The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 290

top10 ADMIN

(155 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon May-14-07 12:39 AM
Original message

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 290

Edited on Mon May-14-07 12:42 AM by EarlG

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 290

May 14, 2007
Valley Of The Dicks Edition

Dick Morris (1) and Dick Cheney (2) top the chart this week with their latest nonsensical proclamations about Iraq. Meanwhile, The Bush Administration (3) has destroyed the National Guard, Ted Poe (4) drops a stinker on the House floor, and Bill O'Reilly (8) calls off the most useless boycott ever. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

Dick Morris

If you've ever watched him on Fox News or had the misfortune to receive promotional emails from NewsMax.com, you may be under the impression that the only thing Dick Morris cares about is getting a peek up Hillary Clinton's skirt. But, somewhat surprisingly, Mr. Morris does have opinions on other, non-Clintonian, matters. For example, last week on "Hannity & Colmes" he explained why the situation in Iraq has become an intractable problem:

DICK: I think that withdrawal from Iraq - it obviously gives al Qaeda a huge victory. Huge victory. On the other hand, if we stay in Iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more Americans, which they really like.

Hmm, a dilemma indeed. If we withdraw, al Qaeda wins a "huge victory." But if we stay, they get to kill more American troops. What to do?

Don't worry - according to Dick, it's more straightforward than you think.

DICK: One of the things, though, that I think the antiwar crowd has not considered is that, if we're putting the Americans right within their arms' reach, they don't have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don't have to knock down the trade center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you're a terrorist.

Er, what?

If you think this concept seems profoundly disturbing, you're not alone. Essentially Dick's position is that our troops are nothing more than human sacrifices on the altar of global terrorism. If we pull out of Iraq, the evil monsters will come to America and kill us all! Much better to feed them a steady diet of young American men and women in a faraway country that we don't really have to think about, right?

That way we can all go about our lives - shopping, going to the movies, dining out, making bucketloads of cash by baiting the Clintons on Fox News - without having to worry about why people from other parts of the globe might want to blow the crap out of us. Yep, just keep throwing our troops into the meatgrinder and all will be well. Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, it doesn't matter - as long as we're feeding the beast.

So congratulations, Mr. Morris, for coming up with the most callous, self-serving rationale for staying in Iraq I've heard so far. You are truly contemptible!

Dick Cheney

And speaking of contemptible, Vice President Dick Cheney last week declared that it's "game time" in Iraq. "We've all got challenges together," he said. "We've got to pull together. We've got to get this work done. It's game time."

Er, pardon me, but if it's "game time" now, what the hell have you been doing for the past four years?

No, wait, don't tell me - you've been going around saying crap like this:

"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." - March 16, 2003

"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." - March 16, 2003

"I think there's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government." - January 22, 2004

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." - June 20, 2005

"We will succeed in Iraq, just like we did in Afghanistan. We will stand up a new government under an Iraqi-drafted constitution. We will defeat that insurgency, and, in fact, it will be an enormous success story." - June 24, 2005

"If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well." - October 17, 2006

Dick, I've got bad news for you. It's not "game time." It's a fucking disaster.

The Bush Administration

Last week the town of Greensburg, Kansas, was destroyed by a powerful tornado - the entire town was literally wiped out. And once again, the recovery effort may be hampered by the Bush administration's misbegotten occupation of Iraq.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) appeared on CNN last week and had the following conversation with correspondent John Roberts:

ROBERTS: We spoke with your (INAUDIBLE) general, Major General Bunting, a little while ago. You have illuminated a problem that you've got here in terms of the National Guard's ability to be able to react to this crisis because of the Iraq war. What's going on?

SEBELIUS: Well, states all over the country are not only missing personnel, National Guard troops are - about 40 percent of the troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan - but we're missing the equipment. When the troops get deployed, the equipment goes with them. So, here in Kansas, about 50 percent of our trucks are gone. We need trucks. We're missing Humvees, we're missing all kinds of equipment that can help us respond to this kind of emergency.

ROBERTS: So how is that going to hamper efforts both in the recovery and the rebuilding?

SEBELIUS: Well, as you travel around Greensburg, you'll see that the city and county trucks were destroyed. They - the storm hit them, as well as anything...

ROBERTS: Fire trucks and everything is gone.

SEBELIUS: So we're borrowing equipment from around, but National Guard are our first responders. They don't have the equipment they need to come in. And it will just make it that much slower.

The White House immediately hit back at Sebelius, with press secretary Tony Sonw dismissively suggesting that "If you don't request it, you're not going to get it. ... As far as we know, the only thing the governor has requested are FM radios. There have been no requests to the National Guard for heavy equipment. ... We are eager to provide what Kansas needs. But again there are also - you also have to go through the process of making the request first."

I guess Tony didn't get the memo:

Dec. 30, 2005: Sebelius writes to Rumsfeld requesting new equipment. "The Guard was critical to responding to recent blizzards and floods in Kansas, yet its ability to respond to similar situations is being diminished by a lack of equipment," wrote Sebelius. Included with her letter was a list of equipment Kansas had lost to the Iraq war.

Jan. 23, 2006: Sebelius personally urges Bush to increase National Guard funding. In an one-hour motorcade ride in Kansas with Bush, Sebelius expressed concern about "a reduction of National Guard troop strength in its next budget." Bush assured her he was "dealing" with the shortages.

June 28, 2006: Sebelius sends Army Secretary list of equipment lost in war. In a meeting with Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey, Sebelius told Harvey that the state had lost about $140 million in National Guard equipment to the Iraq war. Her office then sent him a list of the lost equipment.

Sept. 2006: Sebelius lobbies for replacement of National Guard equipment sent to Iraq. "Kansas' congressional delegation, Sebelius and governors from around the country have been lobbying the Pentagon for increased funding to replace National Guard equipment that has been left in Iraq or damaged beyond repair after repeated use in war."

Feb. 27, 2007: Sebelius pushes White House and Congress for more funding. "Now the Guard needs Washington's help," Sebelius said in press conference on Capitol Hill. "The President and Congress need to step up to the plate and give our Guard members the support they deserve."

And let's not forget that in 2006, all fifty governors wrote a letter to Our Great Leader "imploring him to immediately begin reoutfitting their depleted National Guards" - and nothing was done.

So much for, "If you don't request it, you're not going to get it." Looks like you're not going to get it if you request it either.

Ted Poe

It's official, folks: the "party of Lincoln" is no more. Last week Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) gave an impassioned speech on the House floor during which he tried to make a point about American foreign policy in Iraq:

POE: Nathan Bedford Forrest said it best about winning and victory and the means of so, he said "fustest with the mostest." Congress needs to send the generals the mostest, Mr. Speaker.

Now, there's apparently some debate about whether or not Nathan Bedford Forrest really ordered the massacre of several hundred surrended black soldiers at Fort Pillow during the Civil War, when he was a major general fighting on the side of the Confederacy. However, there doesn't appear to be any doubt that he was one of the original founders of the Ku Klux Klan, and its first Grand Wizard. (Apparently when Nathan Bedford Forrest was first told about the planned KKK, he said, "That's a good thing; that's a damn good thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place.")

Anyway, my point is that it seems just a little odd for a member of the so-called "party of Lincoln" to be using his time on the House floor to give props to a man who was not only a slave trader and a Confederate general, but also the original Grand Wizard of the KKK. Somehow I don't think Honest Abe would approve.

The Bush Administration

Before the invasion of Iraq, various neo-cons suggested that the war would be quick, easy, and above all, cheap. These days they tend to deny that they ever suggested such a thing, but I'm afraid the record speaks for itself:

"Well, the reconstruction costs remain a very - an issue for the future. And Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction." - Ari Fleischer

"This is not Afghanistan... When we approach the question of Iraq, we realize here is a country which has a resource. And it's obvious, it's oil. And it can bring in and does bring in a certain amount of revenue each year... $10, $15, even $18 billion... this is not a broke country." - Richard Armitage

"There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people... and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years... We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." - Paul Wolfowitz

"If you (worry about just) the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan... Iraq has oil. They have financial resources." - Donald Rumsfeld

"On the resource side, Iraq itself will rightly shoulder much of the responsibilities. Among the sources of revenue available are $1.7 billion in invested Iraqi assets, the found assets in Iraq... and unallocated oil-for-food money that will be deposited in the development fund." - Alan Larson

"I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense... (Reconstruction) funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it. - Donald Rumsfeld

So how's that working out? Well, the New York Times reported last week that:

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq's declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.

Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.

(snip)

Iraqi and American officials have previously said that smuggling of refined products like gasoline and kerosene is probably costing Iraq billions of dollars a year in lost revenues. The smuggling of those products is particularly feared because officials believe that a large fraction of the proceeds go to insurgent groups.

(snip)

Adding together both civilian and military financing, the report concludes that the United States has spent $5.1 billion of the $7.4 billion in American taxpayer money set aside to rebuild the Iraqi electricity and oil sectors. The United States has also spent $3.8 billion of Iraqi money on those sectors, the report says.

Despite those enormous expenditures, the performance is far short of official goals, and in some cases seems to be declining further.

So let's see... the Bush administration has spent $5 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars to rebuild the Iraqi oil sector, and the result is that an estimated 300 million barrels of oil have gone missing, putting millions of dollars into the hands of insurgents who are using the funds to kill American troops.

Way to go! But just out of curiosity, how come we don't know exactly how much oil is being stolen?

Mr. Ebel said the lack of modern metering equipment, or measuring devices, at Iraq's wellheads made it especially difficult to track smuggling there. The State Department official agreed that there were no meters at the wellheads, but said that Iraq's Oil Ministry had signed a contract with Shell Oil to study the possibility of putting in the meters.

Well I guess they've only had four years to get that sorted out. No rush.

Mitt Romney

Want to know more about the integrity Mitt Romney would bring to the presidency if he's elected next year? Last week he appeared on "Hannity & Colmes," and when Sean Hannity pondered, "Am I the only one here thinking that in all the build-up to the war that those weapons of mass destruction got moved to Syria?" the Mittster responded, "It's possible. It's entirely possible."

Bzzzzt! Sorry Mitt, you lose. In fact, Sean was the only one there thinking that Saddam moved his WMD to Syria, wasn't he? You just went along for the ride because you're desperate to pander to his knuckle-dragging viewers.

I mean, surely nobody with more than half a brain cell can believe that Saddam Hussein somehow managed to secretly move tons and tons of WMD out of the country without anyone noticing, right? You don't think the administration would have gleefully paraded the juicy satellite photos if that were the case?

Mind you, there is another possibility - Mitt Romney actually does believe that Saddam moved his WMD to Syria.

So, shameless bootlicker or complete moron? I report, you decide.

Jethro Monestime

A few weeks ago Jethro Monestime, who until recently worked at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, decided to play a hilarious prank by downloading a verse from the Old Testament book of Leviticus onto his cellphone and then broadcasting it over the airport's PA system.

The verse in question was this one: "V'et zachar lo tishkav mishk'vey eeshah toeyvah hee." In case you don't speak Hebrew, conservative Christians have translated this verse to mean, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." It's their favorite passage to point to when claiming that homosexuality is forbidden by the Bible. (Of course they also forget to mention that the book of Leviticus also says that eating shellfish is an abomination, slavery is a-ok, shaving is a no-no, and children who curse their mothers or fathers should be put to death.)

If you want to find out everything that's wrong with that particular Bible verse, click here. But obviously Mr. Monestime's intention was clear - he wanted to publicly broadcast his bigotry. I'm sorry - I mean, he wanted to play a hilarious prank. Which would be only be found funny by other bigots.

And so he did! And then he got fired. What a shame.

Mind you, expect complaints from Pat Robertson and co. over Jethro's firing. I can see it now... How dare this man get fired for broadcasting a passage from the Bible over the PA system! Is nothing sacred any more? This is a Christian country! Getting Jethro Monestime fired is all part of the liberal atheists' War On Broadcasting Biblical Passages Over Airport PA Systems!

Bill O'Reilly

Big news in the world of international commerce: last week Bill O'Reilly informed his viewers that "The Factor is lifting the boycott of France." Mon dieu! I'm sure the French will be breathing a sigh of relief now that the Falafel Master has decided to call off his crushing economic sanctions.

Lest we forget, Bill originally called for a boycott of France in 2003 because they refused to support the invasion of Iraq (a decision which makes them look smarter with every passing day). So how did the boycott pan out? Well, according to Media Matters:

In 2003 French exports increased by $979 million over exports in 2002.

In 2004 French exports increased by $2.39 billion over exports in 2003.

In the first five months of 2005 French exports increased by $1.5 billion over exports during the first five months of 2004.

Way to go, Bill! You really showed 'em who's boss.

Rudy Giuliani

Last week ABC News reported that a pharmaceutical company...

...pled guilty today to charges it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin.

Federal officials say the company, Purdue Frederick, helped to trigger a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the time-release painkiller by failing to give early warnings that it could be abused.

Prosecutors say "in the process scores died."

The story is of particular note because it turns out that during the investigation into Purdue Frederick, the company was represented by Rudy Giuliani's consulting firm, Giuliani Partners. Not only that, but Giuliani personally lobbied Asa Hutchinson, who was head of the DEA at the time.

According to ABC News:

Hutchinson told the Blotter on ABCNews.com today that Giuliani asked for a meeting, "and we gave him a meeting." Hutchinson says he was aware the company was under investigation at the time, and "any time a company is under investigation I like to give them a chance to make their case."

(snip)

Meier wrote that "with Giuliani now in the mix, the pace of DEA's investigation into Purdue's OxyContin plant in New Jersey slowed as Hutchinson repeatedly summoned division officials to his office to explain themselves and their reasons for continuing the inquiry."

You know, something tells me that Rudy Giuliani might be getting that all-important Rush Limbaugh endorsement any day now...

John Boehner

And finally, last week House Minority Leader John Boehner announced his intention to get tough on Iraq. "By the time we get to September, October, members are going to want to know how well this is working," he said of Our Great Leader's Manly Surge. "And if it isn't, what's Plan B."

Hear that, George? You have until September - October at the latest - before John Boehner goes all oversight-and-accountability on your ass. And then you're going to be in trouble.

Or maybe not, since Media Matters reminded everyone last week that back in January, Boehner said this about the surge:

I think it will be rather clear in the next 60 to 90 days as to whether this plan is going to work. We need to have close oversight, so that we just don't look up 60 or 90 days from now and realize that this plan is not working.

I guess that must have slipped his mind.

See you next week!

-- EarlG