The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 68)
May 20, 2002
Bush Knew Edition

Sometimes things happen that are just so disgraceful that it's hard to make jokes about them. Last week was one of those times. The first six slots on this week's list are all related to last week's bombshell revelation: Bush Knew. We could have easily used all ten slots for this story, but frankly we just got so disgusted that after a while we had to give up and look for other things to talk about. Proceed with caution, this top ten list is positively shameful. (Don't forget the key.)

George W. Bush
So, George knew all along - he just didn't want to tell anyone. It was revealed last week that the Bush administration was warned back in August that Al Qaeda would soon attack America in a memo carrying the headline, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Funny that they forgot about that memo in the eight months since September 11. Of course, the Bush Administration is claiming that there was nothing they could have done (except put John Ashcroft on noncommercial aircraft, keeping George out of Washington, etc.) and that they had no idea that Al Qaeda would use hijacked aircraft to attack targets on American soil. Um, except that a 1999 CIA report acknowledged that "Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House." Wait a second though - who was president in 1999? That's right, Bill Clinton! Better blame him. Unless of course you consider the fact that while the last two administrations have known about this threat, Al Qaeda didn't manage to attack America on Bill Clinton's watch. No, they only managed it after our friend Dubya cheated his way into office and told the FBI to back off the bin Ladens. What a coincidence. Now Bush and his cronies are desperately trying to blame Democrats for their own stupid f***-ups. Nice try, but we have a feeling it's not going to work this time.

Dick Cheney
Meanwhile, as the administration reeled from these accusations, Dick Cheney kicked into damage control mode to accuse skeptical Democrats of playing politics and asking "incendiary" and "irresponsible" questions. That's right - if you ask any awkward questions about the administration's complete and utter failure to communicate terrorism warnings to the public, and want to know why they covered up the fact that they had this knowledge for eight months after the attacks, then you're playing politics. Got that, survivors and relatives of the disaster? Just shut your mouths. But hang on a second - wasn't it Undisclosed Dick who wanted Tom Daschle to back off on congressional investigations into the events leading up to 9/11? Gee, I wonder why... could it be because the nation may have found the results of the investigation "incendiary," and that the administration's behavior was thoroughly "irresponsible?"

George W. Bush (again)
But here's a funny thing - George W. Bush didn't seem to have any problems with using the 9/11 attacks for political gain when he appeared at a record-breaking GOP fundraiser last week. The RNC were selling photos of "the defining moments of 'The First Year' of the George W. Bush presidency," for $150 a pop - one of the photos was of George W. Bush making a phone call from Air Force One on September 11. So, George, just to recap: if questions are asked about why you didn't tell anyone that you knew there were suicide-hijacking threats, that's playing politics. But if you sell September 11 photos to make a profit for your political party, despite the fact that you ran like a frightened rabbit, that's returning honor and integrity to the White House. Did I get that right?

Ari Fleischer
Poor Ari had his work cut out for him last week. Sweat oozed from his brow as he castigated all and sundry for playing politics, and then proceeded to blame his boss's incompetence on everyone from congressional Democrats to Bill Clinton. Unfortunately Ari is still a terrible, terrible liar. According to the Associated Press, he claimed that, "information was passed to the airlines and airports more than once last summer." Funny - one only has to surf over to the fair-and-balanced Fox News website to discover that, "no warnings indicated that a Sept. 11 scenario was credible or possible," "we’re not aware of any warnings or notifications of any specific threats," and "we were not notified by the federal government," according to spokespersons from United Airlines, Delta Airlines, and the Massachusetts Port Authority. So which is it, Ari? Better be careful of that spin - you're liable to get dizzy, and we don't want you puking all over the press corps. Oh, wait a second. You already kinda do that anyway.

Ari Fleischer (again)
And so it comes to this: the most disgraceful and transparent piece of hypocrisy I think this list has ever seen. First of all the White House puts pressure on congressional Democrats to "back off" any investigations of the events leading up to September 11 - not that they have anything to hide, of course. Like, for example, that they might have known something was going to happen beforehand. But it turns out that now everyone knows what a lying bunch of bastards they are, the administration are bending somewhat on the concept of an investigation. Don't get too excited though - according to our old friend Ari, the White House doesn't want "a fishing expedition" that becomes "an endless waste of taxpayer money in an open-ended congressional investigation." Heaven forbid! Heaven forbid that we should endlessly waste taxpayers money on an open-ended congressional investigation into why the World Trade Center was demolished! After all, we just spent the last eight years endlessly wasting taxpayers money investigating a blow job fer chrissakes, which is obviously far more important! ARRGH!

Porter Goss
Don't worry, Dubya... The Republicans have got your back. After the stunning 9/11 revelations last week, many Democrats (and even a few Republicans) were calling for an investigation of, ahem, What did the president know, and when did he know it? Fortunately for Bush, he's got a bunch of un-American lackeys to carry his water for him in Congress. Consider Porter Goss, chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Goss insists that no investigation is necessary, because his committee has already looked into the events of 9/11 and (surprise!) found nothing. Boy, I feel much better knowing that Porter Goss has cleared the President and the entire United States government of any wrongdoing. For good measure, Mr. Goss shared this nugget of Ashcroftian wisdom: "The only thing that this uproar does is give aid and comfort to the enemy and I don't think there's anybody who wants to give aid and comfort to the terrorists." Shameful.

J.C. Watts
Did you hear who celebrated his first birthday last week? All the Congressional Republicans were there for the party, and they even ate a delicious cake. Give up? Our good friend Bush Tax Cut is one year old! And what a year it's been. (Lost your job? No worries... have some cake!) Of course, while the American people are suffering, stupid Republicans are spinning. Never mind the dramatic economic downturn (and budget deficit upturn) since the Bush economic package was signed into law - there is absolutely no relationship between the two events. Unless you consider this piece of Nobel-worthy economic spin, courtesy of Representative J.C. Watts: "I hate to think where we would be on the economy had we not passed the tax relief bill." Me too, J.C. I hate to think about a year of Clinton-style economic prosperity and budget surpluses, which was squandered by a bunch of dumbass Republican knuckleheads.

Jeb Bush
Crying Jeb bent over last week and showed us that he has "hypocrisy" written all over his ass. Despite the fact that his daughter Noelle - who was recently arrested for attempting to purchase the controlled substance Xanax using a fake prescription - was sentenced to treatment rather than jail, Jebby is coming down hard against a proposition that would treat regular people like members of the Bush Royal Family. The Florida ballot proposition would require that first- and second-time nonviolent drug offenders be given treatment, as opposed to jail time. The proposal include consequences - in some cases more severe than the current drug court penalties - if an offender fails the treatment program. But this isn't good enough for Jeb. "This amendment would destroy the best drug court system in the country," he said. Yes, we must lock up all those nasty drug-abusers! Uh - unless we're related to them, eh Jeb?

Lowell Ponte
With the smell of blood in the air, conservative idiots across the country are trying their hardest to place the blame for 9/11 on Anyone But Bush. The favorite scapegoat is (of course) Bill Clinton, but the GOP will try anyone until the charges stick. (Heck, Ari Fleisher even tried to pass some of the responsibility off on Dianne Feinstein, for crissakes.) But conservative columnist and radio personality Lowell Ponte takes the cake for kookiest effort to shift blame. His culprit: Jimmy Carter. "Jimmy Carter is therefore part of the reason why Osama bin Laden operatives slammed airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon last September 11th," Ponte pontificates. "And yet, with the blood of perhaps a million people dripping from his hands, Jimmy Carter continues to stalk the world in his sick quest to be given a Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, Jimmy Carter arguably has done more to undermine and destroy world peace than any other human being now alive." I guess that whole Israel/Egypt thing was just a fluke.

Capital Christian School
And finally, even though the big news was in Washington last week, the world continues to turn (for now) and conservative idiots are cropping up all over. Take the Capital Christian School in Sacramento, CA, for example. The school recently expelled a kindergarten student three weeks before the end of the school year. What was the five-year-old's crime? Did she bring some children's Tylenol to school? Was she caught in possession of a potentially dangerous Blue's Clues pencil sharpener? No - I'm afraid it's much more heinous than that. The kindergartner was expelled because the girl's father had stopped paying his half of her tuition and her mother had taken a job as a stripper to make ends meet. That's right - upon discovering that her mother was so poor the only way she could provide for her child's education was by dancing nude, the school did the decent, Christian thing and kicked out the stupid kid. How dare she force her mother into such acts of debauchery! See you next week!