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The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 156)
   May 17, 2004
   Inhofe's Enough Edition

   Last week's news was particularly sickening all round - from further
   revelations in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal to the abhorrent
   execution of Nicholas Berg. But there were plenty of conservative
   idiots ready to take this news and run with it: James Inhofe (1) was
   outraged that anyone was outraged about torture and Right-Wing
   Execution Enthusiasts (2) were keen to exploit Berg's beheading.
   Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfailed (3) suddenly became very concerned about
   the Geneva Convention and Dick Cheney (4) suddenly decided that
   Rumsfailed is the best defense secretary the world has ever seen.
   Elsewhere, the Appleton Post-Crescent (6) is having difficulty
   maintaining its balance, George W. Bush (8) is keeping cool, and the
   Republican Party (10) really needs to take a look in the mirror.
   Enjoy!

   1 James Inhofe just plain evil
   If there was one idiot who summed up the complete and utter
   shamelessness of the American right-wing last week, it was Sen. James
   Inhofe (R-OK). At a Senate hearing on the Abu Ghraib prison abuses,
   Inhofe stated that torture tactics are A-okay in his book. "I'm
   probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by
   the outrage than we are by the treatment," said he. You know, he's
   probably right - there was probably at least one other Republican at
   the hearing who's as big a scumbag as Inhofe. But never mind that.
   "These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations.
   If they're in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're
   murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them
   probably have American blood on their hands and here we're so
   concerned about the treatment of those individuals." Well, maybe -
   except for the fact that the Red Cross estimates that 70-90% of the
   prisoners at Abu Ghraib had been "arrested by mistake," and General
   Taguba's report indicates that the guards weren't even keeping track
   of which prisoners were in which cells. So were they in there for
   traffic violations? Who knows. Ah, what the hell, let's stick bags
   over their heads and sodomize them anyway. (This actually kinda
   reminds me of Rush Limbaugh's theory that the death penalty is never
   meted out incorrectly, because if you end up on death row, hey, you
   must have done something.) But one of the strangest things to come out
   of this whole affair is the new-found moral relativism on display by
   the right-wing. Conservatives have always derided liberals for this
   "failing" - as far as they're concerned, all that exists is good
   versus evil. Except suddenly it's okay for America to torture
   prisoners of war - because even if we're forcing them to masturbate,
   stuffing things up their rectums, and beating them to death, at least
   we're not drilling holes through their skulls. So meet the new
   conservative moral relativism - say goodbye to good versus evil, say
   hello to not-quite-as-evil-as-evil, uh, versus evil.

   2 Right-Wing Execution Enthusiasts just plain evil
   They've spent the last several months complaining that there hasn't
   been enough good news coming out of Iraq, but you wouldn't know it
   from last week's performance. The right-wing were suddenly overjoyed
   when an American civilian was beheaded by alleged al-Qaeda terrorists,
   because Nick Berg's terrible misfortune was a boon for conservatives
   who had spent the week busily defending the Abu Ghraib torture
   photographs. The brutal beheading was captured on videotape and posted
   to an Islamic militant website, where it was promptly downloaded by
   several news organizations before disappearing as suddenly as it had
   arrived. Sean Hannity and Michael Savage played audio of Berg's murder
   on their radio shows, and many prominent conservatives took to the
   airwaves and pontificated about how the video was a reminder of why we
   need to torture random brown people. Uh, I mean, a reminder of "what
   we're fighting against." Odd. I mean, they may need a reminder, but I
   don't know anyone who's forgotten what happened on September 11, 2001,
   nor do I know anyone who's forgotten why it's imperative that we track
   down and destroy terrorist scum. What I'm not entirely sure about is
   what any of that has to do with occupying Iraq and committing mass
   violations of the Geneva Convention.

   3 Donald Rumsfailed flip-flopping flip-flopping
   Speaking of the Geneva Convention - you know, that treaty we signed
   which says we're not allowed to torture prisoners of war - Secretary
   of Defense Donald Rumsfailed came up with his own interesting insights
   into what it all means last week. According to Don, we're not allowed
   to see any more pictures of the Geneva Convention violations which
   took place inside Abu Ghraib, because displaying such pictures would,
   uh, violate the Geneva Convention. Well, shit. We wouldn't want to
   violate the Geneva Convention, would we? But wait - according to the
   defense secretary, what happened in Abu Ghraib doesn't violate the
   Geneva Convention anyway. Riiiiiiight. Fair enough though - personally
   I've pretty much seen enough to know what went on in there, and the
   reports coming from our elected representatives who saw a further 1800
   pictures on Capitol Hill last week were plenty graphic. But it is
   certainly curious that Don is so concerned about the Geneva Convention
   all of a sudden - or should I say, selectively concerned. I mean, he
   didn't seem that bothered about it in January (which is when he claims
   he first knew of the torture at Abu Ghraib). But when several American
   POW's were captured near the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in
   2003, he said, "You know, under the Geneva Convention, it's illegal to
   do things with prisoners of war that are humiliating to those
   individuals." Hmm. Geneva Convention. Prisoners of war. Humiliating.
   Shouldn't that have rung some bells for Rumsfailed?

   4 Dick Cheney dumb dumb
   All this seems to have gone right over Vice President Crashcart's head
   though, because according to him, Rumsfailed is "the best secretary of
   defense the United States has ever had" (even better than George H. W.
   Bush's secretary of defense from 1989 to 1993, uh, Dick Cheney). Mind
   you, this is the same guy who was banging on about weapons of mass
   destruction waaaay after everyone else had realized that that dog
   wasn't just not going to hunt anymore, it had gone rabid and had to be
   put down (see Idiots 141). Cheney also told the world to "get off
   [Rumsfailed's] case and let him do his job," last week. Yeah! Get off
   his case! These bloody great groups of congresspeople who keep getting
   together and looking at hundreds and hundreds of photos of acts of
   torture committed by American troops are just getting in his way. Show
   Don some respect fer crying out loud.

   5 Media Whores excessive spin excessive spin excessive spin
   Gallup, Pew, the American Research Group, Zogby and others had some
   devastating new poll results for the Chimp in Charge last week - not
   that you'd know it from the newsroom spin. The Media Whores are still
   desperately stuck trying to paint the race as a neck-and-neck
   nailbiter and John Kerry as a boring candidate who's going nowhere.
   Unfortunately for Bush, the evidence suggests that if he doesn't do
   something to stop his ratings slide, he could be screwed. According to
   Gallup, "no incumbent president in the post-war era won re-election
   after falling below 50 percent approval at this point in an election
   year." (Bush is currently at 44%.) In addition, every incumbent who
   has won re-election has had a double-digit lead over their opponent at
   this stage in the campaign. That's right - John Kerry is 11 points
   stronger against George W. Bush at this point than Bill Clinton was
   against Bush's father in 1992. Heard about that on Fox News lately?
   Nope - but you may have heard the Media Whores spreading stories about
   Democrats wanting to ditch Kerry. After all, when the party's nominee
   is doing better than any challenger in recent memory, it's always a
   good idea to, uh, get rid of him and find someone else. At least, the
   Republicans would certainly appreciate it if that could be arranged.

   6 The Appleton Post-Crescent excessive spin partisanship dumb
   If polls aren't your thing and you prefer more anecdotal evidence that
   Bush isn't doing as well as he should be, check out this plea from the
   Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wisconsin. Last week the daily newspaper
   asked its readers to submit more pro-Bush letters to the editor,
   because they want to "balance things out." That's right. In a notice
   to their readers, the editors of the Post-Crescent wrote, "We've been
   getting more letters critical of President Bush than those that
   support him. We're not sure why, nor do we want to guess. But in
   today's increasingly polarized political environment, we would prefer
   our offering to put forward a better sense of balance... Since we
   depend upon you, our readers, to supply our letters, that goal can be
   difficult. We can't run letters that we don't have. If you would like
   to help us 'balance' things out, send us a letter, make a call or
   punch out an e-mail... We'd love to hear from you." So let me get this
   straight... The Post-Crescent takes it for granted that the country is
   "polarized" - split down the middle between conservatives and
   liberals. They are then faced with strong evidence to the contrary in
   the form of increasing numbers of letters critical of George W. Bush.
   So what's a good newspaper to do? Run the letters as they come in?
   Note that the increase in anti-Bush letters may indicate a drop in
   support for Our Great Leader? Nope - they ask for readers to send in
   more pro-Bush letters to "balance things out." After all, their job
   isn't to to "guess" why this might be happening, is it? No - their job
   is to simply parrot conventional wisdom. And if reality happens to
   indicate that conventional wisdom may be false, what else is a good
   newspaper to do but manufacture evidence to the contrary? Thank
   goodness for the fourth estate.

   7 Paul Bremer flip-flopping
   Back to the Middle East for a moment... According to the Associated
   Press, current King of Iraq Paul Bremer announced last week that "the
   United States would leave Iraq if requested to do so by the new Iraqi
   government." Said Bremer, "I don't think that will happen, but
   obviously we don't stay in countries where we're not welcome." Hmmm...
   let's see here. So they've killed almost 800 of our soldiers in the
   last year or so, we've killed 10,000 or so of them, 80 percent of
   Iraqis now want us out of the country... but hey, we wouldn't want to
   be anywhere we're not welcome. Strangely enough, this news came hot on
   the heels of an announcement by Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman,
   who told reporters that U.S. forces "would not leave if asked by the
   interim government." But it's okay, because that announcement came hot
   on the heels of Grossman's appearance before the House International
   Relations Committee where he was asked, "If they ask us to leave, we
   will leave, will we not?" and he answered, "Yes." So I'm glad our
   policy in Iraq is now perfectly clear to everybody.

   8 George W. Bush massive ego screwing the poor
   Iraq and the economy aren't looking too good for Bush at the moment,
   so he's falling back on his third-string campaign issue, education.
   Bush's massively underfunded No Child Left Behind act is driving up
   education costs everywhere as schools try to conform to rigid
   standards, and it's certainly having an effect on Parkersburg South
   High School in West Virginia. When Bush made a campaign stop - sorry,
   my bad, a "presidential visit" (that means the taxpayer gets to pay
   for it) - there last week, the school was a little sweaty - except
   George lucked out as usual. "We've got 1,200 students sitting over
   there in an un-air conditioned auditorium watching this (on
   television) with fans blowing on them to keep cool," said Parkersburg
   South librarian Brenda Brum. "Here, we've pumped in air conditioning
   for the President. I resent that." Ah, Brenda, at least you didn't
   have to lay down asphalt for him to walk on (see Idiots 147). Now shut
   up and go resuscitate that student. I think he's come down with
   heatstroke.

   9 Dorothy Rabinowitz dumb dumb dumb
   How dumb can you get? Last month Wall Street Journal pundit Dorothy
   Rabinowitz wrote a scathing indictment of Kristen Breitweister and the
   9/11 widows which was published as an op-ed. This month, Breitweiser
   wrote an op-ed of her own and submitted it for publication in the
   Journal. Rabinowitz got wind of the op-ed and dashed off an email to
   deputy editorial page editor Tunku Varadaraja asking him not to
   publish it. She called Breitweiser's article "total and complete - not
   to mention repetitive - nonsense from people given endless media
   access to repeat the very same stupid charges." But that's not all...
   "My thoughts - we don't publish nonsensical contentions that offer no
   news, no insight - solely on the grounds that those who feel attacked
   get a chance to defend their views. For that we have the letters
   column." Wow. But wait a second, you're asking yourself, how do I know
   what was in the email? Simple - instead of sending it to Tunku
   Varadaraja, Rabinowitz accidentally sent it to Kristen Breitweiser.
   Shortly afterwards she sent another one: "Rabinowitz, Dorothy would
   like to recall the message, '9/11 Widows' Response - the 'jersey
   girls.'" Like I said: how dumb can you get?

   10 The Republican Party flip-flopping flip-flopping hypocrisy
   hypocrisy
   And finally, thanks to the great DailyKos.com for tipping us off to
   this one... An alert Kos reader realized that parts of the Republican
   Party Platform at the 2000 GOP Convention reads like an exact
   indictment of everything Bush has done since coming to power - check
   it out: "The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the
   [Clinton] administration's diplomacy have undermined American
   alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries" ...
   "Gerrymandered congressional districts are an affront to democracy and
   an insult to the voters. We oppose that and any other attempt to rig
   the electoral process" ... "Nor should the intelligence community be
   made the scapegoat for political misjudgments. A Republican
   administration working with the Congress will respect the needs and
   quiet sacrifices of these public servants as it strengthens America's
   intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities and reorients them
   toward the dangers of the future." Can you believe it? See you next
   week!

   Linked cites verifying the aforementioned idiots can be found at:
          http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/index.html            
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       Guns, God, & Greed are the Three G's of Republican government.
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