|
The Top 10 Conservative Idiots
(No. 195)
April 25, 2005
Morally Bankrupt Edition
 After
a few weeks of languishing in the middle of the pack, George W.
Bush (1) is back at the top of our list once again, after signing
the bankruptcy bill for his fat-cat buddies in the credit card industry.
Frank Luntz (2) makes an ass of himself on the Daily Show. Tom DeLay
(3,5) continues his impressive run on the list, taking no fewer
than two spots, while Fox News's Brian Wilson (4) carries his water.
The Nuge (6) displays some hypocrisy for the NRA. And Rush Limbaugh
makes some kooky comments about oral sex. Enjoy, and don't forget
the key!
 George
W. Bush 
It's been a quiet few weeks for Our Great Leader but he's back
with a bang this week, signing the Credit Card Company Reacharound
Bill into law. Sorry, did I say credit card company reacharound?
I'm talking, of course, about the Bankruptcy Bill. During the signing,
Bush made this
comment: "Our bankruptcy laws are an important part of
the safety net of America. They give those who cannot pay their
debts a fresh start [Editor's note: at least, they did until
Bush signed this bill into law]. Yet bankruptcy should always
be a last resort in our legal system. If someone does not pay his
or her debts, the rest of society ends up paying them."
Now, This statement doesn't just raise eyebrows - it blows the
top off the hypocrisy meter. First of all we're talking about a
president who has done more
to sink this country into debt than any president in living
memory. But it's not just his policies that are painful - Bush's
entire life has been built on skipping out on debts. Let's
take
a look at what the Center for Public Integrity has to say:
... Before going into business, however, Bush took a quick detour
into politics. In 1978, he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives. Bush lost the election, but he won the confidence
of relatives and family friends who agreed to support Arbusto,
his oil-exploration firm. From 1979 to 1983, dozens of investors
poured millions into the company and its successor, Bush Exploration.
Unfortunately for the investors Arbusto, however, turned out to
be a financial failure. By April 1984, the company was $3.1 million
in debt.
In 1984, Bush sold his business to another Texas oil and gas
exploration firm, Spectrum 7. As part of the deal, Bush became
Spectrum 7's chief executive officer. But once again, business
success eluded Bush and those around him. Two years after the
merger, in 1986, world oil prices, whose decline had hurt many
Texas oil producers, plunged even further. Spectrum 7, deeply
in debt, was in need of a bailout. Bush found one.
In 1986 Harken Oil & Gas, an oil exploration company based
in Irving, Texas, bought Spectrum 7. For his part Bush earned
$600,000 from the initial sale. He also became a director and
was paid as much as $120,000 in annual consulting fees and received
stock warrants worth $131,250 even though he spent much of 1987
and 1988 working on his father's presidential campaign. ...
... Harken ran into financial problems while Bush served on the
company's board. In August 1990, Harken posted a quarterly $23
million loss from its consolidated operations, sending its stock
price on a downward spiral. Bush had unloaded two-thirds of his
holdings on June 22, 1990, for $848,560. He used the money from
the sale to pay for his share of the Texas Rangers. ...
In Bush's case, the phrase "If someone does not pay his or
her debts, the rest of society ends up paying them" is staggeringly
true. He didn't pay his debts, and now we're all paying.
 Frank
Luntz 
It's a mystery to me why the presumably-savvy media spinmeister
Frank Luntz would ever agree to be interviewed by The Daily Show
- but it
happened last week. Luntz was caught with his pants down by
TDS's Samantha Bee, who enlisted his help setting up a fake town
hall meeting. At one point in the interview Bee provided Luntz with
several words and phrases and asked him to put his own brand of
spin on them. So "drilling for oil" became "responsible
exploration for energy," "logging" became "healthy
forests," and "manipulation" became "explanation
and education." That's right - he actually said that. (Luntz
was apparently stumped by Bee's next word, "Orwellian.")
So there you have it folks - the next time you hear George W. Bush
attempt to "explain" Social Security reform, or "educate"
you on the reasons for eliminating the estate tax, you'll know exactly
what he's talking about.
 Tom
DeLay 
For the last several weeks Tom DeLay has been loudly proclaiming
his innocence while simultaneously obfuscating the real facts of
the case behind a smokescreen of partisan buffoonery. The way Tom
tells it, he's completely innocent of all the charges against him
and the only reason he's in trouble is because of the evil liberals
plotting against him. Well, the evil liberals over at the Washington
Post turned up some interesting
information last week that makes the hole Tom has been digging
look just a little bit deeper and darker. According to the Post,
when DeLay took a trip to England and Scotland in 2000, he "said
that his expenses on this trip were paid by a nonprofit organization
and that the financial arrangements for it were proper." I
should think so - because "House ethics rules bar lawmakers
from accepting travel and related expenses from registered lobbyists."
Unfortunately for Tom, the Post turned up documents last
week which showed that the airfare for the trip was charged to a
credit card issued to one Jack
Abramoff - a lobbyist, and one of DeLay's best buddies, who
also happens to be right in the middle of a federal criminal and
tax investigation as we speak. And in case Tommy Boy wants to play
the "I didn't know" game, the Post also notes that,
"The invoice for DeLay's plane fare lists the name of what
was then Abramoff's lobbying firm, Preston Gates & Ellis. Multiple
sources, including DeLay's then-chief of staff Susan Hirschmann,
have confirmed that DeLay's congressional office was in direct contact
with Preston Gates about the trip itinerary before DeLay's departure,
to work out details of his travel. These contacts raise questions
about DeLay's statement that he had no way of knowing about the
financial and logistical support provided by Abramoff and his firm."
Oops.
 Brian
Wilson 
We noted last week that Tom DeLay is
facing increasing criticism from members of his own party, such
as Newt Gingrich and Rep. Christopher Shays. DeLay has also been
criticized by Bill O'Reilly, the Wall Street Journal, and
several other newspapers who endorsed George W. Bush in 2004. Not
that you would know any of this if you happened to catch Brian Wilson
on Fox News last week, of course. Wilson said
that DeLay has never been found guilty of violating any law and
that Democratic front groups are targeting him, using this helpful
graphic to bolster his points:
Wilson also aired clips of DeLay claiming he was being targeted
by a "left-wing syndicate" and that he was a victim of
"journalistic activism," and reported that he was "not
getting an even break from the media."
So where did Brian Wilson get this information from? Simple - he
copied it from an email that Tom DeLay sent to his supporters last
week, in which DeLay whined
about his problems being nothing more than a plot by the vast left-wing
conspiracy. Of course, Wilson helpfully declined to delve into the
truth of the matter - he just allowed DeLay's comments to stand
without rebuttal.
Looks like he's has been taking "journalism" tips from
our old pal Jeff Gannon.
 Tom
DeLay
One more quick aside this week to keep Tom DeLay simmering on
the front burner - this comes courtesy of David Sirota's blog. Sirota
noted
that back in 1995, not long after Republicans had retaken Congress
based on a promise to clean up Washington, Tom DeLay said this:
"The time has come that the American people know exactly what
their Representatives are doing here in Washington. Are they feeding
at the public trough, taking lobbyist-paid vacations, getting wined
and dined by special interest groups? Or are they working hard to
represent their constituents? The people, the American people, have
a right to know... I say the best disinfectant is full disclosure,
not isolation." So I guess that wasn't you at the Three
Tenors concert then, Tom?
Ted Nugent
It's been a while since The Nuge showed up on the list, but
last week's annual NRA convention gave him the perfect opportunity
for some first-class idiocy. At a special session on "God,
Guns & Rock 'N' Roll," Ted informed
attendees that, "To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers
dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters
dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early
release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot
'em." Wait a second... child molesters? Funny that, since it's
well known that during his rock 'n' roll days, The Nuge had a bit
of a thing for jailbait. Back
in 2000 he made number 63 on Spin's list of the "The
100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock" for "putting a new twist
on a rock 'n' roll standard, dating teen-age girls," according
to the Detroit News. He even had himself appointed the legal
guardian for a 17-year-old, "to keep the hassle factor low."
Indeed.
 Pope
Benedict XVI 
Last week the artist formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
now Pope Benedict XVI, laid out his plans for the future of the
Catholic church. Benedict spoke of reunifying, reaching out, called
for "an open and sincere dialogue" with other religions,
and said he would "do everything in his power to improve the
ecumenical cause," according
to the Associated Press. And of course there was no better way
to get this ball rolling than to kick the easiest target he could
find - homosexuals. As his first order of business, Benedict condemned
a gay marriage bill recently passed by the Spanish government, calling
it "iniquitous." A quick glance in my thesaurus reveals
that iniquitous is a synonym for "base, corrupt, criminal,
delinquent, evil, mean, reprobate, sinful, vicious, vile, villainous,
wicked, wrong" - and if that's not explicit enough for you,
Benedict has also described
homosexuality as an "intrinsic moral evil." Way to reach
out, Pope dude. According to the BBC, Benedict insisted that "just
because something was made law it did not make it right" and
said that "every profession linked with implementing homosexual
marriages should oppose it, even if it meant losing their jobs."
So, will every Catholic who works in a profession that is
linked to something official church doctrine disapproves of have
to quit their job? Or are we just talking about the gays here?
 Tom
Davis
It's not a secret that the Washington DC metro area has some
of the worst commuter problems in the country. One of the proposed
solutions is to encourage "smart growth" - that is, rather
than allow housing developers to disperse suburban sprawl willy-nilly
across the counties outside of DC, get them to build new developments
close to Metro rail stations, which will encourage commuters to
use public transport instead of putting even more cars on the already
crowded roads. Unfortunately, Rep. Tom Davis (R) of Fairfax, VA,
is not happy with this plan. Last week he announced
that he intended to use the full weight of Congress to a oppose
a new condo and townhouse development next to the Vienna Metro station.
Why? According to Tom, it would not just cause added congestion
to the road and rail system, but "Culturally, the people who
would move into this project in Vienna are urban kind of people.
A lot of them are single, and they would be happy living closer
in." And that's the crux of the matter. See, what Tom really
means is that a lot of those "culturally urban" people
who would be "happy living closer in" are Democrats.
And he certainly doesn't want those kind of people living
in his district. That's right - Tom Davis has apparently told at
least one local politician that his real reason for opposing the
development is that "all it does is produce Democrats."
Yes folks, it has come to this - Republicans are now so intent on
enforcing the red/blue divide that they're even trying to stop Democrats
from moving into their districts. Tell you what Tom, why don't you
just build a big wall all the way round DC so you can keep the "culturally
urban" folks right where you want them?
 Bill
Frist 
Bill Frist is really going out on a limb to promote his so-called
"nuclear option" - that is, his attempt to prevent Democrats
from filibustering George W. Bush's judicial nominees. Never mind
the fact that Senate Democrats have only rejected ten of
Bush's two-hundred-plus
nominees - Frist sees this failure to compromise (read: bow down
before him) as an example of the filibuster "being used against
people of faith." Huh? That's right - Bill Frist has decided
to turn a political argument about Senate rules into the Republican
party's latest attempt to stir their conservative Christian base
into a frenzy. So yesterday Frist was scheduled to appear on video
at "Justice Sunday" events across the country - a massive,
organized attempt by certain tax-exempt radical
right-wingers to inject their own personal brand of religion
into the government of the United States. I imagine we'll have more
about Justice Sunday next week when the reports have come in. But
Frist should probably take note of the fact that even members of
his own party are keen to avoid the nuclear option - according
to the Associated Press, private Republican polling showed "scant
support" for Frist's plan last week. So what is Frist playing
at? Does he really want to turn the United States of America
into a theocracy? I guess so...
 Rush
Limbaugh 
And finally, Oxycontin Boy offered an "apology" of
sorts last week after going on a live,
on-air rant about, um, blow jobs. Limbaugh was reacting to the
news that Al Gore's new cable TV network will soon be up-and-running,
with programming intended to "reflect the point of view of
young people." Clearly the point of view of young people is
not something Rush particularly wants to hear. "What the hell
is that, Al?" he exploded. "What the hell is the point
of view of young people? Blow jobs, that's what they're doing out
there. They're out there getting oral sex all day long, that's what
they're talking about." Uh, what? Limbaugh managed to blame
- you guessed it - Bill Clinton for the popularity of blow jobs
among young people these days, despite the fact that while Bill
wanted to keep his indiscretions private, it was Limbaugh and friends
who made sure that oral sex became a daily topic of discussion.
And anyway, is Rush seriously trying to suggest that nobody ever
got a blow job before 1998? What a tool. (For a full and frank explanation
of Rush's aversion to oral sex you really should check out James
Wolcott's website.) Later in the show Limbaugh said, "I
am going to apologize not for saying what I said, but I'm going
to apologize if it offended anybody ... My reaction is, somebody
go ahead and turn me into the FCC. I'll be honored to be fined.
It's just another government agency with its hand in my back pocket,
so go right ahead." Ooh, tough guy. See you next week!
Nominate a Conservative
for Next Week's List
|
