The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (Week 42)
October 29, 2001
Trick or Treat Edition

Welcome to a special spooky Halloween edition of the Top Ten Conservative Idiots! Well... it's not really that spooky. Although it is frightening just how idiotic some people can be. Take this week's list for example. We've got George W. Bush (1) who's decided that the best course of action to take in this time of crisis it to throw money at his buddies. Then there's Pat Robertson (2), who's going to have to find an extremely tiny camel and a rather oversized needle if he wants to get in to heaven. And let's not forget Rush Limbaugh (3) who is proof positive that overdosing on cheeseburgers can give you brain damage. Further down the list we've got "Son of Scam" Jonathan Falwell (5), Donald Rumsfeld (8) who is a very decisive man (or is he?) and of course, Idiots favorite Ari Fleischer (9) who is spinning faster than the SAXJ1808.4-3658 pulsar (how many times have I told you not to tell astronomy jokes? You're fired — Ed.)

George W. Bush
After going on tour to promote his famously irresponsible $1.6 trillion tax cut, we thought we'd seen the last of Bush's dumb excuses. Um, the economy is strong - we need tax cuts! The economy is weakening - tax cuts! Gas prices are going up - tax cuts! And now, the latest and greatest... we're at war - gimme my tax cuts! Yes, good old George has decided that since we're already spending billions of dollars on the war on terror, the best way to boost the nation's confidence is to give some extremely wealthy corporations a huge financial handout, um, I mean, an opportunity to stimulate the economy. Unfortunately the latest plan, narrowly voted through by the House last week, has got a few flaws. For starters, according to the L.A. Times, "80% of the benefits from the proposed capital gains tax cuts would go to the richest 2% of Americans." Yep, that sounds like a Republican tax cut plan alright. But the L.A. Times goes on to report that interestingly, payroll taxes may have to be raised in order to pay for the capital gains tax cut. So basically, the fat cash which is being doled out to mega-rich corporations is going to come directly from the paychecks of hard-working lower and middle-class Americans. Everyone feeling more confident now?

Pat Robertson
Why does Pat Robertson hate liberals but love foreign dictators? Because holding these positions vastly increases his personal fortune, just like Jesus would have wanted. We've all heard about the Falwell/Robertson 9-11 fiasco but this latest nugget goes to show what a man of God Robertson really is. Here's the story - a few years ago, Pat Robertson's oil company, Freedom Gold, wanted to start an mining venture in Liberia. In order to get a foothold in the country, Robertson signed a deal giving President Charles Taylor's regime a 10% ownership in the company. Now for those of you who don't know who Charles Taylor is, here's how Rep. Ed Royce (R) described him: "Charles Taylor has waged a continuous assault on the democratic dreams of the Liberian people. He rules by decree, he suppresses the press... and he sanctions, if not directs, the murder of political opponents. He and his so-called 'inner circle' control virtually all the nation's significant trade... Liberia has been described as Charles Taylor Inc. This corporation is corrupt to its core." Back in 1992, Taylor's rebels entered a convent and had five Americans executed because they were white. But all this clearly means nothing to Robertson, who, it seems, will say anything, do anything, and suck up to anyone in order to make a quick buck. You know, just like it says to do in the Bible.

Rush Limbaugh

David Dewhurst
David Dewhurst, Republican candidate for Texas lieutenant governor, recently ran a splendidly patriotic campaign ad in Texas Monthly magazine, featuring a brave soldier standing in front of the Stars and Stripes. Brings a lump to the throat doesn't it? "Vote Dewhurst. He's got a soldier and a flag." However, if Dewhurst had looked a little more closely at the ad before it was run, he would have noticed that the soldier in question was wearing the full dress uniform of... the German army, complete with a name tag bearing the German flag. Achtung baby!

Jonathan Falwell
Like father, like son I guess. Jonathan Falwell, son of ultra-bigot Jerry, is now trying to cash in on behalf of his dad, using the outraged response to Reverend Falwell's disgusting 9-11 comments (see Idiots 37) to solicit sympathy (and, of course, cash) from fundamentalists. A letter to Falwell's flock of sheep, signed by Jonathan, asks for "Vote of Confidence" donations. The letter reads, in part, "Liberals of all stripes, especially in the media, have seized on this opportunity to trash Dad's deeply held Christian beliefs and to literally attack him day and night. . . . It seems that Satan has launched a hail of fiery darts at Dad recently." So let's get this straight... presumably when Jerry "apologized" he didn't mean it at all, because now he's got his son sending out fundraising letters suggesting that he was right all along and the liberals who criticized him are agents of Satan. Now I kinda thought that lying was a sin, and I'm pretty positive that "thou shalt make a fat profit from hate speech" isn't in the Bible either. Oh well, I guess Jerry's "deeply held Christian beliefs" are a little different to those held by normal Christians.

Matt Drudge
Internet rumor-shark Matt Drudge sank to new lows last week, filing a breathless report on the Hillary boo-fest at the Concert for New York. It seems that the once-proud Drudge report, formerly a hot-bed of insider information and first with all the scoops that matter, has now resorted to copying stories from page 18 of the New York Times and reworking them to give nearby conservatives a chubby. It was especially odd that Drudge, being a stickler for detail and all, failed to mention that you could quite clearly hear that the cheers for Hillary were much louder than the boos. Still, wouldn't want the facts to get in the way of a good piece of propaganda. And one more important note: we keep being told that we're supposed to be uniting behind our leaders, and coming together to heal the country. So why is it okay, nay, applauded when a bunch of heroically drunk firefighters catcall an elected United States Senator at a charity event to raise money for the victims of 9-11? Doesn't sound very patriotic to me.

Steve Buyer
"Smoke them out of their holes?" Pah! Steve Buyer's got a much better idea. Let's NUKE them out of their holes! Yup, Rep. Buyer went on record last week saying that the U.S. should use tactical nuclear weapons against al Qaeda if it turns out that they've got anything to do with the anthrax attacks. Sounds like a plan. Now, we here at DU have got absolutely nothing against ridding the world of the terrorists that planned the 9-11 attack. But we have a niggling feeling that discharging nuclear weapons in the general vicinity of Russia, China, Pakistan and India may not necessarily lead to good things. Oh well, guess that makes us pantywaist commies. A question for Mr. Buyer though - if it eventually turns out that the anthrax has come from right-wing militia wackos, are we going to drop the bomb on them too? Or is this a turbans-only nuclear policy? Enquiring minds want to know...

Donald Rumsfeld
Thank God the adults are in charge. You know, when Bush was campaigning, a lot of people decided that although he was an amiable dunce, he was at least surrounding himself with the best and most experienced people. So it probably didn't matter that he was a totally unsuitable candidate since he had a strong team behind him. Well the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, as they say, so step forward defense mastermind Donald Rumsfeld. Last week, Rummy was having a bit of a tough time trying to get his head round this whole "war on terrorism" thing, deciding that yes, we're going to smoke bin Laden out of his hole, um, wait, no we're not, uh, hang on, yes we are. It seems that while his boss has been quite confident in our ability to track down bin Laden, (smoke him out, round him up, bring him to justice), poor Don is a little uncertain. Last week he lowered expectations to rock-bottom and said that it would be "very difficult" to capture bin Laden (ie. when we don't get him, I'll be able to say "I told you so.") But just 24 hours later he unexpectedly decided that, in fact, "I think we're going to get him." You know, it's really good in a time of crisis to be able to have such confidence in our leaders, isn't it?

Ari Fleischer
And now it's time for Ari's Lie of the Week. This week's lie is brought to you by the White House press corps. It all began when Ari was asked how George W. Bush's support for a new airline passenger surcharge could possibly be in line with Ari's previously held position that raising revenues is exactly the same as increasing taxes. "I never defined it that way," he said, and, "I defy you to find that statement because it has not been made." Heh heh! Sounds like a challenge! Reporters scurried away, and at the next press briefing presented Ari with the transcript of the September 6th briefing, in which he said, and I quote, "If you raise money, it's a tax hike." Whoops! Ari lamely countered that, well, he'd been talking about when the Democrats were trying to roll back Bush's tax cut, and that of course he didn't mean that all measures that bring in revenue could be labeled as a tax raise. Ooh, good comeback.

Ernest Istook
And finally: anthrax, schmantrax. There are FAR more important things to be worrying about at the moment, like, say, pushing your unproven abstinence-only sex education plans. That's why Rep. Istook of Oklahoma recently decided that despite everything, marching onward with his anti-choice agenda was surely the right thing to do. And since the CDC obviously doesn't have a lot on their plate at the moment, he might as well take money away from them to fund his plan. Seems sensible, right? After all, what's a little unprecedented bio-terrorism compared to the awesome opportunity to crush teenagers' raging hormones once and for all? See you next week!