The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 80)
August 19, 2002
Bush Under Fire Edition

Hmmm... So, by our count Dubya has made it onto the list 13 times in the last five weeks. That's pretty impressive, even for a conservative idiot of his stature. And Chimpy McCokespoon tops the chart again this week, by pissing off just about everybody who voted for him. It doesn't get much more idiotic than that, but then this is George W. Bush we're talking about. Struggling to keep up with George we have five Enron executives at number 3 - they decided that they did such a good job that they want more money from their now-bankrupt company. And John Ashcroft (4) makes a reappearance, this time calling for internment camps to house Americans who have been stripped of their Constitutional rights. No comment. Meanwhile Bill Simon (7) is becoming quite a regular, Rep. Bill Thomas (8) wields his powers recklessly, and the world's least private citizen works hard to make it into the number ten slot. Enjoy, and as usual, here's the key.

George W. Bush
Dubya seems to be seriously foundering these days. He's managed to alienate the rest of the world and now he's starting on the people who voted for him. First, Bush told CEOs last week that corporate America should "adopt old-fashioned farm values of 'hard work and honesty,'" which I'm sure they were thrilled to hear. Bush then went to Mount Rushmore to stick it to those very same farmers, denying federal funding to drought-plagued South Dakotans because South Dakota only has three electoral votes. Um, I mean, because he wants to rein in spending so that his ridiculous tax cut won't cause any more deficits. (Actually, that's a good point - can't the farmers just use the $300 he sent them last year to rehydrate their fields?) Finally, Bush was seriously dissed by the International Association of Fire Fighters, who, according to Reuters, voted unanimously last week to "boycott a national tribute to firefighters who died on Sept. 11, in an angry response to U.S. President George Bush's rejection of a bill that included $340 million to fund fire departments." Ouch! IAFF general president Harold Schaitberger said, "Don't lionize our fallen brothers in one breath, and then stab us in the back by eliminating funding for our members to fight terrorism and stay safe. President Bush, you are either with us or against us. You can't have it both ways." KABLAMMO!

George W. Bush
Meanwhile, Dubya was desperately trying to look like he was doing something presidential last week, holding a faux economic summit in Waco, TX. Just what is it about Waco and right-wing crazies holed up in heavily guarded compounds? Anyway, this made-for-TV Bush Economic Infomercial featured CEOs and other millionaires, and of course, hand-picked right-wing "ordinary Americans" (barf). Unsurprisingly, everybody agreed that the economy was doing just fine, that we really need to make Bush's magnificent tax cut permanent, and that the government should stop spending money on dumb liberal causes, such as, uh, aiding drought-plagued farmers in South Dakota. Interestingly both Bush and the Incredible Disappearing Dick Cheney were at the conference, although Bush kept staring off into space and Cheney looked like a man who'd been told he couldn't play with the levers of power until he finished all of his vegetables. And despite only spending twenty minutes at each seminar, Bush told the paid stooges - I mean, ordinary Americans - that "I can assure that even though I won't be sitting through every single moment of the seminars - nor will the vice president - we will look at the summaries." Well that's good to know. Economic recovery here we come!

Former Enron Executives
Not content with cooking the books and making a fortune while wrecking the lives of most of their former employees, some former Enron executives last week had the gall to ask a bankruptcy court for even more money! Hard to believe, but it's true. Five insiders, including former CEO Jeffrey Skilling's wife, decided not to join a tentative settlement that would give around 3,550 ex-Enron employees up to $13,500 each in severance. No, instead greed got the better of them and they filed individual claims seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars more. The sickening hypocrisy is that the insiders are claiming "administrative expenses... for services they rendered that helped preserve the value of the company after it filed for bankruptcy," according to Yahoo News. Shame they didn't do more to help preserve the value of the company before it filed for bankruptcy, eh?

John Ashcroft
Attorney General John Ashcroft has got some fabulous new ideas for Dubya's war on terror. The latest and greatest idea is one which will not be unfamiliar to those who remember World War II: internment camps! That's right, Ashcroft disclosed a plan last week which, according to the LA Times, "would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of US citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants." Brilliant! So the combination of Operation TIPS and Ashcroft's plan to lock up "any citizen whom he deems to be part of a wider terrorist conspiracy," should mean that it won't be too long before we solve the problem of terrorists hating us for our freedom...

Tommy Thompson
Thank goodness we have such a well-informed medical expert in charge of the nation's health issues! What's that? We don't? Bummer. Last week Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson gave a little speech about the West Nile virus, firmly reassuring the citizens of Wisconsin that, "We haven't had any attacks as of anybody receiving West Nile virus or encephalopoulus." Encephalopoulus? Hmmm. Surely the head of the Department of health and Human Services didn't mean encephalitis, did he? Why yes! When asked about the pressing issue of encephalopoulus, an "irritated" Thompson spokesman said, "What's the point? He meant encephalitis." So that's cleared that up. Or has it? Apparently the spokesman went on to suggest that "there might even be a real disease called encephalopoulus." So maybe Tommy does know what he's talking about! Or he could just be an ass. We report, you decide.

Dana Rohrabacher
Everybody knows that the Afghanistan's Taliban were a bunch of hate-filled, anti-American extremists. So why was Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher engaged in secret meetings with them back in April 2001, only months before 9/11? According to Rohrabacher, he was there to offer a "peace plan," which he insists was done on his own initiative, not as a representative of the US government. ("Hey, I'm a Congressman from America. We want to be your friend!") Unfortunately for Dana, his actions weren't only reckless and maybe even traitorous - they were also illegal. Of course, the law never stopped conservative idiots from conducting secret foreign policy with Islamic extremists halfway around the Globe. Heck, Dana could be the next Ollie North!

Bill Simon
We thought we'd seen the last of Bill Simon, but it appears that he's striving for conservative idiocy to the very end. So: you're a candidate for governor of California and you're trying to connect with the common man. But you've got a problem. Eventually, you're gonna have to make those tax returns public, and Joe Sixpack will find out that you're just another multimillionaire con-man. What do you do? Bill Simon says: "Get a tax extension!" Simon has announced that he will apply for a second tax extension, because apparently four months was not enough for his army of accountants to get all the proper documentation in order. This extension will push the deadline to October 15, which is just spittin' distance from Election day. One more extension, and he's home free! Not that it really matters. Last week Simon laid off half of his staff, apparently because the greedy bastard won't spend any more of his own money on his pathetic loser campaign, which is going down in flames. How Republican of you, Bill. Give pink slips to the little guys. But never expect any sacrifice from the guy in charge.

Bill Thomas
What does California Congressman Bill Thomas do when he receives email complaints about his conduct on television? Why, he gets the sender of the email fired of course! Two weeks ago Brian Robin, a former sportswriter for an LA Times community newspaper, saw Rep. Thomas on CNN blaming Bill Clinton for the current corporate scandals. Incensed at the congressman's "moral bankruptcy," Robin emailed a rebuke to Thomas - but he made one fatal error. As his personal email server wasn't working, he used his work address to send the email. Two days later he got a phone call from Thomas' office asking him to confirm that he worked for the LA Times. Later that day he was called into his boss's office and suspended. A week later, he was fired, apparently for violating the "no personal emails" rule. Seems a little excessive, no? Well, quite. But unfortunately that's what you get when you mess with the thin-skinned, vengeful bastards that George W. Bush likes to call "compassionate conservatives."

Florida Department of Children & Families
Well it's nice that the Florida Department of Children and Families cares enough about missing kids to keep a list, but perhaps they could do something even more useful - like looking for them. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported last week that it had done a study of 24 children reported as missing, and found 9 of them almost straight away. For example, "two sisters missing since 1997 have been living in Wisconsin with their mother, whose phone number is listed in directory assistance." Or, "four Miami brothers listed as missing since January have been routinely seen in their neighborhood - a mile from DCF offices." Well, it's nice to know that Jeb Bush's state government is intent on leaving no child behind. Um, unless it means having to pick up the telephone, or look out of the window...

Jenna Bush
And finally: yeah, yeah, we know - the Bush daughters are private citizens, we shouldn't bash them, what about Chelsea Clinton... etc, etc. But you know what? Screw that. Last week George W. Bush impressed upon America's CEOs the need for "values of hard work and honesty. I'm talking about telling the truth." Come now George, the truth? You mean like when you told the nation that you hid your alcohol-related arrests so that your kids wouldn't make the same mistakes? That's pretty funny. And as for hard work, well it seems that there's one type of hard work for "ordinary Americans" and another for the Bush family. Last week Jenna Bush was seen with two friends in St. Tropez drinking a $225 bottle of vodka, followed by a $225 bottle of tequila. Wow - she must have been working really hard at her summer internship to have earned that kind of cash! But hard work obviously has it's own rewards: just think - if they'd had one more bottle they would have spent more on booze in an afternoon than Jenna's two alchol-related convictions cost her in fines. See you next week!