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The
Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 119)
July
28, 2003
Saudi Doody Edition
 Boy
oh boy, the hits keep coming. Top Ten No. 119's number one
slot is reserved for The Bush Administration, who are taking
fire from all sides. This week it was the turn of the 9/11
Commission to slap the administration around the face and
neck. But individual members of the administration won't escape
their punishment this week; Dick Cheney (2) has popped up
from his undisclosed location to spout a few more lies about
Iraq, George W. Bush (3) has totally mishandled the deaths
of Uday and Qusay Hussein, and Condoleezza Rice (4) may have
to start "spending more time with her family." Meanwhile,
Darrell Issa's (5) money appears to have been well spent,
the RNC (6) throw a hissy fit, and Borders Books (8) is just
plain dumb. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!
 The
Bush Administration
The latest blow to the administration's credibility is last
week's release of the 9/11 Commission Report. The report clearly
states that many mistakes were made by various intelligence
agencies, and while a terrorist attack like 9/11 may have
been inevitable, the FBI and CIA didn't exactly go out of
their way to prevent
it. So, the FBI and the CIA suck. That's not exactly new information.
But what is interesting is that in case nobody noticed, we
appear to be stuck in a bloody guerilla war in Iraq, which
we started because people like Colin Powell made statements
like this to the UN: "These al Qaeda affiliates, based
in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and
supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've
been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months."
It's no surprise that recent polls showed that more than 50%
of people thought that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 - the
administration has spun an incredibly effective propaganda
web. Yet here comes the 9/11 Commission Report which definitively
proves
that the United States had no intelligence whatsoever to substantiate
such a claim. Mind you, while there wasn't really anything
in the report about Iraq, there was an awful lot of
stuff about Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately it was all blacked
out. Quite upsetting for the 9/11 relatives from what
I hear, but this is national security, dontcha know. Classifed
information. If they want to be good Americans they shouldn't
ask why their relatives died, they should just grin and bear
it for the good of the country. After all, we're at war with
Iraq because they, uh, help terrorists and, um, rule by brutal
dictatorship, but we're not at war with Saudi Arabia because
they're, er, our very good friends who, mmm, wouldn't harm
a fly. And besides, we don't want America to find out that
Poppy Bush and friends have been giving aid
and comfort to the enemy, do we?
 Dick
Cheney
The big guy has been hiding out in his yellow-belly hidey-hole
for quite some time now. Has he been too scared to face the
public? Plotting his next oil war? Or simply counting all
those brown paper envelopes from Halliburton? But Dick did
manage to poke his head out of the bunker last week, just
in time to prove that he hasn't been paying any attention
whatsoever to the scandal that's surrounded the White House
lately. At a speech at the American Enterprise Institute,
he regurgitated
most of the same tired crap that has been roundly debunked
in recent weeks, from "the safety of the American people was
at stake," to quoting a report which stated that Iraq was
"continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological,
nuclear and missile programs" (although of course Dick
failed to quote the section from the very same report
which states that "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural
uranium in Africa are... highly dubious.") So how can Dick
Cheney still be claiming that Iraq was an imminent threat
to the United States, when it's becoming clear that it couldn't
bomb its way out of a cardboard box? And why is he still claiming
that Iraq was practically humping Al Qaeda's leg when the
recently released 9/11 report puts an end to the myth that
Saddam and Osama were in cahoots? Well, some would
say it's because he's a fat lying hypocrite. But I prefer
to think of him as a cock-nosed scumbucket.
 George
W. Bush
Last week US forces killed Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay Hussein
in a gun battle. And while nobody is mourning the loss of
these two brutal murderers/rapists, Our Great Leader managed
to handle the situation much as he's handled everything else
since he entered the White House - with complete ineptitude.
First, Bush decided to publicly
release photographs of the gruesome twosome, in the mistaken
belief that Iraqis might suddenly realize that their oppressors
were dead and start throwing flowers at our troops. Which
is presumably why three American soldiers were killed the
next day, and Saddam's former Fedayeen militiamen released
a tape vowing to avenge the killing of his sons. Not only
that, but the bodies of Uday and Qusay were later touched
up with morticians putty - a practice apparently unheard of
in the Middle East - to make them more recognizable. Thus
putting doubt into the minds of any Iraqis who were willing
to believe Bush in the first place, not least because the
sons' faces now look like they've been sculpted
out of Play-Doh by a six-year-old. Good job.
 Condoleezza
Rice
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Who thinks Condoleezza
Rice is going to be out of a job before this is all over?
(Mind you, I'm sure chances are equally good that due to Bush's
Bizarro World she'll end up getting a promotion.) The last
couple of weeks have been particularly interesting for Ms.
Rice, as she twists and turns in the White House's flap-induced
breeze. Let's take a look at some of her earlier statements
on Iraq. For example, there was that
time she told Tim Russert that "no one in our circles
knew that there were doubts and suspicions that [the uranium
documents] might be a forgery." Except, whoops, it was
revealed
last week that "The CIA sent two memos to the White House
in October voicing strong doubts" about the claim. Oh
dear. And then there was that
time she said the CIA had cleared Bush's State of the
Union speech "in its entirety," and if CIA director
George Tenet had any misgivings, "he did not make them known"
to the White House. Except, uh-oh, it was revealed
last week that Condoleezza's top deputy Stephen Hadley "apparently
received two memos from the CIA and a phone call from agency
Director George Tenet last October raising objections"
about the claim. There are plenty more of these at Buzzflash.
But for now, all we want to know is: is it really such a good
idea to have a compulsive liar as the head of your National
Security team, Mr. Bush? No wonder you keep getting into these
scrapes.
 Darrell
Issa
Looks like the wingnuts have collected all the signatures
they need to recall
Governor Gray Davis, mainly thanks to Darrell "Car Thief"
Issa (see Idiots 116) spending millions
of dollars on professional signature collectors. Don't you
just love it when a single wingnut with a lot of money and
a band of roving dittoheads can overturn election results?
Hmm, kinda reminds me of Selection 2000. But anyway, Issa
is doing this purely as a matter of principle, because he
believes that Gray Davis has failed California by creating
massive budget deficits. (Of course, George W. Bush's deficits
are just fine and dandy, and Dubya in no way helped Enron
give California the shaft by creating an energy crisis out
there.) No, Issa stands by his principles, which is why he's
not running for governor to replace Davis. What's that? He
is running for governor? Wow, what a king-sized asshole.
 The
RNC
The RNC has launched a letter
campaign to try and prevent the DNC from running television
ads criticizing George W. Bush's State of the Union comments.
And unsurprisingly that famous Republican hypocrisy has come
shining through once again. The RNC's strongly-worded - practically
threatening - letter to television stations who are going
to show the ad claims that it is - wait for it - "deliberately
false and misleading." Oh, oh, the irony, ouch, it hurts.
So I guess the RNC doesn't consider it "deliberately
false and misleading" when the President of the United
States stands up at the State of the Union address and tells
the world that we have to invade Iraq because it is a) in
league with Al Qaeda (debunked) b) about to attack
us with its vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons
(debunked) and c) on the verge of building nuclear
weapons (deeeee-bunked). Yet it is is
false and misleading when Democrats point out that Bush's
comments were a load of crap. How strange.
 Republican
Attorneys General Association
It was revealed
last week that members of the Republican Attorneys General
Association (RAGA) - including Bill Pryor, one of George W.
Bush's judicial
nominees, John Cornyn, U.S. senator from Texas, and Jane
Brady, the current attorney general of Delaware - have been
soliciting corporations for money. "This is incredibly tawdry,"
said Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity.
"That famous statue of the lady of justice with the blindfold
- this kind of throws that out the window. There is an incredible
mercenary element to this that implies that policy is bought
and sold and not done... based on public interest and public
need." Where have you been, Charles? Crikey. What's even more
interesting though, is that apparently the attorneys general
have been doing a spot of money laundering on the side. It
seems that funds raised by RAGA were delivered to the RNC,
and then disbursed to campaigns around the country (including
campaigns by the attorneys general) without any mention of
the attorneys general who made the solicitations. And conveniently,
RAGA does not file public financial disclosure statements.
Can you smell the sleaze?
 Borders
Books
Time for episode #264263 of our 56748203-part series, "How
Uptight Can You Get?" Here's the scoop: Borders Books
in Fredericksburg, VA, banned a woman from their store last
week for saying that George W. Bush had "chicken legs."
Singer-songwriter Julia Rose was performing at the store when
she made the remark, and is now utterly bewildered that she's
been banned from the Fredericksburg store. According to Local6.com,
"she was just poking fun at the president's frame and
wasn't making a political comment." Banned from Borders
Books for saying Our Great Leader has chicken legs? Shame,
I was planning on shopping at Borders next weekend. But I
imagine I won't be welcome in there since I'm about to call
him a money-grubbing draft-dodging psychopath with a tiny
penis. Oh well, c'est la vie.
George
W. Bush
Ahem...
(AP
Photo/Charles Dharapak) |
So
while our troops are dying overseas to preserve the great
American way of life (allegedly), George W. Bush is scribbling
his name all over Old Glory at a campaign stop. Tsk tsk tsk.
The president really should know better than to go around
desecrating
the flag. Mind you, it does seem to run
in the family.
 Everyone
Else
And finally, we've had a busy couple of weeks and we've passed
over a few great stories. So here, for your enjoyment, are
the conservative idiots we didn't manage to squeeze in recently:
Iowa
Republican tort reformer files dog bite case... the county
where Fred
Phelps lives has just banned anti-gay discrimination...
Tom
DeLay is on his way to solve the Israel/Palestine conflict
(and fights
against cheaper drugs for seniors)... tens
of thousands will lose college aid... Michael
Powell covers his ass... Bob
Dole is a loser... Richard
Perle says it might take 200 years to find WMDs in Iraq...
but Paul
Wolfowitz says WMDs don't matter anyway... Halliburton
has been hired to feed and house up to 100,000 soldiers in
Iraq (surprise!)... and Sen.
Mitch McConnell's daughter has been in trouble for gagging
her elementary school students with Scotch Tape and binding
them to chairs with a leather belt. See you next week!
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