The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 244

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 244

Edited on Mon May-22-06 07:33 AM by EarlG

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 244

May 22, 2006
~~Viva~~ Long Live Bush Edition

So I see not much has changed since I've been away. Conservative idiocy still abounds - in fact, it seems to be getting worse (if that's possible). Tsk tsk. Better get right down to it! George W. Bush (1) has dug himself a nice big hole and is trying to use both sides to climb out, The Party Of No Ideas (2) might not be the party the media wants you to think it is, and John Gibson (3) and Vox Day (4) are showing their true colors (which are white and white, in case you were wondering). Elsewhere, Arnold Schwarzenegger (7) is in a jam, Richard Barnbrook (8) has a gay old time, and Robert Ray (10) is taking his work home with him. As usual don't forget the key, and one last thing - a big hand to Skinner for his sterling work filling in on last week's Top 10!

George W. Bush

Poor George. Gone are the days when everything was laid out into two nice distinct categories. Black and white. Good and bad. Dead or alive. You're either with us or against us. When it comes to the issue of immigration, the Bush administration has suddenly found itself navigating the brownish waters of shit creek. Without a paddle.

Problem is, George and Co. ain't used to nuance, and it shows. That's why we find now find ourselves "led" by a man who thinks we should put up a wall on the Mexican border - except not all the way across the border. A man who thinks that the national anthem should only be sung in English, but that pronouncements from the White House should be published in English and Spanish. A man who thinks that immigrants should speak English, but who, er, doesn't think that immigrants should necessarily speak English. A man who proposes deploying 6,000 National Guard troops to the southern border and then insists that "The United States is not going to militarize the southern border." Is any of this making sense to you? Me either.

Let's try to clarify. Last week George W. Bush visited Yuma, Arizona, where he told reporters, "Right here we're at a place where we're using fencing. And it makes sense to use fencing here. It doesn't make sense to use fencing in other parts of the border."

Way to pander! I'm sure all the people who think that we should put up a fence are now as equally satisfied as the people who think that putting up a fence is a stupid idea. Still, at least he got to take a ride in a dune buggy and "grinned while the driver spun it around in two circles in the sand." So the trip wasn't a total waste.

Meanwhile, according to CNN, "The White House voiced support for two provisions that cleared on Thursday. One declared English to be the national language of the United States. The other deemed it the 'common unifying language.'" New White House press secretary Tony Snow announced that, "What the president has said all along is that he wants to make sure that people who become American citizens have a command of the English language. It's as simple as that."

Really? That's not what Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says. Last week he told reporters that "The president has never supported making English the national language. I don't see the need to have legislation or a law that says English is going to be the national language."

I'll tell you what though - at least with all this confusion over immigration, we're not talking about the war in Iraq any more. So I guess we can consider that problem solved. Mission accomplished, if you will.

The Party Of No Ideas

Of course, immigration is just one small part of the GOP's master plan for 2006 - they have a raft of other exciting proposals which are sure to strike gold at the polls this fall. Are they going to improve the government's response to disasters like Hurricane Katrina? Nope! What about lowering gas prices? Hardly!

No, the party formerly known as the party that isn't the party of no ideas is going back to basics for the November elections, cranking up their rusty old message machine for one last desperate attempt to squeeze the remaining drops of electoral juice out of their "values voters."

That's right. This November it turns out that the GOP is concerned once again with one of the greatest threats to ever face America: gay marriage. It seems that despite all their promises to stop this terrible problem, "traditional marriage" is still "under threat," and Republicans in Congress will not rest until they have saved marriage from the clutches of dangerous, un-American homosexuals (or until the elections are over, whichever comes first).

Having recently gotten married myself I feel qualified to comment in depth on this issue, and I must say I think the Republicans are on to something here. See, if we allow gays to start getting married, then I'll simply have to divorce my wife. Because our marriage will not be worth as much as it once was. After all, didn't Jesus say that your own trumped-up sense of self-importance is far more valuable than the happiness of other people? I think so.

So here's to the GOP. While Iraq burns, while the victims of Katrina go homeless, while the gap between the rich and the poor gets ever-larger, while millions of Americans go without health care, at least we can remain safe in the knowledge that the Republican party is standing up for our right to tread on the rights of others. At least until the morning after the elections, and then they'll forget all about it again until 2008.

John Gibson

Skinner eloquently noted last week that John Gibson of Fox News had revealed himself to be, and I quote, "a racist asshole." Gibson's solution to the immigration problem went something like this:

By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably, the ones Hispanics call "gabachos" - white people - are having fewer.

Now, in this country, European ancestry people, white people, are having kids at the rate that does sustain the population. It grows a bit.

To put it bluntly, we need more babies. Forget about that zero population growth stuff that my poor generation was misled on. Why is this important? Because civilizations need population to survive.

That's right folks, "we" need more babies. And who is "we?" If you thought Mr. Gibson meant "white people" - and it would be easy to understand why you might think that - it turns that you couldn't be more wrong. Here's Gibson "clarifying" his remarks last week:

My concern was simply that I didn't want America to become Europe, where the birth rate is so low the continent is fast being populated by immigrants, mainly from Muslim countries, whose birth rate is very high. That fact was coupled with a news item that said half of all babies in America under five are minorities and the majority of those are Hispanic.

I said, fine, but it was also a good idea if people other than Hispanics also got busy and had more babies. Those people would include both blacks and whites. I suppose Asians, too. I said you can't expect Hispanics to do all the work when it comes to supplying our country with babies.

Well, you would have thought I put on a sheet and a pointed cap and started riding around at night carrying torches.

Gee, now why would anyone think that? In Gibson's original piece he didn't say anything about increasing the black or asian birth rate, but I did see the word "white" used twice.

Perhaps this excerpt from Steven D. Levitt's Freakonomics will give us a clue:

Before long, (Stetson) Kennedy was invited to join the Klavaliers, the Klan's secret police and "flog squad." For this privilege, his wrist was slit with a jackknife so that he could take a blood oath:

"Klansman, do you solemnly swear by God and the Devil never to betray secrets entrusted to you as a Klavalier of the Klan?

"I swear," Kennedy responded.

"Do you swear to provide yourself with a good gun and plenty of ammunition, so as to be ready when the nigger starts trouble to give him plenty?"

"I do."

"Do you further swear to do all in your power to increase the white birth rate?"

"I do."

That's right folks - on Fox News, John Gibson advocated part three of the Ku Klux Klan Klavaliers' initiation oath. So when he says, "You would have thought I put on a sheet and a pointed cap and started riding around at night carrying torches," well... yeah.

Vox Day

But if you thought Gibson's comments were bad, you haven't seen anything yet. Here's Vox Day, "novelist and Christian libertarian," giving his logical explanation of why deporting all of America's illegal immigrants would be a snap:

Dear Jorge plans to address the nation tonight, a speech wherein he will almost surely attempt to deceive citizens into believing that he does not wish the mass migration from Mexico to continue unabated. He will likely offer some negligible resources for law enforcement and border security – resources which will never materialize – in return for an amnesty program that will grant American citizenship to the Mexican nationals who have helped lower America's wage rates by 16 percent over the last 32 years.

And he will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it's just not going to work.

If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

Yowser! That piece was originally published on World Nut Daily, but don't bother looking for the part about Jews - WND has since removed that from the site.

Of course, it's not as easy to disappear things on the Web as it was for, say, the Germans to "rid themselves" of 6 million Jews.

Bill Conrad

When two Republicans are beating the crap out of each other, my normal reaction is to pull up a chair and pop some popcorn. I might even offer to hold their jackets. But sometimes one of them will throw a sucker punch that's so dirty (see John McCain's illegitimate black baby) that I have to step in and issue a warning.

Last week Bill Conrad's primary campaign for State Assembly in California took an unusal turn when he sent out a campaign mailing attacking his opponent, fellow Republican Tom Berryhill, for, er, having a heart transplant. The Hotline has the whole thing here and here, but this excerpt will give you a taste:

Can Republican candidates get any lower that this? Hey, there's still six months to go until the elections. I'm sure they'll come up with something!

Karl Rove and George W. Bush

Last week Karl Rove explained why George W. Bush's poll numbers are sailing somewhere just south of Cape Horn. In case you were wondering, it's not Our Great Leader's fault that he's so unpopular. "People like this president," Rove said during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. "They're just sour right now on the war."

See? People like the president, they're just sour on the war. And the war is hardly the president's responsibility now is it?

Our Great Leader obviously took this bit of spin on board because he gave the same answer during an interview with David Gregory last week. Unfortunately for George, Mr. Gregory had a good comeback:

GREGORY: Let me ask you about your leadership. In the most recent survey, your disapproval rating is now one point lower than Richard Nixon's before he resigned the presidency. You are laughing.

BUSH: I'm not laughing –

GREGORY: Why? Why do you think that is?

BUSH: Because we are at war, and war unsettles people. Listen, we got a great economy. We've added 5.2 million jobs in the last two and a half years. People are unsettled.

GREGORY: But they're not just unsettled sir. They disapprove of the job you're doing.

Indeed. And despite what Karl Rove says, it seems that these days the American people aren't that keen on Bush personally either. According to Knight Ridder, "A drop in his personal popularity, as measured by several public polls, has shadowed the decline in Bush's job-approval ratings and weakened his political armor when he and his party need it most." Oh dear.

See, it turns out that when Karl Rove said that "People like this president," he was referring to an internal RNC poll showing Bush's personal approval rating (as opposed to job approval rating) above 60 percent. Public polls, on the other hand, have Bush's personal approval between 29 and 42 percent depending on which one you read. For Karl, it's simple: "The polls I believe are the polls that get run through the RNC," he said.

Unfortunately you're out of luck if you want to see a copy of this very special poll - for some mysterious reason the RNC is refusing to release it. So you'll just have to trust them.

Ha ha!

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Last week Gov. Groping Austrian Beefcake held a press conference to promote a $37.3 billion bond measure intended to reduce traffic jams. Arnold's team set up the press conference at the entrance to the Caledecott Tunnel in East Bay. Guess what happened next?

Cars began backing up nearly 90 minutes before the governor appeared at a news conference at the Caldecott Tunnel ... Traffic stretched from Highway 24 to the Acalanes exit in Lafayette, and gawking drivers were not happy, one less-than-thrilled motorist saying: "Arnold sucks!"

The event was staged in a grassy median between two of the three bores leading into the tunnel. It was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. but Schwarzenegger didn't arrive around 10:20 a.m., as a trio of highway patrol officers stood at the side of the freeway, trying to wave drivers through.

There was no immediate comment for the governor's office on the tie-up.

The location of the news conference "alone would obviously be a visual hazard," said traffic reporter Joe Hoskinson. "Not to mention all the news vans that were also parked within view of Highway 24 commuters."

Way to go, Arnie.

Richard Barnbrook

Let's cross the pond for a moment and stop by the offices of the British National Party (BNP), the UK's top organization for insane right-wing bigots. Many American wingnuts would feel quite at home in the BNP, considering their penchant for wanting to rid the country of anyone who isn't white and doesn't speak English. But let's be fair: the BNP isn't a racist organization. How do I know this? Because they told me so!

We wouldn't want asylum seekers from Iraq or Afghanistan or Somalia or wherever, even if they did bring material benefits, because even the greatest such gains would be more than offset by the fact that their very presence in such numbers will inevitably transform our society, changing Britain and the British peoples into something which is not British and not what is politely called 'European', and impolitely called 'white'. Conversely, if the remaining 40,000 whites of overwhelmingly British stock facing brutal persecution in Robert Mugabe's Marxist hell-hole all wanted to come to Britain, we would welcome them with open arms. They are our kith and kin, they share our values and our culture, and they would integrate immediately and earn their own living.

We believe not just that our people are different from others, but that such genuine diversity is worth preserving. It is not a matter of 'superiority' or 'inferiority'. Thus, for example, as racial realists we have no choice but to accept the wealth of scientific data which shows that East Asians – Japanese or Chinese for example – who live in Western societies have lower average crime rates and higher average intelligence levels than us whites, and that these differences are genetically determined, persisting even when factors such as socio-economic status are taken into account. But recognising these facts does not mean that we would welcome the arrival of several million Japanese or Chinese immigrants.

Nor even does it mean that we think that it is a good thing for even a single person of European stock to have so much as one child with a Japanese or Chinese. We do not, because such a union mixes what are not meant to be mixed, destroys two ancient family lines, and undermines two equally great but entirely separate cultures. And we know that most self-respecting Japanese, Chinese and Africans feel exactly the same way.

This does not make us 'racists'.

Uh, if you say so. But of course non-whites aren't the only people that the BNP would like to see the back of. From the same article quoted above, we find this passage:

So what of those who mix? Well, once again, let’s get something straight. We're not going to impose laws against miscegenation, still less persecute anybody, but neither do we subscribe to the convenient fiction that it's a good thing. It is not, it is a bad thing, and we condemn it, as genuine nationalists of all cultures condemn it because it destroys their own people too.

There is a close analogy here with homosexuality. No one knows what causes some individuals to do what the majority of any healthy society places on a scale somewhere between distasteful and abhorrent, but some individuals will behave in that way whatever the bulk of popular opinion. But there is a world of difference between having a very small proportion of the population behave such ways because that is their natural inclination, and the present circumstances where such "alternative lifestyle choices" are presented as valid – even superior – by the most powerful behavioural modification programme in human history.

Surprise! They hate gays too. All of which brings me to the point of this item. It was recently revealed that the BNP's London organizer Richard Barnbrook "has angrily denied that he produced and directed a gay porn film." Yes, Barnbrook apparently has production and direction credits in HMS Discovery: A Love Story - here's a quick synopsis, courtesy of The Age:

The film, shot in a river, includes men undressing and fondling each other, full frontal nudity, naked men "clawing passionately at each other's bodies" and one performing a sex act on another, the paper said. The pictures, including scenes of flagellation, are set to lines of "erotic poetry" said to have been scripted by Mr Barnbrook and another man.

Hmm. Barnbrook's excuse? "It was an art film, end of story. It was not a bloody porn film."

Well that clears that up! So rest assured that senior BNP member Richard Barnbrook is not buying into "the most powerful behavioural modification programme in human history." He just likes to make films about men boinking each other in rivers.

John McCain

John McCain recently gave the commencement address at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University; when he tried the same address in New York last week it didn't go down quite so well. Before he even began his speech, he was rhetorically kicked in the nuts by 21-year-old New School student Jean Sara Rohe, who discarded her prepared remarks to tell the audience that, "The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded. Preemptive war is dangerous and wrong."

McCain was booed throughout the speech, particuarly when he declared his support for the Iraq War, and students turned their backs on him and waved signs declaring that "McCain does not speak for me." "We're graduating, not voting!" shouted one student near the end of the speech, and others said later that they were angry that McCain had come to their graduation ceremony to deliver a stump speech.

But that's not the worst of it. See, McCain knew exactly what he was doing when he agreed to speak at the New School - he knew he would be booed, and he got exactly what he wanted. He wasn't merely taking the opportunity to deliver a stump speech, he was deliberately putting himself into a position where he would appear to be reaching out to liberals while simultaneously bolstering his conservative credentials. Now conservatives who've been fed a steady diet of anti-McCain diatribes by the likes of Rush Limbaugh can point to the speech and say, "Hey - the liberals hate him! Maybe this guy isn't so bad after all."

John McCain used the students at the New School (and at Liberty Univsersity) for purely political reasons in an attempt to position himself for the 2008 Republican primaries. So much for Maverick McCain the Straight Talker. Karl Rove would be proud of this sleazy display of pandering and posturing.

Robert Ray

And finally, it's time to cast our minds back for a moment to the Great Clinton Cock Hunt of the 1990s. Ah, those were the days - when the most egregious thing a president could do was get a little extra-curricular nookie in the White House. While Bill Clinton never lied the country into an illegal war, outed CIA agents for political gain, or wiretapped millions of American citizens without a warrant, his penis was of course responsible for evil-doing on a grand scale and had to be stopped by any means necessary.

I know what you're thinking: if Republicans put the same amount of time and effort into catching Osama bin Laden that they spent investigating the presidential member, perhaps we might have caught the guy by now. Priorities, people, priorities! That penis was a weapon of mass destruction far more deadly than anything Saddam Hussein possessed. Er, didn't possess. And anyway, we all know that Republicans care so deeply about the "rule of law" that if they had not tied up the government for years with investigations and impeachment proceedings over a private affair between two consenting adults while the 9/11 attacks were being planned, it would have been plain un-American.

But back to the issue at hand: Robert Ray. He was the prosecutor who took over from Ken Starr after Starr finally masturbated himself unconscious in October 1999, and the investigation eventually fizzled out in 2002 after ten long years of crotch-sniffing.

And two weeks ago Ray "turned himself in to police ... on charges of stalking a former girlfriend," according to the Washington Post. It seems that "Ray's former girlfriend, a 40-year-old Manhattan woman, filed a complaint that he persisted in sending e-mail and knocking on her door months after she broke off their relationship." Police charged him with a misdemeanor and he's due in court on June 12.

I guess after years of stalking Bill Clinton, it was just hard to let go. See you next week!

-- EarlG