The Top 10 Conservative Idiots
(No. 217)
October 10, 2005
QuagMiers Edition
It
was a rough week for George W. Bush (1,3,5), who had the crap beaten
out of him by his own allies on the right wing thanks to his nomination
of presidential crony Harriet Miers (2) to be the the next Supreme
Court justice. And speaking of Bush's allies on the right wing,
the Family Research Council and their kooky friends (4) are opposed
to vaccinating women against cervical cancer. And Indiana Republicans
(7) wanted to require women undergoing fertility treatment to get
a "gestational certificate" to ensure that they are married.
And, of course, Fox News (9) and Bill O'Reilly (10) are back on
the list again. Enjoy and don't forget the key!
George
W. Bush
Last week, facing a firestorm of criticism over corruption and
cronyism in the White House, George W. Bush nominated yet another
of his completely-unqualified-but-close-personal-friends to a position
of power - this time the Supreme Court.
But here's the question on everyone's lips: just how good a Supreme
Court justice will Harriet Miers be? To find out the answer let's
turn to some leading conservative thinkers.
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DAVID
FRUM
"Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality.
It is impossible to me to imagine that she can endure the
anger and abuse - or resist the blandishments - that transformed,
say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today."
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CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
"There are 1,084,504 lawyers in the United States.
What distinguishes Harriet Miers from any of them, other than
her connection with the president? To have selected her ...
is scandalous."
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GEORGE
WILL
"It is not important that she be confirmed because
there is no evidence that she is among the leading lights
of American jurisprudence, or that she possesses talents commensurate
with the Supreme Court's tasks."
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PAT
BUCHANAN
"Bush had a chance for greatness in remaking
the Supreme Court, a chance to succeed where his Republican
predecessors from Nixon to his father all failed. He instinctively
recoiled from it. He blew it."
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BILL
KRISTOL
"I'm disappointed, depressed and demoralized."
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Um, hang on a minute. This is George W. Bush's nomination
to the Supreme Court we're talking about here? Our Great Leader?
The man who will transport us all into a glorious new conservative
future? My, how times have changed.
Don't worry though - while real conservatives are gnashing their
teeth at the Miers nomination, the radical religious right know
which side their bread's buttered on. They're more than willing
to stay the course and continue to trust the president. Which is
a bit odd really, considering that for the last five years he hasn't
actually done anything at all to enact their agenda.
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JAMES
DOBSON
"We welcome the president's nomination of Harriet
Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. He pledged emphatically during
his campaign to appoint judges who will interpret the law
rather than create it."
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TED
HAGGARD
"This is just part of the process. It's actually
good positioning because it confuses the liberals."
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JERRY
FALWELL
"I did talk to the White House, I did hear what
I needed to hear, and I happen to trust George Bush."
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Oops... Hang on a minute... Dobson's having second thoughts...
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JAMES
DOBSON
"If I have made a mistake here, I will never
forget it. The blood of those babies who will die will be
on my hands to a degree."
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Yes, it's business as usual in nutjob land.
Harriet
Miers
But the question remains: just what kind of justice would Harriet
Miers really be? Will she be a Scalia or a Souter? At this point,
nobody knows... which seems to be what's twisting conservatives'
panties.
At the end of the day, the Miers nomination is about cronyism.
To the great benefit of his billionaire buddies George W. Bush has
done an incredibly effective job of destroying government institutions
by filling them with completely useless and unqualified people (Halliburton
thanks you, Michael Brown). The only qualification that these
people do have is that they are totally and utterly loyal
to King George. And he plans to do the exact same thing with the
Miers nomination.
We
know that she was in charge of the Texas Lottery - where she
oversaw "the firing of two executive directors. She left early
amid lagging sales. One of the firings stirred
questions about whether political influence helped George W.
Bush avoid active duty in Vietnam."
We
know that she was the first female head of a major Texas law
firm, which during
her tenure was "forced to pay more than $30 million to
settle claims it vouched for the reputation of two clients who cheated
investors out of millions in an elaborate Ponzi scheme."
We
know that she "assumed such an insider role that in 2001
it was she who handed Bush the crucial 'presidential daily briefing'
hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the
Sept. 11 attacks."
And we
know that Harriet Miers thinks that George W. Bush is "the
most brilliant man she had ever met." Which ought to disqualify
her right there.
Oh yes, Harriet Miers is a Bush crony - even
Michelle Malkin thinks so - and as we're all more than aware,
what's good for George W. Bush tends to be very, very bad for the
American people.
It's somewhat less of a problem if you're appointing someone to
a position they can easily be fired from, but putting them on the
U.S. Supreme Court for life... well, that's a different story.
George
W. Bush
You know George W. Bush is in trouble when it's time to trot
out yet another "major
speech" on terrorism and the Iraq war. But after shoving
September 11 down everyone's throats - again - Bush's speech
basically boiled down to this:
So, yeah, well, there weren't any WMDs and the Iraqi people
weren't that pleased to see us after all and there weren't really
any terrorists in Iraq before we got there and Saddam Hussein
didn't actually have any capability to harm America but IF WE
LEAVE NOW.......... then by thunder! Things could turn, um, sour.
Inspiring stuff. Bay Buchanan immediately raved about the speech
on CNN, crowing that it would be a turning point in public opinion.
For Bush's sake it had better be - a brand new CBS
poll showed his approval rating at 37%, with a mere 26% saying
the country is heading in the right direction. Phew, what a stinker.
Unfortunately Bush's problems are also Iraq's, and the world's.
Our Great Leader is currently clutching desperately at one final
straw - that enough Iraqi soldiers can be trained (or re-trained
as the case may be) to handle security so that we can pull out;
that "when the Iraqi people stand up, we will stand down."
It's a pipe dream with dangerous consequences. The truth is that
Iraq is on the verge of tearing itself apart, with our soldiers
trapped in the middle. In order to "catapult the propaganda,"
Bush has been tossing out the fantasy
that "Right now there are over 80 army battalions fighting
alongside coalition troops," with "over 30 Iraqi battalions
in the lead."
There are about 500-600 soldiers in a battalion, so that's a minimum
of 15,000 Iraqi soldiers ready to rock n' roll. Considering that
there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 U.S. troops in
Iraq, that means we only have to train 135,000 more Iraqis (at a
cost of $7
billion per month) to finish the job. It took us two years to
train 15,000 so it should only take another, oh, 15-20 years or
so to train the rest.
There's just one problem - when Bush says that there are 30-80
Iraqi battalions fighting in Iraq, he's talking out of his ass.
Last week Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq, told
the Senate Armed Services Committee that there is actually only
one self-sufficient Iraqi battalion.
One. It's taken us two years to train one self-sufficient battalion,
comprising 500-600 soldiers, at a cost of $200 billion dollars and
counting.
You know, sometimes it's hard to believe that Bush's approval rating
is as high 37%.
The
Family Research Council & Friends
It was recently revealed that new vaccines could put an end
to the human papilloma virus (HPV) - the extremely common sexually
transmitted disease which can lead to cervical cancer later in life.
Scientists estimate that without the new vaccines, cervical cancer
deaths could increase fourfold in the next forty years.
And that's exactly where we'll be if the Family Research Council
and friends get their way. The FRC are planning
to oppose the introduction of the vaccines in the United States
based upon the idea that "abstinence is the best way to prevent
HPV." Said FRC spokesperson Bridget Maher, "Giving the
HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because
they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex."
Ah, what could be more pro-family than condemning thousands of
people to die needlessly?
George
W. Bush 
Did you know that George W. Bush has not vetoed a single bill
since becoming president? It's true - but he could break that tradition
soon. Last week the Senate added an amendment to a $440 billion
military spending bill which would, according
to the Miami Herald, "ban the use of 'cruel, inhuman
or degrading' treatment of any prisoner in the hands of the United
States."
And yes, George W. Bush has threatened to veto the bill unless
that language is removed.
90 senators voted to add the anti-torture amendment - co-sponsored
by John McCain and Lindsey Graham - with only 9 voting against.
But if the House version of the bill ends up containing the same
language, George W. Bush will veto it.
That Bush would threaten to veto a huge military spending bill
while 150,000 of our troops are fighting overseas is highly unusual
- that he would veto it because he doesn't want U.S. lawmakers to
take away his ability to torture prisoners is... what phrase am
I looking for here? Morally bankrupt? Criminally depraved? Ethically
disgraceful? Just plain evil?
Any of those will do.
Bobby
Stumbo 
Reporting stories from the Conservative Morals and Values file
is getting to be a depressingly regular occurrence. Meet Bobby Stumbo,
former Floyd County, Kentucky, Republican leader, who was recently
charged with sexually abusing a five-year-old boy.
According to WKYT.com,
"Police testified it all started when the boy returned home
from his father's house and sat down with his mother. 'He kissed
her, and when he kissed her, he stuck his tongue in her mouth. She
asked him where he learned that, and the child told her Bobby did
that to him, talking about Bobby Stumbo,' Detective Byron Hansford
said."
Excuse me, I have to go throw up now.
Indiana Republicans
Remember the days when conservatives stood for freedom and liberty
and keeping government out of your private life? Welcome to the
Republican party's brave new world. Last week it was revealed that
Indiana Republicans were attempting to pass a bill which would apparently
"make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of
Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women
who do become pregnant 'by means other than sexual intercourse.'"
That's right - under the proposed law, any woman seeking to become
a mother through the use of techniques such as IVF treatment would
first have to file for a "petition for parentage" in their
local county probate court. If the court approved, the woman would
be presented with a "gestational certificate" which must
be given to her doctor before he would be allowed to facilitate
the pregnancy.
Of course, only married women would be allowed to receive
a "gestational certificate." Sorry, lesbians - no children
for you. And don't think about trying to bypass the law, or you'd
face criminal charges.
If this attempt to regulate pregnancies sounds utterly despicable
to you, you're not alone. After the bill became public knowledge,
Republican lawmakers backed off from the proposal saying, "The
issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn
from consideration by the Health Finance Commission."
But the fact that they would even come up with such a fucked-up
idea in the first place speaks volumes about the current state of
the Republican party, and particularly their views on reproductive
rights. Last
week it was Bill Bennett suggesting that the crime rate would
go down if we aborted black babies, this week it's "gestational
certificates." Insanity, I tell ya.
David
Vitter 
One of George W. Bush's "crowning achievements" is
the so called No Child Left Behind Act. And as many parents found
out to their consternation, within the Act is buried a provision
which requires schools to give students' personal information
to the military. If you don't want your kid to be hassled by military
recruiters desperate to meet their lagging recruitment goals, you
have to opt out.
But Duval County schools are making it much more difficult to do
just that. Last week the Florida Times-Union revealed
that parents "can either approve the release of personal information
to recruiters or give up all public recognition including being
pictured in the yearbook and listed in sports programs and the honor
roll."
Why is Duval County doing this? Because the more parents that opt
out, the greater the chance that their schools will lose funding.
This provision was inserted into No Child Left Behind by Sen. David
Vitter (R-La), and it's now reaching its logical conclusion.
Yes, in today's America, the government will actually defund schools
if those schools don't do everything they can to deliver children
into the hands of the military. And so to prevent parents from opting
out, schools are essentially threatening to make kids "non-persons."
This is the Republican party's commitment to education?
Fox
News
It's not much of a secret that despite claiming to be "fair
and balanced" Fox News has an agenda cribbed directly from
the playbook of Joseph Goebbels. However, it is interesting
when former Fox News employees confirm it for us.
Last week, David Shuster (now of MSNBC) recounted
some details of his six-year stint at Fox News:
At the time I started at Fox I thought, this is a great news
organization to let me be very aggressive with a sitting president
of the United States."
That president was, of course, Bill Clinton - and there's nothing
wrong with that. The media should cast a thoroughly critical
eye over those in power.
Shuster continued:
I started having issues when others in the organization would
take my carefully scripted and nuanced reporting and pull out
bits and pieces to support their agenda on their shows. With the
change of administration in Washington, I wanted to do the same
kind of reporting, holding the (Bush) administration accountable,
and that was not something that Fox was interested in doing.
My my. There's a shock. Do go on...
Editorially, I had issues with story selection. But the bigger
issue was that there wasn't a tradition or track record of honoring
journalistic integrity. I found some reporters at Fox would cut
corners or steal information from other sources or in some cases,
just make things up. Management would either look the other way
or just wouldn't care to take a closer look. I had serious issues
with that.
So there you have it. Fox News: fair and balanced, or a giant turd
clogging the media toilet bowl? We report, you decide.
(Psst. It's the turd.)
Bill
O'Reilly
And finally... Hush! Listen closely. Off there... in the distance
- can you hear it? Why, it's the delicate call of Billicus Oreillicus,
commonly known as the Flying Falafel, famous for its habit of defending
itself by turning purple, puffing up its chest to three times normal
size, and then unplugging its opponent's microphone. Hush! There
it is again... can you hear it? Wh... wha... WHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
Surely there's no greater whiner in all of TV punditry than poor
downtrodden Bill O'Reilly. Last week he dedicated an entire segment
of his show to "the most vicious political websites in the
country" - the most vicious of which is, according to O'Reilly,
the great Media
Matters. Bill said that Media Matters "make[s] stuff [up] about
me ... [e]very day of my life," has "no ethics or scruples," and
called them "assassins" and "zombies."
Bill then went on to claim that he'd had trouble booking guests
on his TV show because "they were afraid that Media Matters would
go after them," and announced that, "I've got to have bodyguards.
I've got to have security wherever I go. And it's because of them.
... I don't fear them; I loathe them."
The Flying Falafel is apparently living in such fear that he's
too scared to even enter the same room as the truly terrifying Media
Matters honcho David Brock. Yes - O'Reilly has turned down repeated
requests from Media Matters to appear on his show.
Hush! There it is again.... Wh... wha... WHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
See you next week!
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