The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 291

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 291

Edited on Mon May-21-07 12:55 PM by EarlG

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 291

May 21, 2007
Attorney General Hospital Edition

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This week, George W. Bush and Friends (1) beat up on an invalid, while Brit Hume (2), Tom Tancredo (3), and Rudy Giuliani (4), make a mockery of the Republican debates. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

George W. Bush and Friends

Last week the former Deputy Attorney General James Comey gave some disturbing testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, recounting the events of March 10, 2004. At the time, Alberto Gonzales was White House counsel and Andy Card was White House chief-of-staff. Comey was acting Attorney General as his boss, John Ashcroft, was recovering from emergency gallbladder surgery. March 10 was the day before the NSA's secret domestic wiretapping program was set to expire, and the White House wanted it reauthorized. For that they needed the Attorney General - in this case Comey, since Ashcroft was extremely ill.

According to Comey, Ashcroft had already decided not to reauthorize the plan. Yup, even John Ashcroft - the guy who is so conservative that he had a cloth draped over a statue's hooters - thought that Our Great Leader's warrantless wiretapping was over the line.

So, now I've set the scene, let's move on to Comey's testimony:

COMEY: Over the next week, particularly the following week, on Tuesday, we communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that, as acting attorney general, I would not certify the program as to its legality, and explained our reasoning in detail...

But the Bushies had other ideas...

COMEY: (I) told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and ran up, literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.

(snip)

I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that. And it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card.

They came over and stood by the bed, greeted the attorney general very briefly, and then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there: to seek his approval for a matter. And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me. He lifted his head off the pillow and, in very strong terms, expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact.

(snip)

Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately. I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present. He replied, "What conduct? We were just there to wish him well."

I was very upset; I was angry. I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general, because they had been transferred to me.

Comey went on to reveal that he, Ashcroft, and FBI director Robert Muller, were planning to resign over the incident. It was only after George W. Bush met with them and agreed to change his wiretapping plan that they decided to stay on.

Can you believe that George W. Bush would send his enforcers to bully a hospitalized, semi-comatose man into endorsing an illegal warrantless wiretapping program? Wait - don't answer that. Of course you can. I daresay you won't be surprised to learn that Gonzales and Card's behavior could get them ten years in the slammer, either. According to Time:

But the question some lawyers, national security experts and Congressional investigators are now asking is: Was Gonzales in fact acting illegally?

(snip)

"Executive branch rules require sensitive classified information to be discussed in specialized facilities that are designed to guard against the possibility that officials are being targeted for surveillance outside of the workplace," says Georgetown Law Professor Neal Katyal, who was National Security Advisor to the Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton. "The hospital room of a cabinet official is exactly the type of target ripe for surveillance by a foreign power," Katyal says.

This particular information could have been highly sensitive. Says one government official familiar with the Terrorist Surveillance Program: "Since it's that program, it may involve cryptographic information," some of the most highly protected information in the intelligence community.

The law controlling the unwarranted disclosure of classified information that has been gained through electronic surveillance is particularly strict. In the past, everyone from low-level officers in the armed forces to sitting Senators have been investigated by the Justice Department for the intentional disclosure of such information.

The penalty for "knowingly and willfully" disclosing information "concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States" carries a penalty up to 10 years in prison under U.S. law. "It's the one you worry about," says the government official familiar with the program.

Or not, since the decision to investigate this matter would have to be made by - you guessed it - the Justice Department. And we all know what a beacon of integrity that is these days.

So is George W. Bush concerned? Hard to tell:

"I'm not going to talk about it," Mr. Bush told reporters at a news conference with departing British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

There's a surprise.

Brit Hume

Hats off to Brit Hume of Fox News for posing perhaps the most preposterous question ever asked at a presidential debate. Here's the question in full, from last week's Republican debate in South Carolina:

Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time.

First question to you, Senator McCain. How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?

Gee, Brit. How long did it take you to come up with that one, not including the time you spent touching yourself while you were thinking about it? I mean, it's not even really a question, is it? You might as well have told the candidates to get their dicks out and measure them.

Oh well. Since we're now at the stage where we're encouraging the Republican candidates to contemplate entirely fictional events in order to demonstrate the size of their manly genitals, I've got some submissions for the next Fox News-sponsored debate:

You are on your way to your local Home Depot to buy an MSA Safety Works U.S. Patriotic Hard Hat. In the parking lot you find a crowd of suspicious-looking Hispanic males who appear to be searching for employment. One of the men approaches you and in a thick accent attempts to sell you a Remington electric hedge trimmer which he will not admit to puchasing legally. When you politely decline he becomes angry and pulls an American flag from his pocket, which he proceeds to set fire to and stamp upon, simultaneously taunting you with pro-Mexican slogans.

Congressman Tancredo: how unacceptable do you find this behavior?

You are vacationing in Simi Valley, California, when you decide to visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and pay your respects at the resting place of our greatest president. Upon arriving at the tomb, you discover that Osama bin Laden has exhumed Reagan's coffin, opened it, and is attempting to mount the former president's dead body. You are armed only with a decorative ballpoint pen which you purchased from the gift shop just moments earlier.

Mayor Giuliani: describe in detail the suffering you would inflict upon bin Laden using only the pen and your bare hands.

You are striding boldly across the surface of the moon when you discover Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in an large brown duffel bag. Upon further investigation, you discover that the bag bears a nametag indicating that it is the property of one "M. Ahmadinejad."

Senator McCain: how quickly would you unleash the awesome destructive power of the United States military on the godless heathens of Iran?

Tom Tancredo

After all the candidates had finished describing how much hypothetical snot they would beat out of Brit Hume's fictional terrorists, Rep. Tom Tancredo had the last word:

You say that - that nuclear devices have gone off in the United States, more are planned, and we're wondering about whether waterboarding would be a - a bad thing to do? I'm looking for Jack Bauer at that time, let me tell you. (Laughter, applause.)

Just what America needs in 2009 - a president who can tackle a fictional terrorist attack head on by putting a fictional character in charge. And you thought it couldn't get worse than Bush?

Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani is wisely sticking to terrorism as the main theme of his campaign, which makes sense, since, as a pro-choice twice-divorced cross-dressing former mayor of New York, he's not your average Republican presidential candidate. At the debate last week he attempted to bolster his credentials by dodging his first question of the night, which happened to be on the subject of withdrawal from Iraq:

CHRIS WALLACE: Mayor Giuliani, in our interview the other day you said that congressional Republicans who say they must see progress by September are, quote, "fundamentally irresponsible," and that in effect they are giving a timetable for retreat to our enemies. Is your commitment to winning in Iraq open-ended?

Rudy managed to devote a whole four sentences to that question...

GIULIANI: First of all, that isn't exactly what I said. I was talking about the timetable for retreat that the Democrats passed in Congress, in which they did something extraordinary and that I've never heard of in the history of war, which is to give your enemy a schedule of how a retreating army is going to retreat. That was irresponsible, highly irresponsible. What the Republicans did, or suggested, I don't think is the right approach either.

...before ignoring the topic at hand and turning up the fear:

And I think Senator McCain is correct, these people do want to follow us here and they have followed us here. Fort Dix happened a week ago. That was a situation in which six Islamic terrorists, who were not directed by al Qaeda but claimed to have been inspired by them, were going to kill our military in cold blood at Fort Dix. It was a 16-month investigation done by the FBI and the United States Attorney's Office, and thank God they caught them.

Yes, thank god they caught them. Let's take a quick look at the Fort Dix case shall we? According to USA Today:

He railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer, and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

These were not the actions of a terrorist, but of a paid FBI informant who helped bring down an alleged plot by six Muslim men to massacre U.S. soldiers at New Jersey's Fort Dix.

(snip)

The same documents that prosecutors used to build a case against the suspects also depict them as somewhat disorganized, lackluster plotters. And clumsy and amateurish, too: The FBI learned of the alleged plot when the men went to a Circuit City store and asked a clerk to transfer a jihad training video of themselves onto a DVD.

If this sounds familiar, it should - it's very similar to the case of the hopeless Miami men who were arrested last year (just before the mid-term elections) for allegedly conspiring to blow up Sears Tower in Chicago, despite the fact that they didn't have any weapons, or, er, shoes. (See Idiots 249.)

Now don't get me wrong - of course the FBI should try to track down potential terrorists and stop them before they're able to carry out an attack. But should they be actively encouraging them? After all, bear in mind that:

...one of the men, Tatar, called a Philadelphia police officer in November, saying that he had been approached by someone who was pressuring him to obtain a map of Fort Dix, and that he feared the incident was terrorist-related, according to court documents.

When was the last time you heard of a terrorist calling the cops because he was worried that he might have stumbled across a terrorist plot? I mean really.

But don't worry about whether the plan to blow up Fort Dix was real or not. It gave Rudy Giuliani the opportunity to deliver some brainless podium-thumping rhetoric, and that's obviously what's important here.

Fox News

Should I read anything into the fact that the microphones at the Republican debate were shaped like coathangers?

Just wondering.

George W. Bush

It seems that The Decider has decided that he doesn't want to make any more decisions about Iraq or Afghanistan. After being turned down by many qualified and far-too-sensible people, George W. Bush has finally appointed Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute as the new "War Czar." "War Czar" can be translated from the original Orwellian as "Mr. Scapegoat."

According to ABC News:

In the newly created position of assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan policy and implementation, Lute would have the power to direct the Pentagon, State Department and other agencies involved in the two conflicts.

Lute would report directly to the president and to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Apparently Our Great Leader has realized that the blanket of protection he's hiding under is being slowly tugged away, and if he's not careful he's going to have to get out of bed and take some actual responsibility. Obviously we can't have that, are so it's time to throw on another layer of pointless bureaucracy which he can cower under when things go tits-up.

"Heck of a job, Lutey!"

The Bush Administration

So you know how George W. Bush recently vetoed Congress's Iraq spending bill? It turns out that one of the administration's complaints - one that they wisely decided to keep quiet during the post-veto propaganda push - was that the bill would give the troops a bigger pay raise. According to the Army Times:

Troops don't need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

The Bush administration had asked for a 3 percent military raise for Jan. 1, 2008, enough to match last year's average pay increase in the private sector. The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private-sector pay raises.

The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.

Bush budget officials said the administration "strongly opposes" both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases "unnecessary."

Unnecessary? Okay, whatever you say. I'm sure the troops will understand.

Paul Wolfowitz

Last week World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz began to "negotiate the terms under which he would resign, in return for the bank dropping or softening the charge that he had engaged in misconduct," according to the New York Times. Now it turns out that Wolfowitz will happily resign on June 30, provided that the World Bank says he didn't do anything wrong when he gave his girlfriend a promotion and a fat pay raise.

That might sound dubious, but it's not. See, George W. Bush explained the situation last week when he said, "All I can tell you is Paul Wolfowitz has an interest in what's best for the bank."

Sure, Wolfowitz has admitted he made a mistake when, shortly after becoming president of the World Bank, he helped his girlfriend to get a cushy job at the State Department while keeping her on the Bank's payroll. And he may certainly regret increasing her salary to $193,590, which is more than the Secretary of State earns. And yes, despite the fact that the Bank's board wanted his ass out of there, he refused to step down unless they cleared him of all wrongdoing (not to mention give him a nice severance package).

But let's be fair - he was just doing what's best for the World Bank.

Ted Klaudt

Now it's time to play a new game I'm going to call "Guess The Party Affiliation." Here's how it works. I'll give you a news headline and you have to guess which political party the person in the headline belongs to. Ready?

Former SD Legislator Arrested On Sex Charges

Now here's the rest of the story so you can see if you guessed right:

A former South Dakota legislator has been arrested. Republican Ted Klaudt faces several charges including stalking and second degree rape.

Klaudt is charged with eight counts of second degree rape, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of sexual contact with a child under 16, two counts of tampering with a witness, and one count of stalking.

Hmm. Perhaps that one was too easy.

Jerry Falwell

And finally - farewell, Falwell, gone but not forgotten. This seems to be as good a time as any to investigate your legacy, so let's turn to About.com for a quick rundown of some of your most notable quotes:

"The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."

"The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews."

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"

"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's charioteers ... AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

"Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them."

"You've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I'm for the president to chase them all over the world. If it takes 10 years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord."

"The abortionists have got to bear some burden for (the 9/11 attacks) because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

So godspeed, sir. We won't soon forget your delightful homophobia, your adorable criticisms of the "Civil Wrongs Movement," or your jovial support for the Apartheid government of South Africa.

I just hope you're not too disappointed when you get to heaven.

See you next week!

-- EarlG