Top Ten Idiots Redux, Famous Quotes Edition...

[ElboRuum]

This week's top ten was so... well, amazing as far as the amount of cannon fodder that walked into the sights this week, such that I've decided to add a little commentary of my own.


1. Pete Shinn

The question which arises should be a simple one. We've all brain farted in our lives. Someone makes a joke, we think they're not joking, and everyone else gets a bonus joke at our expense. Sure we look a little foolish. Sure we feel a little foolish. But once the joke is out, only the TRULY and CONGENITALLY foolish compound the dopeyness by backpedaling. So WHY oh WHY can't these reactionary lunkheads simply say, "OK, OK, my bad, you got me" and at least walk away with some semblance of grace, if not dignity?

From Ruthless People the answer cometh:

"This may very well be the stupidest man on the face of the earth."


2. George W. Bush

Star Trek afficionados will hear, in the background, an admonishment from the resident Vulcan first officer as the whole pig commentary is "digested" by onlookers (paraphrased for topicality):

Bush: "Well, Miscellaneous Person, you haven't changed a bit, you're just as insignificant as ever."
Miscellaneous Person: "Nor have you, Mr. Bush, as your predilection for irrelevancy demonstrates."


3. The Left Behinders

An open quote I have for ohappyday, watcherboy, ifnot4him, comicnurse, Waitin, harpazo1, and Jazzman27 which I believe that they will find particular relevance with:

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall have the earth as their possession." Who said that, again?

I would caution them, however, that wishing for the end of the world, nay, CHEERING for the end of the world, believing that they will be those chosen... well, "meek" ain't the word I'd use.


4. The Department of Homeland Security

It's all relative, you know. I'm sure some schmoe from some oddly named hamlet out on the lip of the Mohave Desert thinks that the Sack'O'Suds on the edge of town is more important to him and this country than any beacon of freedom to the world, you know, like the Statue of Liberty. Why take that away from him? No, the answer comes from these very same schmoes, they got the right idea.

I'm sure if Ray's Pizza (all 5? locations) were on the list, NY could get some padding too. Maybe Philly would like to add Pat's and Geno's to the list? Chicago, make sure you have Pizzeria Uno down on your list. The bong shop in Haight-Asbury? A billboard on Highway 101? Go for it. No trinket is too small, no ego is too large. If it means something to someone, someone in this country thinks its a likely target.

While the band aid on this is clear (pad your regional resumes with the local tattoo parlor, the biggest ball of twine, the factory that makes the little plastic thing on the ends of shoelaces which only three people in the world know the name for, etc.) the true nature of the problem was expressed a decade or so ago. From a banner hoisted from the concerned citizens of Centralia:

"Government Plays Nero While Mine Fire Burns"

And of course, pork barrel is the favorite fiddle our pols like to play.


5. Ann Coulter and Bob Beauprez

While I could give the whole Austin Powers, "she's a maaaan, baby!", schtick, it wouldn't really express adequately what happened here.

Clearly, Ann and Bob still don't get what people say when they say "you're a legend in your own mind". Don't worry, Ann, Bob, you seem to suffer from the illusion that all people in the world are sharp-tongued, spiteful, inappropriate, savagely unsympathetic, and classless, and that those who aren't wished that they were and live vicariously through them. Ann, we all know what your problem is, and I think the following should give you a new direction for your life which could lead to fulfillment:

"Happiness is... a warm puppy."

Ann, I'm sure if you go down to the local pet shop, you can find a golden retriever that looks just like you, adores you, and may reacquaint you with that humanity that you so clearly abandoned years ago. If not, well, at least it can give you examples of what proper grooming and a lovable personality really is.


6. Pete Coors

For Pete, we dig Dean Wormer from the archives:

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."


7. Katherine Harris

You can always tell a conservative from others of the species. They're the ones who, should they have no aptitude, no diplomacy, social networking skills (ok, so there's that one skill, but not all of the voters will be young males available to play footsie with her), cannot see the foibles that they've brought to the table. No, Kathy, your insipid personality couldn't POSSIBLY be the reason for your lack of success. No, and it couldn't be the fact that if you're going to cook stats, at least have the decency to make people WORK to prove you wrong. As your campaign circles the drain, you are at a loss to figure out what went wrong.

Poor Kathy. Her tantrums are nothing but a cry for love. She tires of serving the people she "helps" into office. She's wants to be the "helped." Unfortunately, she just can't seem to pass muster.

For her, we bring out the old chestnut whose first utterance is obscured in antiquity:

"Always a bride's maid, never a bride."



8. Robert Novak

Similar to our friend Petey Shinn, Bob Novak lacks the ability to understand that backpedaling is largely a useless task. Depending on the bike, backpedaling makes either a cool, yet largely cosmetic, clicking noise, or causes the bike to come to a screeching halt. The only bike I've ever seen which actually moves the bike in reverse are those race bikes they use on those velodrome tracks, but you get my meaning.

However funny we find Shinn to be in his inability to absorb what anyone else even remotely acquainted with the InterWebbiversNetComputerScreen(TM) already knows (um, the Onion's a jokey-joke page), Novak's disconnect with the reality of what these sorts of 'ahs' and 'ums' and 'what-I-really-meant-to-say-wases' look like to reality-based minds is just fucking sad. Yes, Mr. Novak, we believe you are making shit up to cover your ass.

For Novak:

"If it walks like a duck and it flaps like a duck and it quacks like a duck, It's a duck"... Note that this is but one variant of this quote, and I've left out the... uh... scatological variant, so don't give me a whole lot of shit about how you heard it different.


9. The Bush Administration

It comes as no shock to me that Bush needs people in his employ whose job description could be summed up in one word: 'fluffer'. Director of Backpedaling, Senior Language Distortionist, Supervisor of Storing the Presidential Blanky, Secretary of Revisionism, and the Master Scheduler of Making Up Intensely Stupid Shit. Making it look like you're competent (and failing) sure takes a hell of a lot more work, money, and talent than actually... oh... being competent for example, doesn't it?

It's OK. The base doesn't need to know the details of the man-child's expenditures, they're too easily distracted by shiny things. For them, for allowing this donuthead into the WH along with his coterie of handlers, cronies, and reprobates, I explain their gullability:

From Dodgeball: "No one can resist when White Goodman puts on his shiny shoes."

So there you go.


10. Ted Stevens

I can't say a word to this. I've never seen anything so perfectly expositive of how people who haven't a damn clue what they're talking about can so fully, completely, and simultaneously annoy those in the direct path of the necessary knowledge, misinform those who aren't, and muddle the discourse beyond a shred of recognition.

"Better to be silent and let people think you're an idiot than to speak up and remove all doubt."