The Top 10 Conservative Idiots
(No. 202)

June 20, 2005
Cracks In The Facade Edition

It's been a rough time for George W. Bush (1,2,3) and his Republican cohorts lately. Our Great Leader's approval ratings are in freefall, he's lashing out at the Democrats, and he's actively courting, um, porn stars. Bush's anti-Midas-touch appears to be rubbing off on other Republicans too - Bill Frist (4) was embarrassed by the Terri Schiavo autopsy results, meanwhile Jeb Bush (5) is just an embarrassment. Elsewhere, Rick Perry (7) hates gays, Fred Phelps (8) hates the troops, and Dana Milbank (10) is a condescending asshole without a single iota of journalistic integrity. Whoops, have I said too much? Enjoy, and as usual don't forget the key!

George W. Bush
First things first...

It's a good job Our Great Leader doesn't pay any attention to polls, eh?

George W. Bush
Mind you, never let it be said that President Personal Responsibility ever allows the buck to slip past him. George W. Bush was out and about last week placing the blame for his sinking approval ratings right where it belongs - at the feet of... the Democrats?

"On issue after issue they stand for nothing except obstruction," Bush whined at a Republican fundraiser last week. "Political parties that choose the path of obstruction will not gain the trust of the American people." What a wimp! So let's see... the Republicans control the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, and have recently been doing what they can to plant conservative activists in the judiciary - and it's the Democrats' fault that Bush can't get his agenda through?

Bush also accused the Democrats of not leading. I'm sorry, but if his idea of a good leader is someone who can't get shit done despite the fact that his party controls the entire federal government, well - let's just say that's probably why the situation in Iraq is so dire right now.

Here's the deal - it's Bush job to get his wingnut, citizen-harming agenda through Congress. It's the Democrats' job to stop him. So if he's blaming the Democrats for his own failing agenda, surely they're doing their jobs right, and he's the one screwing up.

Since a growing majority of people disapprove of what Bush is doing on just about everything, he should probably be careful about throwing this kind of rhetoric around. Otherwise folks might start to wonder who's really representing them in Washington DC, and why Bush's "leadership" is failing them so dismally.

George W. Bush
Remember the good old days when George W. Bush was going to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House? I'm afraid those days are long gone. Coming hot on the heels of the Jeff Gannon scandal, Our Great Leader has apparently decided to eschew amateur pornographers wandering around the White House in favor of the real deal.

Last week, Mark Kulkis of Kick Ass Productions, a hard-core porn production company based in California, was invited to "The 2005 President's Dinner and Salute to Freedom," held by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Kulkis had donated $5,000 to the NRCC, and chose to bring porn star Mary Carey with him to the event.

To continue this story, I'm going to hand over to World Nut Daily because, while I think their "news" outlet is a pile of crap, it's really too funny to see them blowing steam out their ears over this. Writes Joseph Farah:

I want you to imagine the squeals of outrage we would have heard if, back in the 1990s, President Clinton spoke to a Democratic congressional fund-raising dinner attended by a porn star and a pornographer.

But the "family values" Republicans are mute about just such an event scheduled for next week – involving not Clinton, but President Bush.

Last week, Carl Forti, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, explained to WND that self-described pornographer Mark Kulkis and his date, porn star Mary Carey, will be attending the two-day event, "The 2005 President's Dinner and Salute to Freedom," next Monday and Tuesday because their money is just as good as anyone else's.

...

"I'm especially looking forward to meeting Karl Rove," [Carey] said. "Smart men like him are so sexy. I know that he's against gay marriage, but I think I can convince him that a little girl-on-girl action now and then isn't so bad."

I love it.

But there is some good news for the radical right in all this. Again, according to World Nut Daily, Kulkis "boasts of making only authentic hard-core action movies where actors don't wear condoms." So cheer up, Christian conservatives - at least you and Kulkis can agree on the evils of condom use. See? It is all about family values after all!

Bill Frist
Terri Schiavo's autopsy results were announced last week and left no question as to her condition - according to CNN, the autopsy "backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage ... It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused." The medical examiner reported that Schiavo's brain was about half of its expected size, and in short, "This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

In fact, the only question left after the examiner's press conference was, "When is Bill Frist going to have his medical license revoked?" Frist famously diagnosed Schiavo on the Senate floor after watching a one-hour video provided by her family. According to the London Times, back in March "Frist, the Republican leader in the Senate and a potential presidential candidate in 2008, dropped a bombshell in both medical and political circles by offering a lengthy diagnosis based on video footage that he said he had spent 'an hour or so looking at' in his office. He quoted several medical texts and concluded: 'She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli.'"

Funny that, since the autopsy also conclusively demonstrated that Terri Schiavo was blind.

Bill Frist was roundly criticized by medical experts at the time of his diagnosis, and rightly so. But now he just wants everyone to forget about his unethical and unprofessional behavior. "The diagnosis they made is exactly right. It's the pathology, I'll respect that," he said last week. "I think it's time to move on." What, no apology to Michael Schiavo?

Frist also claimed that "I never made the diagnosis, I wouldn't even attempt to make a diagnosis from a videotape." So I guess he's a quack AND a liar.

Jeb Bush
Apparently Jeb Bush didn't get the memo about "moving on" though - it seems that he's decided to continue his harassment of Michael Schiavo. Bush announced last week that he had met with the medical examiner before the autopsy results were released, and "What he did say to me that was troubling ... was that there was some doubt about when she collapsed and how long it took for a phone call to be made to 911. I think that is worthy of some investigation." Good grief.

Jeb's comments were prompted by the Schindler family - Terri's parents - who maintain that Michael Schiavo had a hand in the collapse which originally put Terri into a persistent vegetative state. The cause of that collapse still remains unknown. According to the St. Petersburg Times, the family "wants to know what caused Terri Schiavo's heart to temporarily stop beating that morning. They plan to have their own experts review the autopsy in search of answers." Mind you, the Schindler family also say that Michael Schiavo was a money-grubbing bastard who abused his wife, fed her drugs, and broke bones in her body. And all of that has been disproven.

Meanwhile, Michael's attorney weighed in on Jeb's ghoulish politicization of the unfortunate case of Terri Schiavo. "I think it's sad and disgusting given the governor's continuing unwarranted meddling in this case," he said. "The extent to which he will prostitute himself to right-wing constituents for his future political gain I think is just pitiful."

Amen to that.

Duncan Hunter
Are you concerned that the American government is imprisoning people without trial? Do you feel uneasy that the United States now advocates torture as a way to deal with these people? Why, you un-American pansy! Don't you know that the prisoners at Six Flags Guantanamo Bay are being treated like royalty?

Fortunately we have elected representatives such as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Obviously) to remind us of our priorities. Hunter appeared on TV last week, and at a Capitol Hill news conference, to, um, read the menus of the Gitmo prisoners.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, "For nearly every question that reporters asked about aggressive interrogations and lack of judicial process involving the 500-plus detainees, Hunter's answers were 'honey glazed chicken' or 'lemon baked fish,' served with whole-wheat pita, various vegetables and fruit."

"The inmates in Guantanamo have never eaten better, they've never been treated better and they've never been more comfortable in their lives," said Hunter. "And the idea that somehow we are torturing people in Guantanamo is absolutely not true, unless you consider having to eat chicken three times a week is torture." Well damn, sounds like paradise! Sign me up! Although I suppose one could make the argument that there's a sort of sliding scale from "being treated well" to "being treated poorly" to "prison guards pissing on you."

Still, at least these tactics seem to be working - last week George W. Bush announced that "Since Sept. 11, federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted." Not bad huh? Until you realize that, in fact, only 39 people have been convicted since 2001 on charges relating to terrorism or national security.

Rick Perry
Last week Texas governor Rick Perry appeared at an evangelical school and "signed a resolution putting the anti-gay-marriage amendment on the statewide ballot," according to the Dallas Voice, despite the fact that his signature was not required. Perry was subsequently asked how the proposed amendment might affect gay veterans in Texas. He replied "Texans made a decision about marriage, and if there's a state that has more lenient views than Texas, then maybe that’s a better place for them to live."

That's it? No "I thank them for their serving their country, but...?" No "I support the troops, but...?" Nope - just, "If gay veterans don't like it, they should get the hell out of my state." I guess Perry hates gays so much that it even trumps acknowledging their military service. Impressive.

Fred Phelps
Maybe Perry can join forces with another recently-announced troops-hater, Fred Phelps. Phelps, of "God Hates Fags" fame, is most associated with protesting at the funerals of AIDS victims and gays, but he has of late decided to start picketing the funerals of soldiers - gay or not. Last week he announced that he would protest at the funeral of Cpl. Carrie French, who was killed in Iraq by an IED.

Phelps says that, "Our attitude toward what's happening with the war is the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime." So let me get this straight - Phelps is claiming that our soldiers are dying in Iraq because God is punishing America for "abandoning moral imperatives" - therefore he's going around demonstrating at soldiers' funerals, causing havoc and further traumatizing their families? I'd be utterly confused if I hadn't read this excellent analysis which explains a great deal.

The right-wing are always trying to claim that people on the left who don't support George W. Bush's war in Iraq also don't support the troops (which is just a blatant lie). Meanwhile heroes of the radical right like Scumbag Phelps are ruining their memorial services. Astonishing.

Fans Of Lynching
Last week senators co-sponsored a resolution to apologize for previous legislative failures to prevent lynchings during the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, Majority Leader Bill Frist "refused repeated requests for a roll call vote that would have put senators on the record," according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. So who were the senators who decided not to sign on to the resolution? Here they are*, courtesy of DailyKos.com:

Alexander (R-TN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lott (R-MS)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thomas (R-WY)

* Editor's note: The list of twenty senators we originally linked to was apparently slightly outdated - since it was published, six of those senators joined with their saner counterparts. The list above reflects the fourteen senators we now know to be fans of lynching, thanks to AmericaBlog. And yes - they're all Republicans.

Dana Milbank
And finally: stick a fork in the "mainstream media" - it could do with a good forking. Last week Rep. John Conyers held unofficial hearings into the Downing Street Memos - the official British documents which reveal that in early March 2002, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" so that Bush could get his war on with Iraq.

The "mainstream media" were typically lax in their reporting of anything that might be unfavorable to the Bush administration, but the worst offender was easily Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. Milbank's column managed to avoid the substance of the hearings entirely, and instead had a good laugh about "Conyers and his hearty band of playmates" enjoying their "dress-up game" while taking "a trip to the land of make-believe." Yes - this actually appeared in the Washington Post.

For good measure, Milbank focused on a small group of nutjobs who showed up at DNC headquarters to hand out the old "Jews knew about 9/11 in advance" bullcrap, as if they had anything to do with the matters at hand. And thanks to Milbank's ace reporting, we also know that at one point someone mistakenly turned off the lights, and a witness accidentally knocked down a flag. Whoopee.

Milbank also made sure to mention that "A search of the congressional record yesterday found that of the 535 members of Congress, only one - Conyers - had mentioned the memo on the floor of either chamber. House Democratic leaders did not join in Conyers's session, and Senate Democrats, who have the power to hold such events in real committee rooms, have not troubled themselves." Not only was Milbank lying, he didn't bother to mention that after the meeting Conyers delivered a letter to the White House signed by 122 Democratic House members, and a petition signed by 560,000 - yes, that's 560,000 - citizens. But I guess Milbank wanted to strike a balance, you know, between those 560,000 citizens and the six members of Free Republic who showed up to counter-protest.

Ironically, Milbank's waste of column inches appeared in the Post on the day of the 33rd anniversary of the Watergate break-in. How the mighty have fallen. See you next week, and special congratulations to John Conyers for his efforts on behalf of the truth - don't let the bastards get you down!

Photo: Associated Press

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