The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 339

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 339

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 339

June 2, 2008
The Truth Hurts Edition

This week Scott McClellan's Former Friends (1) are shocked - shocked I tell ya! - to learn that McClellan is apparently capable of telling the truth. Meanwhile, John McCain (2,3,4,5) continues his campaign misadventures, and George W. Bush (2,8) is a tool. Don't forget the key!

Scott McClellan's Former Friends

Breaking news! Stop the presses! Man Who Spent Years Getting Paid To Tell Lies Stuns Nation By Telling Truth!

Yes, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has a new book out, a shocking tome which contains many earth-shattering revelations, such as:

* Karl Rove is dishonest!
* The Bush Administration lied America into war!
* You know all that stuff about weapons of mass destruction? It was just propaganda!
* George W. Bush is an incurious man!
* Hurricane Katrina was handled poorly!

Unbelieveable, isn't it?

Of course what's interesting about McClellan's book is not necessarily what's written inside - although I did enjoy the revelation that in his youth George W. Bush attended parties so wild he couldn't remember whether he did cocaine or not - but the person who did the writing. Former White House press secretaries are usually pretty loyal types, so the Bushies must have really ticked Scotty off to get this treatment.

Fortunately the Bush Administration conducts regular war games which are designed to prepare for exactly this kind of political disaster scenario (unlike real disaster scenarios, which they ignore) and their rapid response operation swung smoothly into action. The advance team began by suggesting that McClellan had been abducted by alien bloggers, with Ari Fleischer saying "Scott uses the very same words that the far-left uses," and Karl Rove adding, "it sounds like somebody else. It sounds like a left-wing blogger."

Dana Perino and Dan Bartlett continued this theme but also began to add subtle personal attacks - Perino called McClellan "disgruntled" and said, "We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew." Meanwhile Bartlett said "It's almost like we're witnessing an out-of-body experience. We're hearing from a completely different person we didn't have any insight into," before adding that the book was "total crap."

Finally, the clean-up crew arrived to simply hurl insults at McClellan. Former Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend announced that McClellan was, "self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional," and Bob Dole mopped up by calling him a "miserable creature" and said "your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique."

So as you can see, McClellan is definitely telling the truth.

John McCain

It's a good job that John "Maverick" McCain is so tough on lobbyists, because last week it was revealed that "Sen. John McCain's national campaign general co-chair was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy."

That might seem shocking but this is actually a very smart play by McCain. Remember the old saying: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. What better place for McCain to keep this devilish lobbyist than right under his nose, advising him on economic policy? This way McCain can watching Gramm closely, be aware of his every move, observe his weaknesses, and wait, cat-like, for the perfect moment to strike.

So, yes, it might look like McCain's economic ideas are curiously identical to Phil Gramm's economic ideas. And yes, when he was in the Senate, Gramm's legislation did help pave the way for the Enron disaster and the current mortgage crisis. And true, he's now a lobbyist for a foreign bank.

But trust me. One of these days John McCain is going to pounce. And then Gramm will be sorry.

George W. Bush and John McCain

Last week I noted that John McCain had invited George W. Bush to host a massive fundraiser at the convention center in Phoenix, Arizona. Everything was going great until tickets went on sale and they realized that the event would have to be held somewhere a little smaller. Like, er, in a private residence.

But never let complete and utter failure get a good presidential candidate down - it turns out that McCain still wants Bush to stump for him in battleground states like, um, Utah.

President Bush arrives today for his fourth visit to the state headlining a pair of fundraisers where he will attempt to tap Mitt Romney's formidable Utah money machine to support Sen. John McCain's presidential bid.

Well that should be a smashing success.

Ticket sales for one of the two events have apparently been lackluster, prompting the McCain campaign to move the event.

Or maybe not.

John McCain

As we all know, John McCain is a big fan of Gen. Petraeus. So much so, in fact, that according to Think Progress his campaign recently "sent out a fundraising appeal featuring a picture of McCain with Gen. David Petraeus."

Unfortunately it turns out that this is yet another giant gaffe. Three days before McCain sent out his fundraising appeal, the International Herald Tribune reported that:

The highest-ranking U.S. military officer has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the United States approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue.

"The U.S. military must remain apolitical at all times," wrote Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It is and must always be a neutral instrument of the state, no matter which party holds sway."

Whoops. Cue the retraction and apology...

John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for president, said he was wrong to use an image of Gen. David Petraeus in fundraising material, and it "will not happen again."

(snip)

It was not the first time McCain had used the picture of himself with Petraeus; it appeared on the candidate's website for several days in April before being taken down.

Oh well, I guess McCain will just have to use this picture instead.

John McCain

Now let's take a moment to recap some of Sen. McCain's other hits from last week.

* Congressional Quarterly released a study showing that "Maverick" McCain voted with George W. Bush 100% of the time in 2008.

* After waving his cane at Iran's president "Ahmad-de-din-ejad" during a speech in Denver, McCain was interrupted several times by anti-war protesters. McCain shot back by saying, "I will never surrender in Iraq, my friends." He may have been trying to channel Winston Churchill; unfortunately he got Mr. Rogers.

* And Think Progress noted that despite McCain's claim that he will "never surrender," his campaign recently scrubbed its website of sections where McCain advocated sending more troops to Iraq. Funny, he didn't used to be ashamed of saying that...

Mark Madden

Pundits and politicians from the left and right put aside partisan differences last week and came together to salute Ted Kennedy after the senator was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Unfortunately nobody mentioned this to right-wing sports radio host Mark Madden, who offered his own tribute to Sen. Kennedy:

On May 21, Madden said on his radio show, "I'm very disappointed to hear Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is near death because of a brain tumor. I always hoped Senator Kennedy would live long enough to be assassinated. And I wonder if he will receive a get well card from the Kopechne family."

Funnily enough, I had always hoped that Mark Madden would live long enough to get fired from his radio show. And he did!

Liz Trotta

Still on the subject of assassination: Fox News contributor Liz Trotta went right up to the line while commenting on Hillary Clinton's much-discussed remarks related to the assassination of Robert Kennedy last week.

Trotta then drove straight over the line at about 200mph and promptly crashed up a tree.

LIZ TROTTA: And now we have what, um, some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama... um, um, Obama. Well, both if we could. (laughter)

ERIC SHAWN: Well you know... talk about how you really feel.

No doubt Fox News will now promote Trotta to senior political analyst.

George W. Bush

Two weeks ago we learned that the war in Iraq has caused George W. Bush to give up playing golf. Apparently he decided that military families might not like to see the president dicking around during a time of war.

And it was in that very spirit that Our Great Leader attended the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony last week.

Which prompted Marine Sgt. Steven Pryor to write a letter to the Washington Times...

The photographs of unprofessional behavior between newly commissioned Air Force officers and President Bush on the front page of Thursday's edition are incredibly disappointing.

Their behavior was clownish, and it sets a horrible example for everyone in the military.

Unprofessional, clownish, incredibly disappointing, a horrible example... yup, sounds like George W. Bush all right.

The American Life League

Is everyone ready for "Protest The Pill Day?" Next week, on Saturday June 7th, the American Life League "marks the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut ... (which) ... set a legal precedent for claiming that the Constitution grants women the right to privacy in matters of sexual practice. This meant that Connecticut and the rest of the United States could not stop a married woman from obtaining birth control pills."

Mind you, the American Life League's problem is not just that women can have privacy in matters of sexual practice - which is bad enough - but that people simply aren't educated on the devastating consequences of the pill. You may be under the impression that the pill works like this:

Birth control pills, or oral contraceptives, contain hormones that suppress ovulation. During ovulation an egg is released from the ovaries, without ovulation there is no egg to be fertilized and pregnancy cannot occur. There are 2 types of birth control pills -- the combined pill and the Minipill. The combined pill contains both estrogen and progestin, while the Minipill contains only progestin.

The progestin in the Minipill may prevent ovulation; however it may not do this reliably each month. The Minipill works further by thickening the mucous around the cervix and preventing sperm from entering the uterus. The lining of the uterus is also affected in a way that prevents fertilized eggs from implanting into the wall of the uterus.

But you haven't thought it through. According to the American Life League, it turns out that...

Using statistical estimates of the number of chemical, medical and surgical abortions combined, computed by a biostatistician and an environmental epidemiologist, both at the University of Pittsburgh, along with an Ohio State University technical consultant and Bogomir M. Kuhar, a pharmacist, American Life League computed the following estimates for chemical abortions alone, from 1973 to 2003:

* During this period, approximately 6,605,000 to 11,725,000 chemical abortions occured in the United States annually.

* During this period, a total of 196,325,000 to 324,325,000 chemical abortions wiped out the equivalent of the entire United States population!

So as you can see, by preventing your ovaries from releasing eggs and preventing sperm from entering your uterus, you are literally committing genocide. Isn't it about time that all doctors should be forced to report this shocking crime to the authorities?

If you agree, I suggest voting for John McCain.

The GOP

And finally, look out Republicans - here comes Bob Barr! Yes, you can forget about Ralph Nader this year - there's a new spoiler in town, and he's going to give the GOP fits in November.

Bob Barr is a former Republican congressman from Georgia who gained much fame (and conservative cred) as one of the managers of the Clinton impeachment back in 1998. And last week the Libertarian Party picked him as their presidential nominee.

Barr could do well with anti-war conservatives who think that McCain is too "moderate" - and that could be a pretty large chunk of the GOP this year, if Ron Paul's success is anything to go by. According to the Christian Science Monitor:

If the Paul vote splinters in numerous directions, then McCain can relax. And the typical Libertarian take in a presidential race, about 400,000 votes, also won't doom McCain, as long as it is spread thin around the country.

But there is a scenario in which Barr could become the Ralph Nader of the 2008 race - an echo of the third-party effort in 2000 that analysts believe took enough votes away from Democratic nominee Al Gore to cost him the crucial state of Florida.

Take Barr's home state of Georgia. A recent poll by Insider Advantage showed Barr winning 8 percent of the November vote there versus 45 percent for McCain and 35 percent for Senator Obama. Georgia has a large African-American population, and if Obama can generate high turnout in that community, a key part of his base, then that plus Barr could cost McCain the state - and conceivably the election.

This is a long-shot scenario, and the general-election campaign has not fully begun. But McCain cannot ignore Barr, especially if Paulites start to use him as a vehicle for a protest vote. A big challenge for Barr will be fundraising. So far, he has raised $155,000, according to his campaign website. He is likely not to be included in presidential debates. So getting the word out will be difficult.

Indeed it will. So please don't forget to tell your disgruntled Republican friends all about Bob Barr's website at bobbarr2008.com - where it's quick and easy to make a contribution to the campaign!

Let's see how Rush Limbaugh likes a taste of his own "Operation Chaos."

See you next week!

-- EarlG