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The
Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 76)
July
22, 2002
Triple Dubya Edition
 George
W. Bush hits the trifecta this week by placing first, second
and third in the race for biggest conservative idiot. What
a showing from our George! Dubya beats out Harvey Pitt (4)
who may have trouble fitting his head through the door of
his office - until he gets fired that is. Also lagging behind
are House Republicans (5) who think that best way to deal
with HIV is to sweep it under the carpet, and Senate Republicans
(6) who think that Iran and Syria have the right idea when
it comes to women's rights. Meanwhile Bill Simon (9) is doing
his royal best to screw up his election chances in California,
and Bernard Ebbers (10) is on a mission from God. Enjoy, and
as usual, here's the key.
 George
W. Bush
The Chimp's brilliant new idea for stopping terrorism is as
ridiculous as it is frighteningly totalitarian. Bush wants
to recruit
up to 10 million Americans as part-time informants, to spy
on their neighbors and report "suspicious activity." What
a fantastic and not-at-all Orwellian concept! President Stupid
even asked the US Postal Service to join his Stasi-esque scheme,
but thankfully the USPS decided that the specter of mailmen
snooping through people's correspondence was a little too
ugly, and declined. Now Dubya will just have to rely on an
army of cable guys, plumbers, cleaners, and anyone else who
may enter your home for his sordid little snitch program.
So the next time your sink gets blocked up, better keep that
copy of "The Forbidden Truth" out of sight! You never know
who might be watching...
 George
W. Bush
More fun and games with Harkengate last week as billionaire
George Soros, who owned one third of Harken Energy at the
time, admitted
that Harken bought George W. Bush's failed Spectrum 7 oil
company because "we were buying political influence." Ah,
the story of Dubya's life, it seems. Let some folks buy you
a company, trash it, sell it to somebody who wants to suck
up to your Dad, repeat. Now that's what I call hard
work and responsibility. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps,
if you will. But anyway, it turns out that when Soros was
asked why Harken bought the ruined Spectrum 7, he was quoted
as saying, "I didn't know [George W. Bush]. He was supposed
to bring in the Gulf connection. But it didn't come to anything.
We were buying political influence. That was it. He was not
much of a businessman." Funny, he's not much of a President
either.
 George
W. Bush
We've said it before and we'll say it again - if the terrorists
hate us for our freedoms, the simple solution is to take our
freedoms away. And thankfully we have a simple President to
put this plan in motion! Last week George W. Bush sought
broad new powers to consolidate his iron grip on the galaxy...
uh, I mean, fight the terrorists. These powers include presidential
authority for transferring money without congressional approval
(if you look at his business track record Bush has always
been great at spending other people's money) and the possible
domestic use of military forces (we have a feeling the Founding
Fathers wouldn't be too keen on this). But it's okay, because
we all have to make sacrifices to win this endless, shadowy
war on terrorism. And if those sacrifices include giving the
President absolute power to spend the people's money and deploy
the full force of the US military against its own citizens,
then so be it. God bless America!
 Harvey
Pitt
It's official. In an administration where just about everyone
seems to think he is a Bonfire of the Vanities-style
"Master of the Universe," SEC Chief Harvey Pitt has earned
the dubious distinction of being the most full of himself.
Now that certain Clinton-era ethics laws have expired, Mr.
Pitt has decided that it's time to get directly involved with
cases involving his former clients from his days as a fat-cat
Wall Street lawyer. (Never mind the fact that "ethical" is
not a synonym for "legal." If it's legal, then it must
be ethical, right?) Pitt offered this
shameless bit of puffery (and please, set down your beverage
before you read on): "it is an enormous advantage to the public
to have somebody who knows about the securities business and
the securities law as I do, and it would be unthinkable to
deprive people of my expertise." Take another hit of that
crack pipe, Harvey. It appears that there have been an awful
lot of people thinking the "unthinkable" these last few weeks.
 House
Republicans
Republicans got their underpants in a knot when it was revealed
last week that Sesame Street would address the worldwide problem
of childhood AIDS by introducing an HIV muppet to the show.
Somewhat predictably, GOP lawmakers denounced
the scheme as inappropriate for young children. But it's okay
- the makers of Sesame Street announced that the new character
is only going to appear on the South African version of the
show, where 1 in 9 people are infected with HIV and the GOP
really doesn't care what goes on. And since we all know that
those South Africans are only infected because they are either
a) seriously lacking in moral fiber, or b) being punished
by God for homosexuality, we can all rest safe in the knowledge
that a lack of education has nothing to do with it, and American
kids should simply grow up blissfully ignorant of the dangers
of HIV. Excellent.
 Senate
Republicans
Last week saw some dirty tricks from the Senate Republicans
who shut down a vote on a 22 year old treaty which has been
ratified by 169 countries. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee
would
have voted to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of
all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, but apparently
some Republicans think that eliminating all forms of discrimination
against women is not in their best interests. A lone Republican
Senator (who wished to remain anonymous) invoked a little-known
rule which forced the session to adjourn without voting. It's
understandable that the GOP would want to quash this though
- I mean, if you end discrimination against women, it's just
a slippery slope to ending discrimination against blacks and
homos. And we can't have that now can we? Only 22 countries
have refused to ratify the treaty, including Iran and Syria.
Nice to know that Senate Republicans are keeping us in the
company of the "axis of evil."
 Paul
O'Neill
We at Democratic Underground are constantly amazed at how
important, powerful people - CEOs, company directors, etc.
- seem to be either chronic amnesiacs or just plain dumb as
a stump. There seems to be a never-ending line of top businesspeople
who rose to the pinnacles of their professions without ever
knowing what was going on with their company's - or indeed
in their personal - finances. Take for example
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. Now, you'd think that you'd
have to have a pretty good memory and a head for numbers to
get a job like Treasury Secretary - but apparently not! Last
week O'Neill told the US Chamber of Commerce that "When I
was at Alcoa I never sold a single share of Alcoa stock. I
wanted my financial success and the company's success inextricably
linked. Other executives should do the same." Noble words.
So we're puzzled why O'Neill forgot that in April 1999 he
dumped 662,547 Alcoa shares, worth $30 million. Did he just
forget about the $30 million? Or was he lying to the
Chamber of Commerce? Whichever way you look at it - amnesiac
or dumb as a stump - he's not fit to be Treasury Secretary.
And I thought the adults were back in charge...
 George
Pataki
There's a whiff of politics in the air around New York City,
and it smells like George Pataki. The Republican Governor
was marching in this year's Dominican Day parade to boost
his reelection campaign. Unfortunately, Governor Thin-Skin
can't stand
the idea of anyone else playing politics in his parade. When
a group of jobless New Yorkers, some of whom lost their jobs
because of 9/11, joined the parade to protest Pataki's lack
of compassion for the unemployed, the governor's "visibly
irked" campaign lackeys fired up their cell phones. Within
minutes, the unemployed workers were surrounded by New York
City police and herded off the parade route. But we think
the Governor might end up regretting his mistreatment of the
unemployed, considering that he could very well be out of
a job this November.
Bill
Simon
It seems that Bill Simon is on a collision course with failure
in this year's race for governor of California. First the
San Francisco Chronicle, reported that the tax returns
of his family's nonprofit foundation indicated that "a substantial
amount of money earmarked for charitable purposes ended up
at Simon's private investment firm." (See Idiots 71.) And
now it appears
that Mr. Simon's investment company used an offshore tax shelter
which is now under investigation by the feds. Whoops! But
it's not Bill's fault, you see - true to form, he's blaming
it on his accountants. Wow. The responsibility. The accountability.
The typical Republican response when caught doing something
dubious - it wasn't me, somebody else did it! Incidentally
Simon is still refusing to release his tax returns, which
doesn't really help his case. But it doesn't really matter.
After November, nobody will remember who the hell this guy
is anyway..
 Bernard
Ebbers
And finally, Bernie Ebbers, ex-WorldCom head honcho, makes
another appearance on the chart this week after we learned
that he is "relying on faith in God and expects to be vindicated
in the $3.9 billion corporate scandal," according to the New
York Daily news. I'm sure God is very impressed with Bernie's
behavior. After all, does it not say in the Bible that the
best way to get to heaven is to lie, cheat and steal? I think
it does! Anyway, Bernie went on to score even more points
with the Lord after he was subsequently overheard "spewing
venom about regulators and his own board of directors." Just
like Jesus would have wanted! See you next week...
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