The
Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 153)
April
26, 2004
Lowest of the Low Edition
It's
official: These people have no shame. Even though their candidate
dodged service in Vietnam, then went AWOL from the National
Guard, these assholes actually have the gall to question the
John Kerry's military service. If the Critics of John Kerry's
War Record (1) really want to go there, I say bring it
on. But they're not the only conservative idiots. Maytag
Aircraft (2) has fired an employee for taking pictures of
flag-draped coffins, George W. Bush (3) is engaged in a little
illegal diversion of funds, and Donald Rumsfeld (4) is doing
a little creative editing. After that, we've got six more
idiots, and don't miss the special bonus section this week!
Enjoy, and as usual, don't forget the key!
Critics
of John Kerry's War Record
How dare they? How dare the GOP criticize John Kerry's
war record in Vietnam? From Ed
Gillespie to Rep.
Sam Johnson (R-TX), Republicans were flooding the airwaves
last week with criticism of Kerry's military service. Why?
Because, they say, there are questions about the seriousness
of his injuries. Excuse me? Here
we have a man who volunteered to command a swift boat
on the Mekong Delta, who earned the Bronze Star for heroic
achievement, the Silver Star for gallantry in action, and
three purple hearts, and the Republicans are questioning the
seriousness of his injuries? I guess they haven't noticed
that, unlike their hero George W. Bush, John Kerry was actually
in Vietnam. The closest Bush came to enemy fire was having
his teeth
examined in Alabama. To disparage a combat veteran's service
because you don't think his injuries weren't serious enough
has got to be the lowest
of the low. What's the GOP going to tell kids who come
back from Iraq with all their limbs intact? "Well, well,
look who's back. I see you've still got your legs. Perhaps
you weren't really trying out there." By the way,
this recent furor was started by one John O'Neill, a so-called
political independent who served in Vietnam with John Kerry
and said he "couldn't tie the shoes of some of the people
in Coastal Division 11." That is, John O'Neill didn't
actually serve with Kerry - he showed up two
months after Kerry had left Vietnam. Oh, and if you were
wondering what kind of "political independent" John
O'Neill is, he's the kind that gets invited to the White House
by Nixon
and Kissinger, worked for William Rehnquist, and promotes
the website WinterSoldier.com which is run by the Free Republic
Network. You know, one of those kinds of "independents."
Maytag
Aircraft
Newspapers finally published pictures of coffins coming back
from Iraq last week, and the result was, well, chaos. The
Seattle Times started the ball rolling, publishing
a photograph taken in Kuwait by Tami Silicio, an employee
of military contractor Maytag Aircraft. The media haven't
been showing pictures like this until now because the Pentagon
has a policy of banning the media from taking pictures of
caskets being returned to the U.S., which they claim "defers
to the sensitivities of bereaved families." That's complete
crap, obviously - the policy is clearly intended to prevent
the American public from seeing what really happens when you
send the nation's children off to war. But in a shocking turn
of events, Tami Silicio was subsequently fired by Maytag Aircraft,
along with her husband. According
to the Times, Silicio said "she hoped the
publication of the photo would help families of fallen soldiers
understand the care and devotion that civilians and military
crews dedicate to the task of returning the soldiers home."
And for that, she got shitcanned. In related news, nobody
in the Bush administration has been fired yet for ignoring
urgent warnings of a massive terrorist attack on U.S. soil,
failing
to catch Osama bin Laden, or lying about weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq. Priorities, priorities.
George
W. Bush
There were more bombshell revelations about George W. Bush's
Rush To War™ last week, this time from journalist Bob
Woodward whose new book Plan of Attack reveals
that Bush diverted $700 million from funds approved for the
war in Afghanistan
to pay for the planning of his Iraq adventure. Oh, but whoops!
Bush apparently forgot to mention this small appropriation
to Congress, which is illegal. Funny really, you'd think that
someone as dedicated to upholding the Constitution as George
W. Bush wouldn't be going around stealing money out of the
treasury from under the nose of Congress. But there you have
it. Woodward also reveals that Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld
decided to tell Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar about the decision
to invade Iraq two days before they mentioned it to Secretary
of State Colin Powell. And when I say tell him about it, I
mean describe it in detail, including showing him all the
top secret war plans. And in what can only be described as
a bizarre coincidence, Woodward told 60 Minutes last week
that Bandar had assured Bush that Saudi Arabia would lower
oil prices later this year "to ensure the U.S. economy
is strong on election day," according to CBS News. That's
really very nice of Prince Bandar you know. I mean Bush doesn't
bother his country after 15 of his fellow Saudis commit the
September 11 attacks, and lets him see the Iraq war
plans before the U.S. Secretary of State gets to see them,
and all Bush gets in return is artificially low oil prices
in the run-up to the election. Fabulous.
The
Pentagon and Donald Rumsfeld
But there's more - according
to the Washington Post, "The Pentagon deleted
from a public transcript a statement Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld made to author Bob Woodward suggesting that the
administration gave Saudi Arabia a two-month heads-up that
President Bush had decided to invade Iraq." That's right,
Donny-Boy was giving Prince Bandar the scoop on the invasion
of Iraq, and surprise, surprise - the Pentagon didn't want
you to know about it. Rumsfeld, of course, doesn't recall
exactly what he said. I mean, seriously, for the guy in charge
of the nation's defense, the dude has a terrible memory. The
deleted comments center around Rumsfeld telling Bandar that
he could "take that to the bank" that Iraq would
be invaded. But according to the Post, "Rumsfeld
told reporters at a briefing yesterday that he may have used
the phrase 'take that to the bank' but that no final decision
had been made to go to war." Uh, so what was he telling
Bandar to take to the bank exactly? Some rolls of quarters?
The rebate check that just came in from those blank CD-Rs
he bought three months ago? Apparently the Pentagon deleted
eight questions and answers from the public transcript - according
to Woodward, "I was surprised that it was deleted because
it obviously dealt with a critical issue." Rumsfeld's
response? Well, last week he described the deleted portions
of the transcript as "some banter." Ri-i-ight. Some banter.
Uh-huh.
Diebold
There was big news for e-voting critics last week when Diebold
acknowledged that their voting machines have "significant
security flaws," according
to the Tri-Valley Herald. Said Diebold Election
Services Inc. president Bob Urosevich, "We were caught.
We apologize for that." Wait a second - you were caught?
Hmm... interesting. Apparently Diebold "supplied hundreds
of poorly designed electronic-voting devices that disenfranchised
voters in the March presidential primary," and, "Unknown
thousands of voters were turned away at the polls." Great
job, Diebold. I mean, you've only been going on about how
frickin' awesome your machines are for the last god-knows-how-long.
But the good news is that a California voting systems panel
voted unanimously last week to recommend decertifying the
Diebold machines, and the state attorney general may now file
criminal
and civil charges against the company for violating California's
election laws. So it looks like poor old Wally O'Dell, the
CEO of Diebold who said last August that he was "committed
to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President
next year" (see Idiots 124),
will have to cross California off the list of other states
in which he planned to "help" Dubya.
The
Journal-Advocate
It seems a few newspapers are following the Pentagon's orders
and making sure the American people don't see anything unpleasant
coming out of Iraq. In the case of the Journal-Advocate
of Colorado, that even extends to violence against cartoon
characters. The Journal-Advocate decided not to run
the Doonesbury comic strip last week because, in
their words, "of the graphic, violent battlefield
depictions of Iraq in this week's installment." In the
strip, the character "B.D." is injured in combat
and loses
a leg. Not that this is happening to real soldiers in
Iraq, you understand - in real life, when soldiers die they're
just vaporized painlessly into nothingness, just like in a
video game. And then their clothes are placed into a casket
which is wrapped in the flag. Which, of course, you're not
allowed to see either. I mean, we don't want anyone getting
all squeamish and thinking that perhaps war isn't just a big
game after all, do we?
Jennifer
Carroll
Surely there's nothing funnier to Republicans than a joke
about assassinating Hillary Clinton. Here's what State Rep.
Jennifer Carroll (R-Naturally) had to say at the Southern
Republican Leadership Conference in Miami Beach last week,
according
to the Florida Times-Union: "Carroll said
Clinton was visited by the ghosts of Presidents Washington,
Jefferson and Lincoln. According to The Associated Press,
the joke had Clinton asking each president what she could
do to help the country, and Lincoln told Clinton to go to
a theater. Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theater in Washington."
Har-de-har. Apparently Carroll later told the Associated Press,
"You infer what you want to infer, but I never said assassinate,
or kill or maim." Uh, okay then, let's see. Then what are
we to infer? So, Abe Lincoln, who was assassinated in a theater,
told Hillary Clinton that to help the country she should go
to a theater. Hmm. And according to Carroll, this has got
nothing to do with assassination. So... hmm. Sorry, I don't
get it then.
Paul
Bremer
After closing down al Sadr's newspaper, sparking the recent
violence which has led to the deaths of more than one hundred
US soldiers and hundreds of Iraqi civilians in the past month,
Paul Bremer has been struggling to come up with another way
to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people - and it looks
like he might have done it. Last week, Bremer announced
that former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party may be
able to return to their old jobs. Oh happy day! Well, that
pretty much knocks the wind out of the sails of those who
think that we're not doing a good job liberating Iraq. I mean,
what could be better than returning to power the very people
who we were fighting to free the Iraqi people from in the
first place? Hey, wait a second...
The
Treasury Department
George W. Bush has done a pretty great job of spending public
money on his election campaign this year. First there were
the taxpayer-subsidized jaunts to events like the Daytona
500 (see Idiots 143,
144),
which, of course, were absolutely not campaign appearances,
no sir - and now he's got the Treasury Department doing his
dirty work for him. It was revealed
last week that the IRS placed a sentence in four April 9 news
releases which read, "America has a choice: It can continue
to grow the economy and create new jobs as the president's
policies are doing, or it can raise taxes on American families
and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future
job creation." Gee, shouldn't they at least included the line
"I'm George W. Bush and I approved this message?"
04/26
UPDATE: We have learned that there is more to
this story than we originally thought - believe it or
not, the line which appeared in the IRS news release coincidentally
happens to appear verbatim in an RNC "fact sheet"
which was released on April 2. Yes, I'm afraid they really
are this
brazen.
Condoleezza
Rice
And finally, the Freudian Slip Of The Decade award goes to...
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. According
to NewYorkMetro.com, Rice
was recently overheard at a recent dinner party saying, "As
I was telling my husb-" before stopping herself abruptly,
and saying, "As I was telling President Bush." Uh-oh,
I hope Pickles doesn't find out about this! Looks like someone
might have designs on her man! See you next week...
Bonus
Idiots
In
other news ... Arnold
Schwarzenegger hasn't
retrofitted his Hummer yet ... Ex-police commissioner Bernard
Kerik says "another 9/11" is more likely if
Kerry becomes president (odd, there's only been one 9/11 so
far, and that happened when Bush was president) ... Rep.
John Hostettler got caught with a loaded 9mm handgun at
a Kentucky airport ... Christian faith-based teen-rehab program
Teen
Reach was shut down after a long history of child abuse
... Missouri
State House Republicans voted to eliminate a sales tax
exemption for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Kansas
City Star because the newspapers criticized them ... and
George
W. Bush said the world owes Ariel Sharon a "thank
you," Sharon
took that to mean, "feel free to off Yasser Arafat,"
and Russia
said, "oh no you don't." Armageddon outta here...
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