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The
Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 156)
May
17, 2004
Inhofe's Enough Edition
 Last
week's news was particularly sickening all round - from further
revelations in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal to the abhorrent
execution of Nicholas Berg. But there were plenty of conservative
idiots ready to take this news and run with it: James Inhofe
(1) was outraged that anyone was outraged about torture and
Right-Wing Execution Enthusiasts (2) were keen to exploit
Berg's beheading. Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfailed (3) suddenly
became very concerned about the Geneva Convention and Dick
Cheney (4) suddenly decided that Rumsfailed is the best defense
secretary the world has ever seen. Elsewhere, the Appleton
Post-Crescent (6) is having difficulty maintaining its balance,
George W. Bush (8) is keeping cool, and the Republican Party
(10) really needs to take a look in the mirror. Enjoy, and
as usual, don't forget the key!
 James
Inhofe
If there was one idiot who summed up the complete and utter
shamelessness of the American right-wing last week, it was
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). At a Senate hearing on the Abu Ghraib
prison abuses, Inhofe stated
that torture tactics are A-okay in his book. "I'm probably
not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by
the outrage than we are by the treatment," said he. You know,
he's probably right - there was probably at least one other
Republican at the hearing who's as big a scumbag as Inhofe.
But never mind that. "These prisoners, you know they're not
there for traffic violations. If they're in cellblock 1-A
or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists,
they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood
on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment
of those individuals." Well, maybe - except for the fact that
the Red Cross estimates that 70-90% of the prisoners at Abu
Ghraib had been "arrested by mistake," and General
Taguba's report indicates
that the guards weren't even keeping track of which prisoners
were in which cells. So were they in there for traffic
violations? Who knows. Ah, what the hell, let's stick bags
over their heads and sodomize them anyway. (This actually
kinda reminds me of Rush Limbaugh's theory that the death
penalty is never meted out incorrectly, because if you end
up on death row, hey, you must have done something.)
But one of the strangest things to come out of this whole
affair is the new-found moral relativism on display by the
right-wing. Conservatives have always derided liberals for
this "failing" - as far as they're concerned, all
that exists is good versus evil. Except suddenly it's okay
for America to torture prisoners of war - because even if
we're forcing them to masturbate, stuffing things up their
rectums, and beating them to death, at least we're not drilling
holes through their skulls. So meet the new conservative moral
relativism - say goodbye to good versus evil, say hello to
not-quite-as-evil-as-evil, uh, versus evil.
 Right-Wing
Execution Enthusiasts
They've spent the last several months complaining that there
hasn't been enough good news coming out of Iraq, but you wouldn't
know it from last week's performance. The right-wing were
suddenly overjoyed when an American civilian was beheaded
by alleged al-Qaeda terrorists, because Nick Berg's terrible
misfortune was a boon for conservatives who had spent the
week busily defending the Abu Ghraib torture photographs.
The brutal beheading was captured on videotape and posted
to an Islamic militant website, where it was promptly downloaded
by several news organizations before disappearing as suddenly
as it had arrived.
Sean Hannity and Michael Savage played
audio of Berg's murder on their radio shows, and many
prominent conservatives took to the airwaves and pontificated
about how the video was a reminder of why we need to torture
random brown people. Uh, I mean, a reminder of "what
we're fighting against." Odd. I mean, they may
need a reminder, but I don't know anyone who's forgotten what
happened on September 11, 2001, nor do I know anyone who's
forgotten why it's imperative that we track down and destroy
terrorist scum. What I'm not entirely sure about is
what any of that has to do with occupying Iraq and committing
mass violations of the Geneva Convention.
 Donald
Rumsfailed
Speaking of the Geneva Convention - you know, that treaty
we signed which says we're not allowed to torture prisoners
of war - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfailed came up with
his own interesting insights into what it all means last week.
According
to Don, we're not allowed to see any more pictures of
the Geneva Convention violations which took place inside Abu
Ghraib, because displaying such pictures would, uh, violate
the Geneva Convention. Well, shit. We wouldn't want to violate
the Geneva Convention, would we? But wait - according to the
defense secretary, what happened in Abu Ghraib doesn't
violate the Geneva Convention anyway. Riiiiiiight. Fair
enough though - personally I've pretty much seen enough to
know what went on in there, and the reports
coming from our elected representatives who saw a further
1800 pictures on Capitol Hill last week were plenty graphic.
But it is certainly curious that Don is so concerned about
the Geneva Convention all of a sudden - or should I say, selectively
concerned. I mean, he didn't seem that bothered about it in
January (which is when he claims he first
knew of the torture at Abu Ghraib). But
when several American POW's were captured near the beginning
of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he
said, "You know, under the Geneva Convention, it's
illegal to do things with prisoners of war that are humiliating
to those individuals." Hmm. Geneva Convention. Prisoners of
war. Humiliating. Shouldn't that have rung some bells for
Rumsfailed?
 Dick
Cheney
All this seems to have gone right over Vice President Crashcart's
head though, because according
to him, Rumsfailed is "the best secretary of defense
the United States has ever had" (even better than George
H. W. Bush's secretary of defense from 1989 to 1993, uh, Dick
Cheney).
Mind you, this is the same guy who was banging on about weapons
of mass destruction waaaay after everyone else had
realized that that dog wasn't just not going to hunt anymore,
it had gone rabid and had to be put down (see Idiots 141).
Cheney also told the world to "get off [Rumsfailed's]
case and let him do his job," last week. Yeah! Get off
his case! These bloody great groups of congresspeople who
keep getting together and looking at hundreds and hundreds
of photos of acts of torture committed by American troops
are just getting in his way. Show Don some respect fer crying
out loud.
 Media
Whores
Gallup,
Pew,
the
American Research Group, Zogby
and others had some devastating new poll results for the Chimp
in Charge last week - not that you'd know it from the newsroom
spin. The Media Whores are still desperately stuck trying
to paint the race as a neck-and-neck nailbiter and John Kerry
as a boring candidate who's going nowhere. Unfortunately for
Bush, the evidence suggests that if
he doesn't do something to stop his ratings slide, he could
be screwed. According
to Gallup, "no incumbent president in the post-war
era won re-election after falling below 50 percent approval
at this point in an election year." (Bush is currently
at 44%.) In addition, every incumbent who has won re-election
has had a double-digit
lead over their opponent at this stage in the campaign.
That's right - John Kerry is 11 points stronger against George
W. Bush at this point than Bill Clinton was against Bush's
father in 1992. Heard about that on Fox News lately? Nope
- but you may have heard the Media Whores spreading stories
about Democrats wanting to ditch
Kerry. After all, when the party's nominee is doing better
than any challenger in recent memory, it's always a good idea
to, uh, get rid of him and find someone else. At least, the
Republicans would certainly appreciate it if that could be
arranged.
 The
Appleton Post-Crescent
If polls aren't your thing and you prefer more anecdotal evidence
that Bush isn't doing as well as he should be, check out this
plea from the Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wisconsin.
Last week the daily newspaper asked its readers to submit
more pro-Bush letters to the editor, because they want to
"balance things out." That's right. In a notice
to their readers, the editors of the Post-Crescent wrote,
"We've been getting more letters critical of President
Bush than those that support him. We're not sure why, nor
do we want to guess. But in today's increasingly polarized
political environment, we would prefer our offering to put
forward a better sense of balance... Since we depend upon
you, our readers, to supply our letters, that goal can be
difficult. We can't run letters that we don't have. If you
would like to help us 'balance' things out, send us a letter,
make a call or punch out an e-mail... We'd love to hear from
you."
So let me get this straight... The Post-Crescent takes
it for granted that the country is "polarized" -
split down the middle between conservatives and liberals.
They are then faced with strong evidence to the contrary in
the form of increasing numbers of letters critical of George
W. Bush. So what's a good newspaper to do? Run the letters
as they come in? Note that the increase in anti-Bush letters
may indicate a drop in support for Our Great Leader? Nope
- they ask for readers to send in more pro-Bush letters to
"balance things out." After all, their job isn't
to to "guess" why this might be happening, is it?
No - their job is to simply parrot conventional wisdom. And
if reality happens to indicate that conventional wisdom may
be false, what else is a good newspaper to do but manufacture
evidence to the contrary? Thank goodness for the fourth estate.
 Paul
Bremer
Back to the Middle East for a moment... According
to the Associated Press, current King of Iraq Paul Bremer
announced last week that "the United States would leave
Iraq if requested to do so by the new Iraqi government."
Said Bremer, "I don't think that will happen, but obviously
we don't stay in countries where we're not welcome." Hmmm...
let's see here. So they've killed almost 800 of our soldiers
in the last year or so, we've killed 10,000 or so of them,
80
percent of Iraqis now want us out of the country... but
hey, we wouldn't want to be anywhere we're not welcome. Strangely
enough, this news came hot on the heels of an announcement
by Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who told reporters
that U.S. forces "would not leave if asked by the interim
government." But it's okay, because that announcement
came hot on the heels of Grossman's appearance before the
House International Relations Committee where he was asked,
"If they ask us to leave, we will leave, will we not?" and
he answered, "Yes." So I'm glad our policy in Iraq
is now perfectly clear to everybody.
 George
W. Bush
Iraq and the economy aren't looking too good for Bush at the
moment, so he's falling back on his third-string campaign
issue, education. Bush's massively underfunded No Child Left
Behind act is driving up education costs everywhere as schools
try to conform to rigid standards, and it's certainly having
an effect on Parkersburg South High School in West Virginia.
When Bush made a campaign stop - sorry, my bad, a "presidential
visit" (that means the taxpayer gets to pay for it) - there
last
week, the school was a little
sweaty - except George lucked out as usual. "We've
got 1,200 students sitting over there in an un-air conditioned
auditorium watching this (on television) with fans blowing
on them to keep cool," said Parkersburg South librarian
Brenda Brum. "Here, we've pumped in air conditioning for the
President. I resent that." Ah, Brenda, at least you didn't
have to lay down asphalt for him to walk on (see Idiots 147).
Now shut up and go resuscitate that student. I think he's
come down with heatstroke.
Dorothy
Rabinowitz
How dumb can you get? Last month Wall Street Journal
pundit Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote a scathing indictment of Kristen
Breitweister and the 9/11 widows which was published as an
op-ed. This
month, Breitweiser wrote an op-ed of her own and submitted
it for publication in the Journal. Rabinowitz got wind
of the op-ed and dashed
off an email to deputy editorial page editor Tunku Varadaraja
asking him not to publish it. She called Breitweiser's article
"total and complete - not to mention repetitive - nonsense
from people given endless media access to repeat the very
same stupid charges." But that's not all... "My
thoughts - we don't publish nonsensical contentions that offer
no news, no insight - solely on the grounds that those who
feel attacked get a chance to defend their views. For that
we have the letters column." Wow. But wait a second,
you're asking yourself, how do I know what was in the
email? Simple - instead of sending it to Tunku Varadaraja,
Rabinowitz accidentally sent it to Kristen Breitweiser. Shortly
afterwards she sent another one: "Rabinowitz, Dorothy
would like to recall the message, '9/11 Widows' Response -
the 'jersey girls.'" Like I said: how dumb can you get?
 The
Republican Party
And finally, thanks to the great DailyKos.com
for tipping us off to this one... An alert Kos reader realized
that parts of the Republican Party Platform at the 2000 GOP
Convention reads like an exact indictment of everything Bush
has done since coming to power - check
it out: "The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability
of the [Clinton] administration's diplomacy have undermined
American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our
adversaries" ... "Gerrymandered congressional districts are
an affront to democracy and an insult to the voters. We oppose
that and any other attempt to rig the electoral process" ...
"Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat
for political misjudgments. A Republican administration working
with the Congress will respect the needs and quiet sacrifices
of these public servants as it strengthens America's intelligence
and counter-intelligence capabilities and reorients them toward
the dangers of the future." Can you believe it? See you next
week!
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