The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (Week 40)
October 15, 2001
 Watts Your Problem Edition

Roll up, roll up, we've got idiots galore! This week's head honcho, J.C. Watts, is really doing his absolute best to promote that famous conservative ideal, "do as I say, not as I do," with Michael Sneed (2) backing him up. Ann Coulter (3) is incredibly annoyed that some people are being nice to Arab-Americans, the Houston Chronicle (4) is protecting its readership from them thar gays, and House Republicans (5) are busy handing over any of your money that they're not spending on high explosives to their rich buddies. Scraping the bottom of the barrel we find Nancy Reagan (8) getting her designer panties in a bunch, and Dick Cheney (10) patriotically pooping in his drawers. Enjoy!

1J.C. Watts
You've got to give J.C. Watts one thing - he's a pretty funny guy. Who else would have the cahones to support the new aviation security bill and then proceed to violate security measures at an airport? And boy, when J.C. violates airport security, he sure does the job right. Here's the story: Rep. Watts showed up at Will Rogers World Airport a few weeks ago, and proceeded to leave his car in an unattended loading zone out front. Uh-oh... since September 11, this sort of thing has been severely frowned upon. So what did J.C. do when he came back to his car to discover Sergeant Edward Stupka writing him a $15 ticket? Why, he flew into a rage of course. Watts took the ticket and stuffed it under Stupka's badge, telling him to "take care of it." Yikes! Watts then continued to rant about airport security, and at one point allegedly used the word "bomb" (incidentally, people have been arrested and charged before 9/11 for using the word "bomb" at an airport) before Officer Stupka, who was not amused, threw the ticket onto the back seat of J.C.'s car. Watts then drove away. After discovering that the Oklahoman was going to run a story about the incident, J.C. desperately tried to get in touch with Officer Stupka to apologize. Stupka was, unfortunately, not particularly interested. Which leaves us with this: presumably J.C. Watts was thinking that since he's a) a congressman, and b) an ex-football hero, he can pretty much bend the law however he pleases. Perhaps rather than being pissed off that his position doesn't allow him to break the law, he should be thanking his lucky stars instead - because let's face it, if he wasn't a congressman and ex-football hero, he would have had his ass thrown in jail (or possibly shot off) before he even had the chance to drive away.

2Michael Sneed
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed noted in a column last week that "the Rev. Jesse Jackson has chosen not to fly an American flag in front of his house on South Constance Avenue, nor are the Stars and Stripes flying in front of the Operation PUSH headquarters on 50th Street." Yes, that's right - Jesse Jackson is not flying an American flag. Somebody call the FBI and have that man strung up immediately. Sneed went on to announce: "Nothing wrong with that. It just seems strange Jesse would eschew such a small effort when he was willing to make such a big effort to fly to Afghanistan to negotiate with the terrorists a few weeks ago. PS. I must admit I have yet to fly a flag since my flagpole broke in July, but then again I didn't volunteer to broker peace in Afghanistan." Um, so let's get this straight - you didn't volunteer to broker peace in Afghanistan and you're not flying an American flag? Sounds like Jesse's one up on you there then, Michael. And while we're at it, it also seems strange that you can make the effort to write fifty words digging at the guy, but you can't be bothered to fix your damn flagpole.

3Ann Coulter
It seems that Ann Coulter has totally and utterly lost it. First there was her "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" comment (see Idiots 37). And now she's written an article complaining that people are just being too darn nice to Muslims. "Far from blaming Muslim immigrants to this country, Americans are showering them with love bombs," whined Coulter. "All this merely for belonging to the same religion as the cold-blooded killers who recently attacked America." Well gee, d'you think it's because maybe some Americans might be a tad embarrassed about their fellow countrymen going round beating up and shooting people because they're wearing a "diaper on their head?" (thanks John Cooksey - see Idiots 37 also.) Nah, couldn't be. Why, Americans should be proud of their intolerance! Right? "It's perplexing to hear liberals carrying on so about how peaceful most Muslims are," continued Ann - which must be equally perplexing to not-so-liberal George W. Bush. In his televised press conference last week he said, "I was struck by this that in many cities when Christian and Jewish women learned that Muslim women, women of cover (sic), were afraid of going out of their homes alone, that they went shopping with them, that they showed true friendship and support, an act that shows the world the true nature of America." Hear that Ann? Bush is calling you un-American.

4The Houston Chronicle
Did you know that Mark Bingham, one of the heroes who helped bring down the terrorist plane in Pennsylvania, was gay? Well you wouldn't if you read the Houston Chronicle. The Chronicle picked up a story about Bingham from a California new source and for some reason (homophobia) proceeded to edit out all references to his sexual orientation. I know what you're thinking - what does his sexual preference have to do with what he did? Nothing, of course. But consider this: since 9/11 we've heard many statements from the husbands and wives of the victims, paying tribute to the memory of their loved ones. But the Houston Chronicle in its editorial wisdom decided to cut from the original story a statement from Bingham's partner of six years, Paul Holm. Oh, and they also decided to remove another quote from a friend of Bingham's, which said that Mark "wasn't anybody's stereotype" and that he had the ability to "bring together politicians, students, the gay community, artists." So there you go. Heterosexual hero = endless TV reruns of wives explaining what good men their husbands were. Homosexual hero = um, well, we don't want to shove the gay agenda in people's faces. Won't somebody think of the children?

5House Republicans
Looks like the GOP is back to doing what it does best. Mere hours after George W. Bush's mind-bogglingly tedious press conference (smoke em out, round em up, bring em to justice, repeat) last Thursday, House Republicans sprang a surprise $100 billion tax-cut package on the Democrats and then spent all day Friday ramming the bill through. Bi-partisanship - you gotta love it. The proposed legislation would introduce tax-cut bonuses for corporations and the wealthy, or as the New York Times put it, the people "least in need of help." What a surprise! Who would have thought that those honorable House Republicans would exploit a national tragedy and use Bush's popularity to force through yet more tax-cuts for the super-rich? Gee, I would never have guessed it myself…

6Newt Gingrich
He's been out of office for years now, but Newt Gingrich remains one of the all-time biggest conservative idiots of all time. Once again, his factually-challenged partisan hyperbole only serves to illustrate his own hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. One of our readers reports that last week, while filling in for Rush Limbaugh, Tony Snow quoted the Newtster as saying: "The attacks of September 11th may not have happened if the Clinton Administration had not been so pathetically weak and unable to focus. "Why, exactly, was Clinton "unable to focus?" Could it be because a blood-thirsty mob of voyeuristic Republican perverts wasted more than a year and countless millions of dollars documenting every sordid detail of his sex life? Nah, couldn't be. And speaking of focus, it must have been difficult for Newt to stay focused on his job when he was busy poking a certain female member of his congressional staff. Or that time when he served divorce papers to his wife while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery.

7Bush Cabinet Officials
The Bush Administration wants the American people to know that the skies are safe, and in a public display of confidence, they've been sending various cabinet officials on commercial airline flights around the country. Behind the scenes, however, the Administration's been showing just how confident they really are. It came to light last week that they've been pressuring the FAA to re-assign air marshals to the commercial flights with cabinet officials on them - in some cases removing marshals from other flights considered to be at a greater risk of hijacking. This is in keeping with the Republican ideal of personal responsibility: Leave us regular people to fend for ourselves, while they pull the levers of power to cover their own asses, and the asses of their friends.

8Nancy Reagan
Uh-oh! There's cat-fighting afoot in the world of fashion… It was revealed last week that designer Oscar de la Renta has had a rather unpleasant falling-out with one of his clients, former First Lady Nancy Reagan. Why? Because de la Renta had the gall to do some work for Hillary Clinton when she was first lady. Oh the humanity. Yes, Nancy "not-at-all-a-complete-bitch" Reagan chewed Oscar a new one after he started designing outfits for Hillary. Apparently Nancy was "offended," whereas Oscar was simply bemused. "I think that regardless of your political inclinations, if the First Lady of your country asks you to do something for her, you don't say no," he said. Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. Where have you been my friend? Haven't you heard? Just say no, Oscar. Just say no…

9Peggy Noonan, David Limbaugh and Frank Gaffney
National Review hacks were jockeying for position in the race to praise George W. Bush after his televised press conference last week. And… they're off! Straight out of the gate it's Noonan, Noonan on the rail, and she's taking a commanding lead: "He is honest, self-trusting, compassionate, shrewd. He goes by his gut, and is a Christian, a prayer who knows he is prayed for." But here comes Limbaugh now, charging up from the rear: "He left no doubt that he is in charge (the operation has his fingerprints all over it, even down to his compassionate plan to send food packages to starving children)." And Noonan is fading, but Gaffney's making a break for it on the inside: "In response to penetrating questions from the White House press corps, he conveyed unmistakably a man authentically rising to the occasion." But it's Limbaugh again now, Limbaugh ahead of Gaffney: "Don't you know that they are just kicking themselves in those caves right now for their terrible timing - in picking on the wrong cowboy?" And as they come up to the line, Gaffney's making a final run for it: "President Bush's prime-time news conference last night confirmed an impression indelibly made by his address to the Congress, the nation and the world on September 20th: Against many people's expectations - including, frankly my own - Mr. Bush is proving to be a Churchill for our time." And it's Gaffney by a nose! A very, very, brown nose indeed.

10Dick Cheney
And finally, if it's brown-nose time for the pundits, it's brown-trouser time for the vice president. Last week, Dick Cheney was finally coerced out of the "secure location" where he has reportedly spent the last month cowering. And we thought Bush was the girly-boy in this administration. But no - it turns out that Dick Cheney's the real yellow-belly, hiding behind his mommy's skirts as hero George smokes the evil-doers out of their caves. We've heard nary a peep from lily-livered Dick since September 11, except when he coughed at Tim Russert a lot, and stood behind GW at a photo-op once. He looked a bit pale then if you think about it. Probably worrying about whether his adult diaper could take the strain I expect. So much for Dick Cheney being the brains behind Operation Enduring Freedom. Guess he's too busy sitting in a bunker somewhere sucking his thumb. See you next week!