The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (Week 44)
November 12, 2001
Who Cares Who Really Won Edition

It's been over a year since Election Day, the votes have finally been counted, and Al Gore is the winner. Unfortunately, the Media (1) still insists on spinning the Bush angle. We've got something of a southern theme this week. Mike McKinney (2) tries to kick a little ass, Texas-Style. The state board of Ed (3) tries to teach science, Alabama Style. John Ashcroft (5) shows his commitment to states rights. And some racist frat boys (7) show how to have a little fun, Klan style. (Oh, by the way, did we mention that this week is our pledge drive?)

The Media
We had to wait a year for the votes to get counted, but the results are finally in. Last night the official results of the Florida recount by the media consortium were released, and it looks like the winner is… (drumroll please) … Al Gore! It doesn't matter whether you count dimpled chads, hanging chads, or cleanly-punched chads - if you count every legally-cast vote in the state, Gore is the winner. But if you read any of the coverage of the story in the liberal media, you'd have to look pretty closely to get the facts. The headline on the Washington Post's website was: "Study Shows Recounts Would Have Elected Bush." The lead sentence in New York Times: "George W. Bush would have won even if the Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount that the Florida court had ordered to go forward." And CNN: "Florida recount study: Bush still wins." All along, we thought that the point of the study was to determine who really won. In reality, they were just looking for another opportunity to kick Al Gore. Surprisingly, only Drudge got the story right: "Big Media Florida Database: Gore Topped Bush if all Under/Over Votes Counted; Legal Strategy Destroyed Chances."

Mike McKinney
Here's the latest from the party that brought you "traditional values" and "compassionate conservatism": a good old-fashioned brawl at a football stadium, followed by abuse of government power. Yes, Texas Governor Rick Perry's chief of staff, Mike McKinney, went on a rampage with a pair of binoculars at Texas A&M's football stadium last week after a fight broke out. When Reginald Wallace allegedly attempted to push fans back into the stands during the melee, McKinney hit him with his binoculars - but it was literally "one in the eye" for McKinney after Wallace proceeded to, um, punch him in the face. McKinney then continued to swing his binoculars "with full force," attempting to hit people on the field. Then, after the fight broke up, he threatened to use his "high governmental position" to get back at local police, according to the Houston Chronicle. Hmmm... must be that "personal responsibility" thing conservatives are always going on about. Isn't it nice to see our elected officials behaving so responsibly in public? And setting such a wonderful example for others.

Alabama State Board of Edumication
Cue dueling banjos! The Alabama's State Board of Education recently decided to continue their policy of placing disclaimers on biology textbooks, voting unanimously last week to put stickers stating that evolution is a "controversial theory" on 40,000 new textbooks. Yeehaw! What next? Stickers on physics textbooks stating that "the sun may, in fact, rotate around the earth?" How about geography textbooks? "According to some people, our planet may not be flat." Apparently John Giles, state president of the Christian Coalition, was disappointed that the new sticker was not as strongly worded as the old one (and, presumably, was also disappointed with the removal of a section on the boiling point of witches and a whole chapter about trepanning.)

American Renewal

John Ashcroft
Hey - that's John "States Rights" Ashcroft to you. So how states' rights is John Ashcroft? He's so states' rights that the interview he conducted with Southern Partisan magazine (remember that?) was entitled "John Ashcroft: Champion of States' Rights and Traditional Southern Values." Ah, but ya know what? Nix the states' rights part. I guess Mr. Ashcroft has decided that they're not that important after all. In Idiots week 43 we reported that the Crisco Kid was urging the FBI to trample California state law and shut down "cannabis clubs" which aided terminally ill patients. Another week, another state law to ignore - and it seems that Ashcroft's latest target is Oregon, where he's now urging the FBI to crack down on doctors who perform assisted suicides. The assisted suicide law was approved by the voters of Oregon last year, but the "Champion of States' Rights" obviously doesn't really care much about that. See, for people like John Ashcroft, states rights are only good IF they are used to support "Traditional Southern Values" (you know, things like flying the Confederate flag on public buildings and praying in school.) States rights for liberal laws are obviously ridiculous. Thanks, Mr. Attorney General!

[Sorry, No Idiot #6 This Week]
You may be aware that this week we are holding our second-ever Democratic Underground fundraising drive. In our effort to raise much-needed funds, we decided to shut down the Korean sweat shop that usually produces Idiot #6 for the Top 10 List, and instead put them to work stitching and printing patriotic American flag T-shirts, which we are giving away as a promotional gift for our subscribers.

Racist Halloween Frat Boys
I tried to come up with something funny to say about this one, but it just makes me ill. Last week we learned of two separate Halloween incidents involving racist frat boys and their stupid friends. Two University of Mississippi students have been expelled from the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity after an Internet photograph showed one dressed as a police officer holding a gun to the head of the second, who had painted his face black. Meanwhile, in Alabama, racist frat boys at Auburn University dressed up in Klan robes, and some even put nooses around the necks of their buddies, who were in blackface. Photos indicate that other partygoers thought the costumes were just hilarious. Shame.

Television News Networks
Foolishly we assumed that the job of the TV news networks was to, um, report the news. I mean, it wasn't like they left any stones unturned during the National Fellatio Crisis of 1998 now was it? But it would appear that the networks have been leaving a lot of stones unturned in their coverage of the war in Afghanistan (which is, admittedly, much less important than getting a blow job). That's right - bowing to pressure from conservatives, the news media have deemed it "unpatriotic" to report on Shrub's War On Terism (c) - at least, unless they can skew the reporting so it heavily favors the US side of the story. According to the New York Times, "twice in recent days, networks made decisions, at least in part, to smother accusations that they lacked patriotism or were skewing coverage toward the enemy." Pardon me, but does anyone else think it's a bit strange that the "news" networks have not only decided but announced that they're essentially going to become nothing more than propaganda machines for the government? Oh well, frankly The Daily Show has been far more informative than CNN lately anyway.

[Sorry, No Idiot #9 This Week]
As part of our November pledge drive, the number nine slot of this week's Top 10 Conservative Idiots list has been sold to Carnival Cruise Lines, to promote their Fun Ship Specials. This winter, take a three-, four-, or seven-day trip on Carnival, the most popular cruise line in the world™.

General Tommy Franks
And finally, ask any idiot on the street why we're dropping bombs on Afghanistan, and he'll tell you, "To get that sonofabitch bin Laden." Somebody better tell that to the U.S. combat commander in Afghanistan, General Tommy Franks. General Franks admitted last week that apprehending Osama bin Laden isn't actually one of the missions that US troops are in Afghanistan to perform. Now, forgive me, but I was under the impression that the reason we were there was to smoke bin Laden out of his cave and bring him to justice, dead or alive. Oh well - guess not. "We have not said that Osama bin Laden is a target of this effort," Franks said at a Pentagon briefing last week, leaving us to wonder what the hell George W. Bush has been waffling on about for the last two months. See you next week!