The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 308

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 308

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 308

October 1, 2007
Phony Outrage Edition

Rush Limbaugh and The Petraeus Cheerleading Squad (1) displayed some remarkable hypocrisy last week - not that anyone really noticed, of course. Meanwhile, George W. Bush (4,5,9) needs some help PRO-NOUN-SING FO-RIN words, Rudy Giuliani (6) comes up with a new reason to mention 9/11, and John McCain (10) panders to the idiot base. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

Rush Limbaugh and The Petraeus Cheerleading Squad

It was only a couple of weeks ago that conservatives went bananas over MoveOn's "General Betray Us" ad. The Petraeus Cheerleading Squad was hopping mad, and for about a week there was little room in the mainstream media for coverage of anything but General Hot Pants Petraeus and the conservatives whose feelings were hurt on his behalf.

Rush Limbaugh was so outraged about the "Betray Us" ad that he called it "contemptible" and "indecent," despite the fact that he wasn't quite so averse to the phrase previously...

On the January 25 broadcast of his radio show, Limbaugh broke from his commentary on an interview of Vice President Dick Cheney on the January 24 edition of CNN's The Situation Room to say: "By the way, we had a caller call, couldn't stay on the air, got a new name for Senator Hagel in Nebraska, we got General Petraeus and we got Senator Betrayus, new name for Senator Hagel."

But Rush wasn't done. So distressed was he by the fact that someone stole his pun, he decided last week to take his anger out on the troops.

During the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." He made the comment while discussing with a caller a conversation he had with a previous caller, "Mike from Chicago," who said he "used to be military," and "believe(s) that we should pull out of Iraq."

Limbaugh told the second caller, whom he identified as "Mike, this one from Olympia, Washington," that "(t)here's a lot" that people who favor U.S. withdrawal "don't understand" and that when asked why the United States should pull out, their only answer is, "'Well, we just gotta bring the troops home.' ... 'Save the -- keeps the troops safe' or whatever," adding, "(I)t's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people."

"Mike" from Olympia replied, "No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media." Limbaugh interjected, "The phony soldiers." The caller, who had earlier said, "I am a serving American military, in the Army," agreed, replying, "The phony soldiers."

Bold talk from a guy who got out of Vietnam thanks to a boil on his asscrack, but there you go. So where is that loud and proud Petraeus Cheerleading Squad now, as the troops undergo a blistering attack on their patriotism from this drug-addled draft-dodger?

Never fear! After trashing MoveOn two weeks ago and calling their ad "disgusting," George W. Bush leaped to the troops' defense again last week. Not personally you understand - but surely it's the thought that counts. When asked about the "phony soldiers" comment, his spokeswoman Dana Perino brushed reporters off saying, "It's not what the President would have used."

Ouch! Take that, Limbaugh!

Fox News

Still, if you think that's bad, check this out... Fox News has spent the better part of three weeks bashing MoveOn for it's horrible, terrible, ad. But what's this? An article on the Fox News website by one Col. David Hunt starts with the following sentence: "Our generals are betraying our soldiers … again." Wha?

Hunt continues...

Our generals in both the Army and Marine Corps have cared more about their precious careers and reputations than their soldiers and Marines under them.

(snip)

The rules of engagement were once again being followed and once again our generals put their careers over their men's lives.

(snip)

We should be putting these generals on trial, first for going along with Rummy and just as important for not trusting their soldiers.

(snip)

These poor excuse for officers do not deserve the soldiers they dare claim they lead.

But you see, it's okay - Col. Hunt is complaining that the military is wasting its time investigating things like Abu Ghraib and the Pat Tillman shooting. And anyway, he's allowed to criticize the military because he's a http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,37309,00.html">Fox News military analyst. Allow me to demonstrate:

When Fox News military analyst says our generals are betraying us: Bold, patriotic statement made by a man who cares for the troops and the future of this country! These colors don't run! Bring 'em on! Let's roll!

When MoveOn says our generals are betraying us: Treasonous, seditious language used by unwashed terrorist-lovers! Crazy far-leftists want to lose the war and provide soft beds and fluffy pillows for rabid Islamic extremists!

See how it works?

David Petraeus

Almost a year ago, the Associated Press reported the worrying news that the U.S. had lost thousands of weapons in Iraq:

Thousands of weapons the United States has provided Iraqi security forces cannot be accounted for and spare parts and repair manuals are unavailable for many others, a new report to Congress says.

(snip)

The Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons - almost 4% of the semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons it began supplying to Iraq since the end of 2003.

Well you'll never guess who was in charge of distributing those weapons. That's right - it was General Love Me Love Me Say That You Love Me Petraeus. Here he is bragging about it in a Washington Post op-ed back in 2004:

Outfitting hundreds of thousands of new Iraqi security forces is difficult and complex, and many of the units are not yet fully equipped. But equipment has begun flowing. Since July 1, for example, more than 39,000 weapons and 22 million rounds of ammunition have been delivered to Iraqi forces, in addition to 42,000 sets of body armor, 4,400 vehicles, 16,000 radios and more than 235,000 uniforms.

And where's all that gear now? According to a report by the Associated Press last week:

The weapons and countless pieces of other gear, paid for with tens of millions of U.S. tax dollars, were indeed flowing - but as it turns out, not always to the right places or into the right hands.

In the rush to arm Iraqi forces against a violent insurgency, U.S. military officials did not keep good records. About 190,000 weapons weren't fully accounted for, according to one audit.

The accounting failures are at the heart of a broad inquiry by the Pentagon's inspector general, sharp questions from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and complaints from officials in Turkey who claim that pistols used in violent crimes in their country came from U.S.-funded stocks.

Well done sir.

If you want some context on Gen. Petraeus's recent appearance before Congress go back and read that 2004 op-ed again, where you can learn all about the "tangible progress," "progress," "optimism," "progress," and, "considerable progress" that was going on. Yes, back in 2004 we were on the right track in Iraq - and three years later, we still are! Fantastic.

Oh - except for the fact that despite Petraeus's rosy testimony, this news item popped up last week:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged today that violence had increased since Sunni Arab militants declared an offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

But it's okay - that was just a "Ramadan surge." Go figure.

George W. Bush

The White House was livid last week when a rough draft of George W. Bush's speech to the U.N. was circulated to reporters. According to USA Today the speech contained phonetic spellings of the names of several countries and world leaders, among them:

• Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan)
• Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a)
• Harare (hah-RAR-ray)
• Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee)
• Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee)
• Caracas (kah-RAH-kus)

Don't laugh. If they forget to give him the phonetic spellings he's prone to do stuff like this:

"As I was telling the French president Nicolas Sarker-zye last week, it's time fer dictators like Robert Moo-gayb to step down. Cuz freedom is on the march in Moe-ree-tain-yer and Keer... Kur... Krij... ah, let's just say Asia. It's in Asia, right?"

Of course White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was quick to play down the embarrasing draft:

PERINO: On the speech -- your question about the speech, the drafts are circulated, and there was an error made in trying to make sure that interpreters had what they needed. I don't know how the draft of the speech -- it was not final -- was posted, but it was, and it was taken down. There's really nothing more to say about it.

So the phonetic spellings were for the interpreters, eh? That's odd, because the phonetic spellings are for English pronunciations. For example, Kyrgyzstan has an extra syllable in French, Italian, Danish, German, and Norwegian, and is pronounced completely differently in various other languages. Likewise, Mauritania ends with an "n" in Danish, German, and Swedish, and an "e" in French.

So I guess Dana Perino is trying to tell us that the phonetic pronunciations were for the benefit of interpreters who were trying to translate Bush's speech into English.

But maybe she's right. I mean, after all, who really needs this cheat sheet? People trained to speak multiple languages who are employed by the United Nations, or George W. Bush? Gee, I wonder.

Perino continued...

REPORTER: And they were phonetic spellings of various countries -- as well, we understand.

PERINO: That's not unusual. We do that for many speeches.

REPORTER: Does the president have a hard time pronouncing some of these countries's (sic) name?

PERINO: I think that's a offensive question. I'm going to just decline to comment on it.

Yes, what an offensive question. As if Our Great Leader has a hard time speaking the English language. For shame.

In other news: at an education event last week, George W. Bush announced that "Childrens do learn."

I'm not joking.

George W. Bush

Remember the "Coalition of the Willing?" Turns out they might not have been quite so willing after all. In fact, we should probably start calling them the "Coalition of the Coerced." According to AFP:

US President George W. Bush threatened nations with retaliation if they did not vote for a UN resolution backing the Iraq war, according to a transcript published Wednesday of a conversation he had with former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.

In the transcript of a meeting on February 22, 2003 -- a month before the US-led invasion of Iraq -- published in El Pais newspaper, Bush tells Aznar that nations such as Mexico, Angola, Chile and Cameroon must know that the security of the United States is at stake.

He says during the meeting on his ranch in Texas that Angola stood to lose financial aid while Chile could see a free trade agreement held up in the US Senate if they did not back the resolution, the left-wing paper said.

The confidential transcript was prepared by Spain's ambassador to the United States at the time, Javier Ruperez, the paper said.

The White House did not challenge the accuracy of the transcript, with national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe declining to comment.

But that's not all - according to Editor & Publisher:

Bush purportedly said he planned to invade Iraq in March "if there was a United Nations Security Council resolution or not....We have to get rid of Saddam. We will be in Baghdad at the end of March."

So that all happened on February 22, 2003. Gosh, does this mean Bush lied two weeks later, on March 8, 2003? That was when he told the nation, "We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq."

Surely not! George W. Bush is a man of honor and integrity! The facts be damned!

Rudy Giuliani

Last week I noted that Rudy Giuliani interrupted a speech to the NRA to take a phone call from his wife. Which didn't go down too well.

Clearly, some NRA members didn't see it as any kind of blessing.

"You mean you can't turn off your phone?" steamed Lacrecia Crowell, of Dardanelle, Ark. "I can't believe it!"

"It just seems to me like he didn't take the group that seriously," added her husband, Art.

Another NRA member muttered, "That was just weird."

It's okay though, because Rudy had a good reason for taking the call. Can you guess what it is? Go on, you'll never guess. Here's what he told reporters:

"And quite honestly, since Sept. 11, most of the time when we get on a plane, we talk to each other and just reaffirm the fact that we love each other," he said.

"Sometimes if I'm in the middle of a very, very sensitive meeting, I don't take the call right then; I wait. But I thought it would be kind of nice if I took it at that point, and I'd done that before in engagements, and I didn't realize it would create any kind of controversy," he said.

Incredible! Is there anything 9/11 can't do for this guy?

Abraham Sofaer

Mind you, even Rudy was smart enough to turn this offer down (only after some hemming and hawing mind you): Abraham Sofaer, who, according to the Associated Press, was "a State Department adviser under President Reagan and is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution," announced last week that he was holding a fundraiser for the Giuliani campaign. The twist?

A supporter of Rudy Giuliani's is throwing a party that aims to raise $9.11 per person for the Republican's presidential campaign.

Abraham Sofaer is having a fundraiser at his Palo Alto, Calif., home on Wednesday, when Giuliani backers across the country are participating in the campaign's national house party night.

But not so fast! Despite throwing the party, Sofaer claims he had nothing to do with the idea of raising $9.11 per person.

"There are some young people who came up with it," Sofaer said when reached by telephone Monday evening. He referred other questions to Giuliani's campaign.

Oh, those rascally random unnamed young people, always coming up with sick new ways to exploit a national tragedy. Tsk tsk.

The Bush Administration

Way back in the mists of time - that is, seven months ago - there was widespread outrage when it was revealed that outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were living in conditions like this:

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

Following the shocking report, George W. Bush visited Walter Reed and said http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070330-6.html">this: "It is not right to have someone volunteer to wear our uniform and not get the best possible care. I apologize for what they went through, and we're going to fix the problem."

Well guess what? He hasn't. According to Paul Rieckhoff in the Huffington Post:

This week, we got definitive proof that our nation's wounded veterans are still waiting for government leaders to deliver much needed resources. According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the response to shoddy outpatient treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has been woefully inadequate.

This latest report joins the increasing chorus of bipartisan commissions, independent review groups, and task forces which all confirm that the DoD and the VA are ill-prepared to meet the needs of returning servicemembers. Among its findings, the GAO concluded that there has been little progress in rectifying staffing shortfalls, facilitating VA/DoD data sharing, and streamlining disability evaluation systems. Processing disability payments still takes an average of 177 days. Furthermore, efforts to improve the care provided to servicemembers with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have also been largely unsuccessful: only 6 of the Army's 32 Warrior Transition Units had completed training for all staff. ...

The bottom line: the problems of Walter Reed have not been fixed. Not even close.

Don't tell me: it doesn't matter because they're "phony soldiers" anyway - right Rush?

George W. Bush

Speaking of Walter Reed, George W. Bush spent much of last week moaning about Congress's domestic funding bills. It turns out that Congress wants to spend $22 billion more than Bush, with the extra funding going towards infrastructure improvements, education, and - yes - veterans' health care.

But extra funding for veterans' health care is most certainly not in Our Great Leader's plan.

THE DECIDER: Some in Congress will tell you that $22 billion is not a lot of money. As business leaders, you know better. As a matter of fact, $22 billion is larger than the annual revenues of most Fortune 500 companies. The $22 billion is only for the first year. With every passing year the number gets bigger and bigger, and so over the next five years the increase in federal spending would add up to $205 billion.

Gosh, $205 billion over five years for infrastructure, education and veterans? That's a lot of money that we can't possibly afford to spend. You see, we need that money for something else. According to the Los Angeles Times:

After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure -- totaling nearly $200 billion -- to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said.

And that's not for five years - that's just to get us to the end of 2008.

The fact is, the $22 billion Bush is complaining about - money that could go towards fixing things like Walter Reed, just as he promised - is what the United States spends on the occupation of Iraq in less than two months.

What a disgrace.

John McCain

And finally, John McCain may still be struggling in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but never let it be said that the guy doesn't learn from his mistakes. McCain has realized that he really needs to get more ignorance, bigotry, and xenophobia into his campaign if he's going to appeal to Republican primary voters and win the nod.

And so it was that John McCain last week said this:

GOP presidential candidate John McCain says America is better off with a Christian President and he doesn't want a Muslim in the Oval Office.

"I admire the Islam. There's a lot of good principles in it," he said. "But I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith."

In a wide-ranging interview about religion and faith with the Web site Beliefnet, McCain said he wouldn't "rule out under any circumstance" someone who wasn't Christian, but said, "I just feel that that's an important part of our qualifications to lead."

So there you have it - America was founded on Christian principles. Now, it's true that the Constitution never actually uses the words "God" or "Jesus" or "Christ," and sure, the very first words in the Bill of Rights are, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." And yes, Article VI, section 3 of the Constitution does say, "...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." But never mind that.

Let's follow McCain's logic and see if we can narrow this down a little further. As well as being Christian, the president should obviously have to be male, because - duh - the Founding Fathers were men! (Founding Mothers? Please!) We didn't even amend the Constitution so that women could vote until 1920, so a female president is right out. America was founded on men's principles!

Also, the president will have to be white, since the Founding Fathers were all white. For goodness sake, slavery wasn't abolished until 1865, and the Constitution clearly states that slaves should be counted as three-fifths of a person. So I think it's safe to say that America was also founded on white principles.

And last of all, the president should have to wear a powdered wig, just like the Founding Fathers famously did. Because America was founded on, er, wig-wearing principles.

Case closed. Can't wait to see the new campaign literature...

See you next week!

-- EarlG