The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 276 [View All]

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 276

January 29, 2007
State Of The Union Special

Welcome to the 276th edition of the Top 10 Conservative Idiots. After the 2006 State of the Union address I reported that George W. Bush gave a "big ol' speech full of stuff." With the president's approval ratings standing at a mighty 28%, this year's effort was merely a big ol' speech full of guff. All quotes from the State of the Union address can be found here. Enjoy!

The "ic" Factor

Bush began his speech by applauding Nancy Pelosi, the first ever female Speaker of the House. Classy! At least, it was according to most of the cable news anchors. Personally I find it kind of hard to use the words "classy" and "George W. Bush" in the same sentence without developing a strange tic on the left side of my face, but that's not important right now. Oops - there it goes again.

Anyway, George's ode to bipartisanship lasted for about five seconds. He continued:

PRESIDENT BUSH: We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors underway, and others that are ours to begin. In all of this, much is asked of us. We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies - and the wisdom to face them together. Some in this chamber are new to the House and the Senate - and I congratulate the Democrat majority.

So what? Well, the Washington Post correctly notes that dropping the "ic" from "Democratic" is "a semantic tactic that's been part of Republican warfare for decades. It's a little thing, a means of needling the opposition by purposefully mispronouncing its name, and of suggesting that the party on the left is not truly small-'d' democratic."

You don't think they take this stuff seriously? The New Yorker reported last year that the man who invented the phrase "death tax," Republican pollster Frank Luntz, "recently finished writing a book - it's entitled 'Words That Work' - and has been diligently going through the galley proofs taking out the hundreds of 'ic's that his copy editor, one of those partisan Dems, had stuck in."

Not only that, but the notoriously crap NewsMax.com "blue-pencils Associated Press dispatches to de-'ic' references to the Party of F.D.R. and J.F.K. (The resulting impression that 'Democrat Party' is O.K. with the A.P. is as phony as a North Korean travel brochure.)"

You can trace this deliberate mispronunciation of "Democratic" as far back as disgraced Republican maniac Joe McCarthy.

The funny thing about Bush's use of it, however, is that according to the Post:

The president's pronunciation was all the more striking because it was apparently not what Bush was supposed to say. The prepared speech that the White House distributed beforehand retained that precious "-ic."

So they had it right in the text, but through force of sheer partisan habit, Our Great Leader couldn't resist.

So come on, George. Get it right. I doubt you'd like it if everyone started referring to you as President Buh.

It's The Stupid Economy

But who cares about an "ic?" According to the Washington Post:

Tuesday on CNN, Democratic strategist Paul Begala noted the omission right after it happened, adding that the president was being "insulting" and "self-defeating." Republican strategist Mike Murphy chided Begala, saying that if this was his "biggest complaint, I think the president had a pretty good night."

Oh, Mr. Murphy, if only that were true. I'm afraid that the "ic" factor was merely the tiny obnoxious tip of a downright belligerent iceberg.

George W. Bush clearly didn't want to spend too much time talking about Iraq this year - which is hardly surprising - so he decided to begin his speech by going over his domestic accomplishments. If you're thinking, "what domestic accomplishments?" don't worry - you're not alone. Let's begin with the economy.

PRESIDENT BUH: A future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy - and that is what we have. We're now in the 41st month of uninterrupted job growth, in a recovery that has created 7.2 million new jobs - so far.

Pretty spectacular, eh? Well, sure - untill you remember that 22.4 million jobs were created between January 1993 and November 2000. Who was president then? I forget...

Oh yes, and this just in:

Jobless claims rise to 16-month high

The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits shot up last week by the largest amount in 16 months, reversing two weeks of big declines.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that 325,000 newly laid-off workers filed claims for jobless benefits last week, an increase of 36,000 from the previous week. That was the biggest one-week rise since a surge of 96,000 claims the week of Sept. 10, 2005, when devastated Gulf Coast businesses laid off workers following Hurricane Katrina.

And this:

"Between 2001 and 2006, the passage of the Bush tax cuts without the offsetting savings have cost $1.2 trillion in lost revenues, or more than 80 percent of the cumulative deficit during this period." ...

Bush has "never proposed a balanced budget since it went into deficit, never vetoed a spending bill when Republicans controlled Congress and offered little sustained objection to earmarks until the issue gained political traction last year." ...

Economic growth fell to 2 percent in the third quarter of last year, following 2.6 percent growth in the second quarter and a surprisingly strong first quarter growth of 5.6 percent. "This was the first time in more than three years that the economy registered two consecutive quarters of growth below three percent."

But never mind that. Our Great Leader has got things under control!

PRESIDENT BUH: First, we must balance the federal budget. We can do so without raising taxes. What we need to do is impose spending discipline in Washington, D.C. We set a goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, and met that goal three years ahead of schedule. Now let us take the next step. In the coming weeks, I will submit a budget that eliminates the federal deficit within the next five years. I ask you to make the same commitment. Together, we can restrain the spending appetite of the federal government, and we can balance the federal budget.

What a great idea! And it only took him six years and an embarrassing mid-term election defeat to come up with it.

The Miseducation Of George W. Bush

We all know that George W. Bush pays special attention to the nation's education. That's why you so often see him carrying books during the summer months and pretending to have read them. He understands his position as America's educational role model and standard bearer. Just listen to how well his No Child Left Behind scheme is panning out:

PRESIDENT BUH: Spreading opportunity and hope in America also requires public schools that give children the knowledge and character they need in life.

Whoa, hold on bub. We've seen how you "spread opportunity and hope" in Iraq. I'm not sure we need that in America, and certainly not in our public schools.

PRESIDENT BUH: Five years ago, we rose above partisan differences to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, preserving local control, raising standards, and holding those schools accountable for results. And because we acted, students are performing better in reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap.

Which is great, except they're not. According to NPR:

There's no question the law has had a significant impact on the nation's 14,000 school districts. But the results from the tests known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress are more mixed than the president suggested. The administration can point to some modest gains in math and reading among fourth graders, and math among 8th graders. But in 8th grade reading, test scores fell from 2002 to 2005. And the achievement gap between black and white students in that period actually widened a little.

The less encouraging numbers among older students are troubling to many educators.

But hey, let's not forget that George W. Bush didn't have all the awesome advantages of No Child Left Behind when he was a young lad, so you can't blame him for being a little slow. Plus, NCLB is really great for finding and targeting those 17-year-old kids who don't know what they want to do after school but figure those Army commercials look kinda fun. So it's not all bad.

Doctor Feelbad

At last week's State of the Union address, George W. Bush talked about his complicated new health care plan which will "help more Americans afford their own insurance." That's nice - if only it were true. According to Think Progress, "millions of Americans will be unable to afford (these) expensive individual plans."

Not only that, but Bush's Health Savings Accounts "do not offer meaningful savings for Americans," "will not decrease the number of uninsured," and will "primarily benefit the rich." Wow - really? I'm shocked.

Our Great Leader also made this curious comment while discussing health care:

PRESIDENT BUH: In all we do, we must remember that the best health care decisions are made not by government and insurance companies, but by patients and their doctors.

Unless, of course, that healthcare decision happens to involve an abortion, in which case it's the federal government's job to climb up your uterus.

Tell you what, here's a good way to be able to afford to pay for universal health coverage for all Americans - repeal Bush's tax cuts for millionaires, who have made out like bandits under his watch. Or - and here's a wild idea - don't spend half a trillion dollars on an unnecessary war in the middle east. Just a thought.

An Awful Lot Of Hot Air

Did you know that global climate change is a serious challenge? Apparently Our Great Leader has just realized this.

PRESIDENT BUH: America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. And these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.

That's right folks - the "serious challenge of global climate change." No doubt Sen. James Inhofe almost had a heart attack after that line - it wasn't long ago that he declared global warming to be the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." (In case you forgot, Inhofe also happened to be chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at the time.)

But it's nice to see that George W. Bush has finally come around to the idea that climate change is a "serious challenge." Considering that (emphasis mine)...

"Dismay is being expressed across the world at the decision by U.S. President George W. Bush to abandon the 1997 Kyoto Treaty aimed at staving off global warming." - CNN, 3/29/01

"President Bush dismissed on Tuesday a report put out by his administration warning that human activities are behind climate change that is having significant effects on the environment." - CBS News, 6/4/02

"The Bush administration is trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming in an effort to keep the public uninformed, a NASA scientist said Tuesday night." - Associated Press, 10/27/04

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020." - The Observer, 2/22/04

"A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents." - New York Times, 6/8/05

"Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing." - Washington Post, 4/6/06

"A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue." - Union of Concerned Scientists, 1/3/07

But hey, it's good to know that the serious challenge of global climate change deseves at least one sentence in the 2007 State of the Union address.

How Not To Hold An Essential Debate

At last, George W. Bush got bored of trumpeting his incredibly lame domestic agenda, and got down to business: Iraq, and the War On Terror.

PRESIDENT BUH: With the distance of time, we find ourselves debating the causes of conflict and the course we have followed. Such debates are essential when a great democracy faces great questions.

Oh, really?

"Vice President Cheney offered a veiled attack yesterday on critics of the administration's Iraq policy, saying the domestic debate over the war is emboldening adversaries who believe they can undermine the resolve of the American people." - Washington Post, 9/11/06

"Since April 17, supporters of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld have asserted that the numerous retired U.S. generals criticizing Rumsfeld and calling for his resignation may, in fact, be aiding the enemies of the United States." - Media Matters, 4/20/06

"(White House Press Secretary Tony Snow) suggested that war opponents in congress need to consider what message they are sending in favoring a resolution or legislation that opposes the president's 'surge' - saying it was 'worth asking' the question of whether they might sending a message to al-Qaeda. The implication was that their opposition could be seen as giving al-Qaeda a green light to expand their actions." - Editor & Publisher, 1/17/07

"Nevada Sen. John Ensign says Democratic leaders who criticize the Iraq war are aiding the terrorists and hampering the war effort." - (notoriously crap) NewsMax, 5/21/06

"Insisting that the spying by the highly secretive NSA had been essential in the war against terrorism, Mr Bush said: 'It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war.' He added: 'The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy.'" - Sydney Morning Herald, 12/21/05

So feel free to keep asking those "great questions" - as long as you don't mind being labeled a terrorist sympathizer.

Osama bin Mentioned

But let's not get complacent - it turns out that Americans still have a plenty to be pant-wettingly terrified about. Check this out:

PRESIDENT BUH: Our enemies are quite explicit about their intentions. They want to overthrow moderate governments, and establish safe havens from which to plan and carry out new attacks on our country. By killing and terrorizing Americans, they want to force our country to retreat from the world and abandon the cause of liberty. They would then be free to impose their will and spread their totalitarian ideology. Listen to this warning from the late terrorist Zarqawi: "We will sacrifice our blood and bodies to put an end to your dreams, and what is coming is even worse." Osama bin Laden declared: "Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us."

Not that Osama is having much trouble living on this earth while George W. Bush is in charge, you understand. But hey - at least George actually mentioned him this time around. Believe it or not, that's the first time Osama bin Laden has ever been mentioned in one of Our Great Leader's State of the Union addresses - and this year he even got quoted! Given that the September 11 attacks were the catalyst that enabled Dubya to go on this whole merry world domination misadventure, does anyone else find that a little strange?

But that's not important right now. It turns out that the old Iraq/Al Qaeda connection you heard so much about in 2003 (and, if you were listening to Dick Cheney, in 2004, and 2005, and 2006) is old hat. Guess who's next on the chopping block?

PRESIDENT BUH: These men are not given to idle words, and they are just one camp in the Islamist radical movement. In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East. Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbollah - a group second only to al Qaeda in the American lives it has taken.

That's right folks - the terrorists are taking direction from Iran. Who could have predicted it?

I should probably mention at this point that Dubya likes to juggle his terrorists. See, "Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology." But "it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East."

Double your pleasure. Let's see what the Washington Post makes of all this:

In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush presented an arguably misleading and often flawed description of "the enemy" that the United States faces overseas, lumping together disparate groups with opposing ideologies to suggest that they have a single-minded focus in attacking the United States.

Under Bush's rubric, a country such as Iran - which enjoys diplomatic representation and billions of dollars in trade with major European countries - is lumped together with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat," Bush said, referring to the different branches of the Muslim religion.

Similarly, Bush asserted that Shia Hezbollah, which has won seats in the Lebanese government, is a terrorist group "second only to al-Qaeda in the American lives it has taken." Bush is referring to attacks nearly a quarter-century ago on a U.S. embassy and a Marine barracks when the United States intervened in Lebanon's civil war by shelling Hezbollah strongholds. Hezbollah has evolved into primarily an anti-Israeli militant organization - it fought a war with Israel last summer - but the European Union does not list it as a terrorist organization.

At one point, Bush catalogued what he described as advances in the quest for freedom in the Middle East during 2005 - such as the departure of Syrian troops from Lebanon and elections in Iraq. Then, Bush asserted, "a thinking enemy watched all of these scenes, adjusted their tactics and in 2006 they struck back." But his description of the actions of "the enemy" tried to tie together a series of diplomatic and military setbacks that had virtually no connection to one another, from an attack on a Sunni mosque in Iraq to the assassination of Maronite Lebanese political figure.

Follow all that? If not, try this: go back and read Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, and simply replace the words "Iraq" with "Iran," "Saddam" with "Ahamdinejad," and "Al Qaeda" with, oh, I dunno, why not just keep that the way it is. It'll make about as much sense, and the end result will probably be the same.

Iraqtile Dysfunction

Of course, what everyone really wanted to know about last week was the current state of affairs in Iraq. No need to panic - George has got matters well in hand.

PRESIDENT BUH: This war is more than a clash of arms - it is a decisive ideological struggle, and the security of our nation is in the balance. To prevail, we must remove the conditions that inspire blind hatred, and drove 19 men to get onto airplanes and to come and kill us. What every terrorist fears most is human freedom - societies where men and women make their own choices, answer to their own conscience, and live by their hopes instead of their resentments. Free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies - and most will choose a better way when they're given a chance. So we advance our own security interests by helping moderates and reformers and brave voices for democracy. The great question of our day is whether America will help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity. And I say, for the sake of our own security, we must.

And here's what Iraq's democratically elected vice president Adel Abdul Mahdi had to say last week:

Iraq was put under occupation, which was an idiot decision.

So I guess that would imply that George W. Bush is the Idiot Decider.

PRESIDENT BUH: In order to make progress toward this goal, the Iraqi government must stop the sectarian violence in its capital. But the Iraqis are not yet ready to do this on their own. So we're deploying reinforcements of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq. The vast majority will go to Baghdad, where they will help Iraqi forces to clear and secure neighborhoods, and serve as advisers embedded in Iraqi Army units. With Iraqis in the lead, our forces will help secure the city by chasing down the terrorists, insurgents, and the roaming death squads.

Would that be the roaming death squads which are "state-sponsored" and "U.S.-trained," according to the Washington Post? Or are we talking about some other roaming death squads?

Katrina, Where Art Thou?

The Associated Press reported last week that Dubya's 20,000-plus troop escalation in Iraq may soon start to cause problems at home.

President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq and the demands of the four-year-old war are causing concern at the Pentagon that the conflict could hamper the military's response to domestic crises.

The head of the National Guard said his troops lack the necessary equipment and that will hurt their ability to respond to natural or manmade disasters at home.

That's right folks - "hurt their ability to respond to natural or manmade disasters at home." Remember Hurricane Katrina? Remember how that played out before we sent an additional 20,000-plus troops to Iraq?

Well you might remember, but George apparently doesn't. Despite the fact that Hurricane Katrina caused an estimated $200 billion worth of damage and killed more than 1,800 people just under 18 months ago, Our Great Leader did not mention it, or the rebuilding efforts, one single time during this year's State of the Union address.

The Best Of The Rest

And finally, there are plenty of other conservative idiots to report this week: here's the quick (and oh-so-dirty) version...

Dick Cheney gave Wolf Blitzer the evil eye and embarrassed the hell out of Tim Russert; the Scooter Libby trial got underway (visit Firedoglake for all the gruesome details); Sean Hannity is flogging a dead horse (while simultaneously beating his own meat); and lucky Bill Janklow has a clean record again after running a stop sign and killing a cyclist.

Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh, apparently still bitter after getting fired by ESPN, has decided that NFL football "all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons"; John Gibson announced that the CNN reporter who debunked the right-wing's recent Barack Obama smear probably went to the same madrassa; and students at Tarleton State University held a Martin Luther King day party which "mocked black stereotypes by featuring fried chicken, malt liquor and faux gang apparel."

Elsewhere, Ted Haggard says that "evangelicals have the best sex life" (must be the meth); Diebold made sure that a single key could open every single one of their voting machines - and then put a picture of the key online; Michelle Bachman apparently wants to get into the presidential pants; and last but not least... hallelujah - she's back!

See you next week!

-- EarlG

(PS. It was great to meet so many DUers at the Washington DC meet-up last week. Hope to see you all again soon.)