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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots
(No. 192)
April 4, 2005
Judge Dread Edition
 Since
the Pope passed away on Saturday it seems there's been a complete
blackout on any other news stories - but the Top 10 is here to remind
you of the conservative idiots from last week that still deserve
attention this week. Tom DeLay (1) was making threats, while the
Power-Hungry Maniacs (2) were getting encouragement from his words.
George W. Bush (3) and his administration were apparently not to
blame for the war in Iraq, despite starting said war. And Jeff Gannon
reared his ugly head once more, giving everyone an unpleasant case
of Gannon Reflux (4). Meanwhile, Soggy Conservatives (5) had to
ask for towels several times last week, Ann Coulter (6) was deputizing
burly college boys, and Sean Hannity (7) was demonstrating how to
remain polite in the face of rude liberals. Elsewhere, Condoleezza
Rice (8) dabbled in a spot of projection, Jim Welker (9) was flogging
bestiality, and Bay Buchanan (10) hates America. Enjoy, and don't
forget the key...
 Tom
DeLay 
You may have noticed that in the furor over the circumstances
surrounding the death of Terri Schiavo, the radical right-wingers
have gone a bit, um, over the top. We highlighted several stories
in Idiots 191
indicating the lunacy of these people - a man arrested for trying
to steal a gun from a firearms store so he could "save Terri,"
a radio host who suggested that Jeb Bush should take her into custody
and advocated the "killing of anyone who interferes with such
rescue," a man arrested for offering a $250,000 reward for
killing Terri's husband Michael, plus a $50,000 bonus for killing
Judge Greer. The threats continued last week, extending as far as
Michael Schiavo's family
in Pennsylvania.
All of which makes Tom "The Snake" DeLay's remarks last
week particularly disturbing, if not downright dangerous. After
learning of Terri Schiavo's passing, DeLay appeared in public and
said,
"This loss happened because our legal system did not protect
the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time
will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior,
but not today." Compare this to a quote from one of the nuts
who called to threaten the Schiavos: "Your time will come.
The time will come, for all of us, for all of us. Time will come.
I wonder which way you will get to go when time does come."
Creepily similar aren't they?
And I guess I'm not the only one who thought the House Majority
Leader's comments sounded like a threat. Sen. Frank Lautenberg sent
an official letter to DeLay last week which read
in part, "You should be aware that your comments yesterday
may violate a Federal criminal statute, 18 U.S.C. §115 (a)(1)(B)
... Threats against specific Federal judges are not only a serious
crime, but also beneath a Member of Congress." When will Republicans
wake up and realize what kind of people are leading their party?
 Power-hungry
Maniacs 
Mind you, DeLay's outrageous comments are just the tip of the
iceberg. It's becoming clear that for the right-wing radicals, the
point of this whole exercise is to grab control of the only branch
of government they don't have total power over yet - the judicial
branch. DeLay also referred
last week to "an arrogant, out of control, unaccountable judiciary
that thumbed their nose at the Congress and the president."
I mean, wow. How dare the judiciary not rubber-stamp all of Bush
and DeLay's unconstitutional actions.
Radical groups were lining up last week to jump on the judge-bashing
bandwagon - like the Council for Constitutional Restoration (whatever
that means) who issued a press
release saying "Our purpose is to draw up a plan of action
to oppose the liberal judges who have abrogated our most precious
human rights - including Terri Schiavo's right to life." Aha!
Now we come to the crux of the matter. It's the liberal judges
who are ruining America. You know, it often amazes me how much damage
the liberals have done since Republicans gained control of the House,
Senate, and White House.
So let's take a quick look at some of the liberal judges who've
participated in the "murder" of Terri Schiavo. There was
obviously the aforementioned Judge Greer - a conservative Christian
and Republican. But there were plenty of other judges whose liberal
credentials leave a little to be desired. Salon.com's breakdown
of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals - who upheld the decision to
not force-feed Terri Schiavo - reveals that "Of the appeals
court's 12 active judges, only two dissented ... The remainder ...
included six Republicans: Reagan appointee and Chief Judge J.L.
Edmondson; George H.W. Bush appointees Carnes, Stanley Birch, Joel
Dubina, Susan Black; and, most ironically, William Pryor Jr., who
was given a recess appointment by George W. Bush two years ago in
the midst of controversy and filibuster by Democratic senators."
For those of you who are intersted, one of the two dissenting judges
who thought that Schiavo's feeding tube should be reinserted
was appointed by Bill Clinton. Oh yes, and let's not forget that
the U.S. Supreme Court - who turned down the case five times - is
comprised of a majority of Republicans.
In fact, Judge Birch - who, it should be noted, is an extremely
conservative Republican - wrote
that, "In resolving the Schiavo controversy, it is my judgment
that, despite sincere and altruistic motivation, the legislative
and executive branches of our government have acted in a manner
demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the
governance of a free people - our Constitution."
Let's face it - there's no such thing as a "liberal judiciary."
This is just a ploy by the radical right-wing to gain control of
the judicial branch and fill it with their own radical right-wing
judges. Sure, Republicans say they hate judicial activism
- but then they used to hate interference by the federal government
until they got control of it. Just wait until they get their own
radical activists on the bench.
 George
W. Bush 
In a remarkable piece of good fortune, the recently-released
report into intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war has
completely exonerated George W. Bush and his administration! That's
right - the Bushies didn't make any mistakes or errors in judgment
at all. How conveeeeenient! The report - prepared by a panel
put together by, um, George W. Bush - asserts
that the intelligence community - not just the CIA, but the DIA
and the NSA - were "dead wrong" in almost every single
prewar judgment. Not only that, but the Bushies didn't have anything
to do with pushing the intelligence community to come up with Saddam's
smoking gun. Well smack me with a herring and call me Marjorie.
In fact, the report practically places all of the blame for the
entire Iraq war on an Iraqi defector named "Curveball",
who was described by his handlers as "crazy" (not to mention
a "drunken
liar"). "So let me get this straight - "Curveball"
makes up a bunch of shit, and the intelligence community swallows
it whole. Then the intelligence community takes it to the Bush administration,
and they swallow it whole, deciding to base the invasion
of Iraq on the ramblings of a crazy drunken liar (Curveball, not
George W. Bush). Oh, but it's not their fault. And, oh, I forgot
that the only reason we invaded Iraq was so they could have elections,
silly me.
So, despite the fact that the administration knew that Curveball
was lying but a bunch of his "information" showed up in
Colin Powell's presentation
to the U.N. anyway, the administration is not to blame here. And
despite the fact that George W. Bush said
in 2003 that he had "darn good intelligence," after the
uranium from Africa State of the Union debacle, he's not to blame.
And here's one interesting tidbit: the Republican party's 2000
platform explicitly stated
that "In a time of fluid change and uncertainty, intelligence
is truly America's first line of defense. The [Clinton] administration
has weakened that defense by allowing a series of shocking security
breaches, from blatant espionage and its virtual abandonment of
national security-related export controls, to sheer sloppiness at
the highest levels of government. This must stop, immediately. Nor
should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political
misjudgments." But fuck it, let's blame the intelligence
community anyway. You know, this whole farce would be pretty funny
if we weren't killing thousands of people over it.
 Gannon
Reflux 
Later this week, the prestigious National Press Club will be
holding a panel discussion on blogging and online journalism. There's
just one problem - the star of the show is going to be famous non-journalist
and non-blogger Jeff Gannon, aka the White House's favorite male
prostitute. So why is Jeff Gannon being invited
to a panel discussion on blogging and online journalism? Hell if
I know. Considering that Gannon's contributions to journalism have
mainly involved recycling
RNC press releases and plagiarizing
Associated Press articles, it seems a bit of a stretch. Still, it's
perked him up a bit - according to Editor & Publisher
magazine, he told them last week that "he always considered
himself a legitimate journalist, and 'perhaps [the] invitation is
recognition of that.'" Yeah, right - keep dreaming, Jeff!
 Soggy
Conservatives 
So while the radical right are resorting to death threats and
putting prices on the heads of people they literally want to kill,
a few creative people are resorting to a more entertaining - and
decidedly less violent - way to protest. Here's neo-con editor and
PNAC member William Kristol getting the old pie-in-the-face treatment:
To be fair, he took
it well. And here's Pat Buchanan after catching a healthy dollop
of salad
dressing:
Mind you, Michelle Malkin didn't think it was so humorous - she
wrote
on her blog last week, "If you think this is funny, you are
sick. This is madness and it is chilling." Right... but the
right-wing wackos offering quarter-million dollar bounties for the
head of Michael Schiavo and making death threats against his family
is, what, just good clean fun?
Ann Coulter 
Our old friend Ann Coulter got similar treatment - minus the
food - at an appearance at Kansas University last week. Poor Ann
was heckled by half the audience after she launched into her usual
anti-liberal diatribe (liberals want to eat babies and have gay
sex with the Constitution, that sort of thing). Unfortunately her
reaction was a tad more excitable than old-timers Kristol and Buchanan
- in order to quiet the rabble she asked,
"Could 10 of the largest College Republicans start walking
up and down the aisles and start removing anyone shouting?"
Which, funnily enough, they did. Talk about brownshirts! I mean,
just imagine what Coulter would have done if she HAD been hit in
the face with a pie. Probably pulled out a handgun and started firing
randomly into the audience.
 Sean
Hannity
Of course, it's always us liberals who are uncivil and mean
- the radical right are consistently polite (pay no attention to
the death threats). Take Sean Hannity, for example, who, while sitting
in front of a crowd of protesters down in Florida last week, interviewed
Congressman Jim Moran via satellite. The News Hounds reported
that "Hannity was so intent on controlling his message, that
he cut off Alan [Colmes] at the start of the show and took his turn
for himself interviewing Terri Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary
Schindler ... Pat Robertson joined Hannity's chorus claiming, 'this
judge is brutal. We have to do something with this out of control
judiciary.'" (Hey, there are those GOP talking points again!)
According to News Hounds, "Moran tried to explain that he cared
about the thousands of people who have been abandoned because of
Medicare cuts." Of course, Hannity wasn't having any of that
- but it was his off-mic comments which were the most interesting.
Not knowing he was being recorded, Hannity called Moran an "asshole"
and said, "I hate these people." So much for his constant
complaints about the lack of civility coming from the left. Check
out his mumbling rant here
(courtesy of Oliver
Willis).
 Condoleezza
Rice
See if you can guess which election Condoleezza Rice is criticizing
here: she said the government should "abandon policies designed
to repress, crush and otherwise stifle expressions of differences,"
she noted that "would-be voters were turned away from polling
stations due to irregularities with voter registration rolls,"
she pointed out that the "the electoral playing field was heavily
tilted in the government's favor," and she criticized the way
that "The independent press was muzzled; freedom of assembly
was constrained; food was used as a weapon to sway hungry voters."
Aha - perhaps you guessed from that last point that Ms. Rice was
actually talking about the recent elections in Zimbabwe, which,
according
to the Associated Press she called "unfair" and "not
free." I probably don't have to point out that when you're
criticizing a country's elections using examples which almost all
occurred
in your own country's elections, you end up looking like
a bit of a hypocritical asshat. But I'll point it out anyway.
 Jim
Welker 
State Rep. Jim Welker (R-Loveland) brought back the spectre
of box turtles last week while trying to defend Colorado from the
homosexual hordes. At a news conference in support of a state constitutional
ban on gay marriage, Welker suggested
that gay marriage and civil unions are the top of the slippery slope
to bestiality, saying "Where do you draw the line? A year ago
in India, a woman married her dog." Hmmm, where do you draw
the line? I dunno, how about at two consenting adults? I'm pretty
sure you could draw the line somewhere before sheep-shagging. Even
fellow Republican State Sen. Ed Jones (R-Colorado Springs) was uncomfortable
with Welker's rhetoric. "That's a little extreme for me,"
he said. The concept of gay marriage equaling bestiality is a little
extreme for him? Then what the hell is he still doing in the Republican
party? It's practically part of their platform these days, the sickos.
 Bay
Buchanan 
And finally: heads up! Apparently the wingnuts have decided
that their "why do you liberals hate America?" tactic
has gotten a bit stale, so they've decided to flip the script. Perhaps
she was annoyed at her brother Pat's impersonation of a Caesar salad,
but during an appearance on Inside Politics with Judy Woodruff last
week, Bay Buchanan had this
to say about the Terri Schiavo case: "Today we saw a glimpse
of the soul of America, Judy, and it is an ugly sight, unfortunately."
Wow! Why does Bay Buchanan hate America? Perhaps she should move
to France, or Canada, or Russia, or China, or North Korea, or insert
your favorite country of choice here. Love it or leave it, Bay!
These colors don't run! (Unless you accidentally wash your stars
and stripes underpants on hot.) See you next week...
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