rest of the world pointed and said "hey, look,
it's a chimp driving a go-kart," the US media sycophantically
reported
that the event "served to reinforce the impression of a Bush
White House extraordinarily skilled at stage-managing presidential
events." (There goes that liberal media again!) Later, Bush
toured the newly occupied - of course I mean "liberated"
- country of Iraq from Air Force One as it flew six miles
overhead. While Ari Fleisher insisted that the flyover was
due to "safety concerns," there was another benefit: no need
to explain the conspicuous lack of Iraqis dancing in the streets
or cheering for the great liberator president. As for those
elusive weapons of mass destruction, Bush told
troops in Qatar, "We're on the look. We'll reveal the
truth." Then again, maybe the truth about WMDs has been pretty
well revealed already...
 Dick
Cheney
Although there is of course still plenty of truth to
uncover, oh yes. For example, did you know that Dick Cheney
paid frequent visits to the CIA during Our Great Leader's
Great Rush To War? The visits have been described as unusually
hands-on, and now some intelligence officials are starting
to spill the beans. Apparently Cheney "created an environment
in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make
their assessments on Iraq fit with Bush Administration policy
objectives," according
to the Sydney Morning Herald. Surely not! The vice
president, attempting to bend intelligence data to fit his
political agenda? That can't be! Why, this is the most honest,
transparent, and upstanding administration in the history
of the United States! At least, that's what the TV told me.
But anyway, it can't be true because Douglas Feith, the undersecretary
for policy at the Pentagon, held a news conference last week
to challenge the allegations. "I know of no pressure," he
said. And rest assured that as Feith spoke he was certainly
not gripping the podium, sweating profusely, and glancing
furtively from side to side.
 The
New York Daily News
This is BIG NEWS! STOP THE PRESSES! According
to the New York Daily News, in her new book Hillary
Clinton LIES about the exact date that she found out about
her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky! Yes, in a shocking
turn of events, the Daily News has uncovered some devastating
"discrepancies" in the book, Living History.
(Click
here to buy.) For example, Hillary claims that staying
married to Bill was one of the "most difficult decisions I
have made in my life." Yet the Daily News has exclusively
discovered that it actually took her only "a couple of
days" to make the decision! And not only that but some
other guy wrote something in a completely different
book that turned out to be a mistake, and... oh for crying
out loud, this is the most utterly ridiculous piece-of-shit
non-story I've ever seen concocted in a newspaper. I mean,
it looks like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney illegally cooked
intelligence information as an excuse to go to war with Iraq
- which resulted in thousands of deaths - and the Daily
News is more concerned with alleged discrepancies in Hillary
Clinton's memoir? GET SOME PERSPECTIVE, YOU IGNORANT, RIGHT-WING,
BUSH-BROWN-NOSING MEDIA WHORES.
 The
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
Lobby group The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts wants
to prosecute a dozen gays who protested at Boston's Cathedral
of the Holy Cross last week. But this is no ordinary prosecution
- the group wants the state attorney general to file hate
crimes charges against the protesters. Wow, they must have
done something really terrible, yes? Well, no, actually. C.J.
Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League, can
explain
it best: "It was a premeditated assault on the First
Amendment religious freedom rights of Catholics...a very crude
intimidation tactic intended to silence Catholic opposition
to same-sex marriage..." My goodness, it sounds awful.
So what did they actually do? "A number of them embraced
one another, held hands, and at least two male homosexuals
kissed each other...A number of parishioners had to get up
and actually move because either their view of the sanctuary
was being blocked or because they felt somehow threatened
or menaced by these protesters, who then - after a short time
- walked out." So - twelve people got up in the middle
of a church service, held hands, hugged, kissed, and then
left. And now, in these crazy times, an expression of love
is turned into a hate crime. I mean, I can totally understand
Catholics being pissed off about having mass interrupted,
but a hate crime? Some poor homophobes feel "threatened
or menaced" by people kissing, and they want to put that
on a level with, oh, I don't know, a guy being strung up on
a barbed-wire fence and pistol-whipped to death - just because
he's gay? Or a man being dragged behind a pickup truck until
he's completely dismembered - just because he's black? Despicable.
 John
Ashcroft
Speaking of crazy homophobes, say hello to John Ashcroft.
Ashcroft decided last week to "to ban employees' annual
gay pride events" at the Justice Department, according
to Reuters. Why? Apparently because he was "lobbied by
conservative groups." Yeah, I bet that was a lot of hard
work. Lobbyist: "Hey, John, about these gay pride events..."
Ashcroft: "GAY PRIDE EVENTS?!?! Not in my backdoor. Uh,
I mean, backyard. Uh, I mean, IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN."
Human Rights Campaign spokesman David Smith said of the ban,
"It's shameful that the federal agency that is in charge of
protecting civil rights in this country is singling out one
group for disparate treatment." Well duh - just because every
other group in the Justice Department can hold events, and
just because, say, the attorney general of the United States
can hold prayer meetings in his office, doesn't mean that
he should give gays special favors. By the way: In
case you missed it, Ashcroft was back on Capitol Hill last
week, asking Congress to expand the intrusive government
powers of the Patriot Act.
 Bill
Frist
We kinda thought that Bill Frist was joking when he proposed
watering down the filibuster for judicial nominees. (See Idiots
108.) But it appears that the joke's on us. Last week,
the Frist proposal reached the Rules committee, and inexplicably
was not treated with the outright contempt that it deserved.
Of course, Frist doesn't have the guts to propose simply ditching
the practice entirely. Instead, he has come up with a ridiculous
scheme where the number of votes to break a filibuster
is gradually reduced from 60 to 51. Why not just propose changing
the number to 51, you weasley bastard? Absolutely pathetic.
(And speaking of pathetic... we typically don't criticize
Democrats on this list, but we'd be huge hypocrites if we
didn't point out that Zell Miller is basically sticking a
knife into all of our backs on this one, and even called us
"sore losers" in the process.) One more thing: Frist's underage
son was arrested
for DUI at 2:30 am last week. Score one for Republican family
values.
Tom
Delay
Tom Delay is an assclown, and we have proof.
In one of the most partisan, brown-nosing, delusional statements
we've seen this year, The Hammer was heard to claim that calls
for congressional hearings into cooked intelligence and the
apparent lack of weapons of mass destruction were simply made
by "detractors who want to undermine the successful war."
Um, - if there are no weapons of mass destruction - and congress
wants to find out if there are or not - how exactly can the
war be called successful? Just because Bush stood on
an aircraft carrier and said "mission accomplished"
doesn't make it so. Oh excuse me - Tom also apparently wants
me to shut up, because people who question what the hell happened
before we went into Iraq, "pick at every little thing they
can to try to undermine this president and where he is taking
us on this war on terror... They do it for their own political
gain." Um, how about we just find out what the truth is,
Tom? Remember that? No? I guess to you, people who want the
truth are just "playing politics."
 Tom
Ridge
And finally, last week Tom Ridge announced that his ridiculous
color-coded alert scheme has "drawbacks." Um, what,
you mean like unnecessarily terrifying half the population
and being laughed at by the other half? No, Ridge thinks that
the alerts are "too general to provide targeted warnings,"
according
to the Associated Press. Great - so does this mean we can
look forward to Green, Light Green, Aqua, Blue, Yellow, Sepia,
Burnt Sienna, Orange, Dark Orange, Red, Brown? I hope so!
However, some people have noted that during the Orange Alerts
we've been subjected to over the last few months, there haven't
been any actual terrorism attempts, so perhaps either a) the
intelligence isn't very good, in which case why bother with
a stupid threat level, or b) they've got other reasons
for elevating the level - for example, it's the kind of thing
that comes in useful when you're trying to persuade America
that we need to bomb other countries. I've got a better idea
though. Whenever the threat level is elevated above yellow,
we should raise Tom Ridge up on a large flagpole, with his
pants round his ankles and wearing a dunce's cap, and then
pelt him with tomatoes until the level is lowered to yellow
again. See you next week!
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