The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 255

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 255

Edited on Mon Aug-14-06 04:46 PM by EarlG

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 255

August 14, 2006
Below Average Joe Edition

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Hey Joe, where you goin' with that application to run as an independent candidate in your hand? Yes, it's come to this - Joe Lieberman (1,2,3,4), former Democratic vice-presidential nominee and now proud independent, makes his very first appearance on the list this week. Elsewhere, the Terrormongers (5) are thrilled, Thomas Opre (7) gives us a lesson in conservative morals and values, and Congressional Republicans (9) show us how to support the troops. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

Joe Lieberman

As you know, Democratic Underground is a site for Democrats, and so our policy is to never put Democrats in the Top 10 Conservative Idiots - no matter how tempting it may be from time to time. But last week Joe Lieberman announced that this November he's going to run for Senate in Connecticut on the independent "Connecticut for Lieberman" ticket - against our Democratic nominee Ned Lamont. And therefore I'm allowed to let him have it.

Most political primaries end like this: the winning candidate graciously accepts his party's nomination, and the losing candidate graciously acknowledges his defeat and pledges to throw his support behind the winner. The first part of that traditional equation held true in last week's Connecticut primary; the second part did not. Five seconds after conceding defeat, Joe Lieberman announced that he would be running for the seat as an "independent democrat" - whatever the hell that is. Let's go to the transcript:

Thank you so much for standing by me in this tough race, for your all work, for all your confidence. Your support has sustained my family and made this a much closer race than the pundits would have predicted. Just before coming out to see you, I called Ned Lamont and congratulated him on his success today... and let me tell you where I see where we are now. I am a sports fan, so I am going to use a sports comparison. As I see it, in this campaign we just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead. In the second half our team - Team Connecticut - is going to surge forward to victory.

Hmm. Tell you what, let me make a sports comparison.

It's fourth down and goal with a yard to go, five seconds left in the fourth quarter, and Team Connecticut desperately needs a touchdown. The ball is snapped... veteran running back Joe Lieberman takes the handoff and plunges toward the end zone. But he's stopped just inches from the line! The crowd roars - and Lieberman fumbles! The ball bounces once... twice... and is recovered by rookie wide receiver Ned Lamont, who scrambles into the end zone for the score. Team Connecticut wins! The crowd goes wild! Team Connecticut has pushed Joe Lieberman to the ground and hoisted Ned Lamont onto their shoulders. They're handing him the game ball. This is extraordinary!

But what's this? Joe Lieberman has grabbed a bunch of penalty markers and is throwing them onto the field. He's running up and down the sideline, knocking down cheerleaders and kicking photographers. Despite the fact that Team Connecticut has won the game, it seems that Lieberman believes HE should have been the one to score the winning touchdown, not Lamont. Now he's run onto the field, grabbed the game ball out of Lamont's hands, and dashed into the end zone. He's high-fiving himself.

And the crowd have started throwing bottles at Lieberman...

I strongly recommend that you read the rest of Joe's "concession" speech - if you want to throw up on yourself.

Joe Lieberman

Now let's take a look at the final days of the doomed Lieberman campaign. Here are some clues as to why he ended up handing his nomination to a guy nobody had heard of six months ago.

In a speech the day before election day, Lieberman blasted Lamont saying, "That's something that separates me from my opponent - I don't hate Republicans. I know that some times the best way to get things done in the Senate for my constituents is through bipartisan cooperation. That doesn't make me a bad Democrat. It makes me a better senator."

Joe said this while standing next to former Senator Max Cleland. "My opponent has done his best to distort my record," Joe remarked, "spending at least $4 million of his own money to mislead people into thinking that I am someone I am not - not unlike what happened to Max Cleland four years ago."

Lest we forget, here's what happened to Max Cleland four years ago: the triple-amputee Vietnam veteran lost his bid for re-election after Republicans ran TV ads comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and called him unpatriotic and soft on national security. Republicans did that. The same Republicans that Joe wants to shake hands with and pat on the back.

Mind you, Lieberman wasn't above using similar "soft on national security" charges against Ned Lamont. "If we simply give up and pull out now, like my opponent wants to do, then it would be a disaster to Iraq and to us. We would run a high risk of allowing Iraq to become like Afghanistan when the Taliban were in charge, and Al Qaeda had safe haven from which to strike us," he said. Perhaps that's why Joe gets on so well with Republicans - they give him such great talking points.

Finally, according to the New York Times:

Mr. Lieberman also said Mr. Lamont was a "center-right Democrat" and not as liberal as Mr. Lamont's antiwar message might suggest. He noted that Mr. Lamont, as a Democratic selectman in Greenwich, frequently cast the same votes as the two other board members, who were Republicans.

Wait a minute... so Ned Lamont is an angry partisan who hates Republicans and acted in a bipartisan manner when he was a selectman?

You know, it's actually really surprising to me that Joe lost. I mean, his message was just so coherent.

Joe Lieberman

Before we move on from this debacle, it would be remiss of me to ignore what happened on election day. We first knew that something was awry when messages started popping up on the DU discussion forums announcing that Joe Lieberman's website was down. Then more messages popped up to announce Lieberman's campaign was claiming that - gasp! - they'd been hacked. So we turned on MSNBC, and there was Chris Matthews on the phone with a very irate Lieberman spokesman who was vehemently accusing Lamont supporters of hacking their servers.

It seems that the Lieberman spokesman was most angry about the fact that the loss of the website was hampering their Get Out The Vote efforts - not only that, but they couldn't send or receive any emails. Insinuations of vote suppression were soon flying, and the Lieberman spokesman assured Chris Matthews that the appropriate authorities had been contacted. My goodness!

Now, it turns out that the Lieberman website has indeed been hacked in the past. Take a look:

That was back in early July. So, being curious types, we logged on to Joe2006.com to see what "Thehacker" had written this time. Here's what it said:

Strange, eh? It didn't look like it had been hacked - in fact it was far more likely that the extra traffic coming to the site (this was election day after all) had overwhelmed the server.

But it wasn't long before the "suspended" page had been replaced by the following screed:

In case you can't read it, it says:

UPDATE ON THE ATTACK ON THE LIEBERMAN CAMPAIGN WEBSITE STATEMENT FROM SEAN SMITH:

"For the past 24 hours the Friends for Joe Lieberman's website and email has been totally disrupted and disabled, we believe that this is the result of a coordinated attack by our political opponents. The campaign has notified the US Attorney and the Connecticut Chief State's Attorney and the campaign will be filing a formal complaint reflecting our concerns. The campaign has also notified the State Attorney General Dick Blumenthal for his review."

"We call on Ned Lamont to make an unqualified statement denouncing this kind of dirty campaign trick and to demand whoever is responsible to cease and desist immediately. Any attempt to suppress voter participation and undermine the voting process on Election Day is deplorable and has no place in our democracy."

Crikey! The Lieberman campaign was hopping mad, and the 133t haX0rs of the Lamont campaign were going to be in deep trouble! Just one question though - why, if the aforementioned Get Out The Vote operation was so important to the Lieberman campaign, did they not use this opportunity to post emergency GOTV information, like phone numbers? Seems a bit... odd. Even odder was the fact that the new "update" disappeared after ten minutes, almost as if someone figured out that it probably wasn't a good idea to let people know that they had the ability to post messages on the website. Much better to let the hacking story play out on cable news, where the anchors didn't have a clue what they were talking about but liked the sound of the word "hacked."

Meanwhile, the Lamont campaign graciously volunteered to send a techie over to Lieberman HQ to help them fix the problem. When the Lieberman campaign didn't respond, the Lamont campaign put up a link on their website to the Google cache of the Lieberman website. Strange that the Lieberman campaign didn't think to do that on their own site when they were putting up their "statement." But there you go.

Anyway, after the statement disappeared, the following page appeared:

And that was that for the rest of the day. Now, sure, Daily Kos reported not long afterwards that the site probably wasn't hacked at all, and sure, Kos figured out that the Lieberman campaign was likely paying $15 a month for their hosting, which is not really enough to keep a U.S. Senate candidate's website running on election day, and sure, Elad, our programmer, told me that he was "able to telnet into (the Lieberman campaign's) mail server and enter several commands with immediate response, I don't buy that their email is down."

But let's not let all that get in the way of a good smear. After all, the truth is just so complicated and technical.

Here's what I think really happened: Lamont was supported by the bloggers and the bloggers hang out on the Internets and this was clearly an Internets-related problem so ergo it must have been the Lamont campaign clogging up Lieberman's tubes. At least, that's what the mainstream media told me.

Joe Lieberman

Go on then, just one more. In light of Joe's decision to run for Senate in Connecticut as the founding member of the Connecticut for Lieberman party (hey, nice website he's got there), it might not be a bad idea for him to heed the wise words of a veteran senator, spoken to Fox News's Chris Wallace shortly after George W. Bush's narrow victory in the 2004 election:

You know, the wonder of our system, Chris, of course, is that, you know, 115 million people vote, everybody makes up their own mind. There are so many reasons why it happened. In the end, my own feeling is, looking at the polls, but intuiting, based on people I talk to, is that, although Senator Kerry got a lot of votes, 56 million votes, more than any Democratic candidate for president in history, but there's no prizes for second place in American politics.

Wise words indeed, spoken by none other than former Democratic senator... Joe Lieberman.

The next quote isn't by Lieberman though, but it's equally applicable and was spoken shortly after the theft of the 2000 presidential election:

"We preserve and protect our system of justice best when we accept its judgments that we disagree with most."

Okay, you got me. It's Lieberman.

Terrormongers

Last week British and Pakistani authorities announced that they had foiled a major terrorist plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic, a plot which was seemingly inspired by Ramzi Yousef's failed Operation Bojinka in 1995. (Incidentally, Ramzi Yousef was captured, tried and sentenced on Bill Clinton's watch.)

Wow! It's only been five years since 9/11, but I feel so much safer already.

Of course, the news that shady Islamists are still planning to harm American interests sent shockwaves of joy through the Republican party - one by one they stepped forward to claim that it is only under their leadership that we can be fully safe from the terrorist threat. Now, sure, the fact that the terrorist threat still seems to be going strong after six years of crappy Republican leadership might make you think that perhaps we need a change of direction. But don't be fooled...

"So if you have Lamont Democrats who say, 'Bring'em home, turn away, and it will be all over,' the American people say, 'You're kidding yourself. We're in war and the only way you walk away from a war is as a victor, defeating the enemy.'" - An unidentified senior administration official

"When we are attacked, their (liberals) first reaction is to recoil, and say, 'This is really horrible. It's too harsh and you can't go after these wonderful people that just killed a bunch of Americans.'" - Tom DeLay

"There seems to be two approaches, and in the Connecticut race, one of the approaches is ignore the difficulties and walk away. Now, when the United States walked away, in the opinion of the Osama bin Laden in 1991, bin Laden drew from that the conclusion that Americans were weak and wouldn’t stay the course and that led to September 11th." - Tony Snow, one day before the plot announcement

"The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task." - Dick Cheney, on the Lieberman primary loss

"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big ... (some Democratic candidates) won't look as appealing." - An unidentified White House official

"Russia's big and so is China." - George W. Bush

Pay no attention to the fact that the British apparently wanted to keep the suspects under surveillance, but were http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/">pressured to make the arrests sooner by U.S. officials. The splashy foiled terror plot announcement - which the Bush Administration and Republican insiders knew was coming - conveniently played into Ken Mehlman's latest high-concept campaign message: calling Democrats "Defeat-O-Crats." Clever. (That was five minutes before he said that Democrats should remember that the country is at war "instead of focusing on political attacks.")

And it was a gift from the gods for our old friend and new enemy Joe Lieberman, who said, "If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again."

That's right - not only do prominent Republicans think that a vote for Democrats is a vote for the terrorists, but so does Joe "Watch Me Provide Bipartisan Cover For The GOP" Lieberman, as he reaches around - sorry, across - the aisle. (By the way, did I mention that Joe was the recipient of a friendly phone call from Karl Rove on primary day?)

So there you have it. This is the opening shot of the GOP's election campaign, and their strategy for 2006 is exactly the same as their strategy for 2004: "Forget Iraq - feel the fear." According to the Washington Times last week:

Republican candidates can disagree with President Bush on the Iraq war and not face retaliation from the White House or the party's national campaign committees, the chairman of the Republican National Committee said. Republicans plan to campaign this fall on a disciplined message centered on the importance of the war on terror.

They sure are. It worked two years ago. Will it work again?

Mike Fitzpatrick

The GOP's renewed focus on terrorism issues (where is Osama bin Laden, anyway?) along with Ken Mehlman's announcement that GOP candidates can disagree with the president on Iraq has freed up many Republicans to perform mighty flip-flops in the hope of saving their seats. Take first-term congressman Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, for example.

Back in December, Fitzpatrick's Democratic opponent, Iraq war veteran Patrick Murphy, announced that he would be supporting a plan inspired by John Murtha - bringing National Guard troops and Reserves home, and redeploying the remaining American forces to Iraq's periphery. Now that the plan has caught on with voters, Fitzpatrick is suddenly taking a U-turn. He said last week, "I have reluctantly concluded ... that when it comes to the war in Iraq, President Bush has been bold, principled, resolute, but mistaken in crucial ways vital to the success of our mission there. I believe we need a new strategy for success in Iraq."

Fitzpatrick's new strategy? Well... let's just say he doesn't actually have one. But now the GOP has acknowledged that it's brushing aside the Iraq issue and going full-bore at terrorism again this November, it's apparently safe for their candidates to suddenly come out and criticize Our Great Leader. After all, George's Iraq plan may have sucked balls, but didn't he look manly with that bullhorn?

Thomas Opre

Time for another conservative morals and values update! This week's star is Thomas Opre, a state legislative candidate from Missoula, Montana. And what's Opre been up to? Let's just say that you might not want to ask him that age-old question which is jokingly aimed at politicians, "When did you stop beating your wife?"

According to the Billings Gazette:

A state legislative candidate from the Swan Valley was charged with misdemeanor partner assault Monday in Missoula Justice Court for allegedly abusing his wife. Thomas A. Opre, 39, was arrested Sunday evening after his wife called 911 and reported that he had hit and grabbed her in an aggressive manner.

(snip)

Opre's wife told a sheriff's deputy that the man has been aggressive in the past. On Sunday, she told authorities Opre "got so angry he lost control, got in her face and grabbed her," according to court records.

The woman showed the deputy bruises on the back of her left arm, and said the marks were from a dispute several weeks earlier when Opre had grabbed her. The deputy photographed the bruises, and noted in his report that the woman's arms appeared red.

Wow. So what happened next?

When the deputy told the woman that Opre was going to jail, she asked the officer to "just warn or scare him into not doing this kind of thing again," according to records.

The woman then said Opre might "return and shoot her because she had reported the incident."

Yup, sounds about right.

June Griffin

Meanwhile, in Dayton, TN, conservative activist June Griffin has been doing her best to show the world what makes America truly great. Last week Griffin was arrested and is now "facing misdemeanor charges of theft, vandalism and harassment and felony charges of civil rights violations," according to the Chattanoogan.

Griffin was apparently driven into an apoplectic rage after visiting a local Hispanic grocery store and noticing a small Mexican flag in the window.

She stated, "I went in and there was nothing English in the store. There was one man who could not speak a word of English."

She said she was outraged about the Mexican flag, saying it was an "act of war" and it "insulted my citizenship."

Ms. Griffin said as the Hispanic man watched, she tore off the flag from where it was suctioned to the building and left with it.

She said, "Foreigners should learn English or leave."

Apparently Griffin has been trying to get the local government to ban all flags except Old Glory (and the Tennessee state flag, of course).

I can see her point. After all, how else are we supposed to remember that America is the land of the free if the government won't lock up people who don't fly the right flag?

Congressional Republicans

Back in Washington, Republicans in the House and Senate are trying desperately to show people why they deserve re-election this year - and they've come up with a real winner. See, people have gotten the wrong idea about this Congress. Just because Republicans have wasted years on such matters of import as banning gay marriage, trying to keep Terri Schiavo alive, and making sure that multi-millionaires get a few extra dollars to spend on that new Hummer, it doesn't mean that Republicans don't care about average Americans.

Take the troops, for example. We all know how much Republicans have done for them. The GOP knows that our troops are the toughest in the world, which is why they sent them off to fight a war with inadequate body armor. And when the troops come home, the GOP knows that they don't want to be molly-coddled by the nanny state. They want to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

That's why "Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war," according to USA Today.

House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center - half of what the center received last fiscal year.

(snip)

Scientists at the center develop ways to diagnose and treat servicemembers who suffer brain damage. The work is done at seven military and Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, including the center's headquarters at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, and one civilian treatment site.

The center has clashed with the Pentagon in recent months over a program to identify troops who have suffered mild to moderate brain injuries in Iraq from mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs - the most common weapons used by insurgents.

Preliminary research by the center shows that about 10% of all troops in Iraq, and up to 20% of front line infantry troops, suffer concussions during combat tours. Many experience headaches, disturbed sleep, memory loss and behavior issues after coming home, the research shows.

The center urged the Pentagon to screen all troops returning from Iraq in order to treat symptoms and create a database of brain injury victims. Scientists say multiple concussions can cause permanent brain damage.

The Pentagon so far has declined to do the screening and argues that more research is needed.

Er, so let me get this straight - the Pentagon says we can't do research on brain injury victims because more research is needed?

Sean Hannity

And finally, big props to Mike Stark at CallingAllWingnuts.com for managing to express what was on everyone's mind during Hannity & Colmes's coverage of the Lieberman/Lamont race last Tuesday:

See you next week!

-- EarlG