The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 241

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 241

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 241

April 17
Flaming Pants Redux Edition

It's almost a re-run for the Top 10 this week as George W. Bush (1) and friends get caught lying - again - while Scott McClellan's (2) efforts to CTAA (cover the administration's ass) get ever more ridiculous. Meanwhile Donald Rumsfeld (3) is taking flak from his own generals - as well he should, because the Pentagon (4,5) under his management has presided over one disaster after another. Elsewhere, Dick Cheney (6) plays ball, the Washington Post Editorial Board (7) doesn't read its own newspaper, and The RNC (8) goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. Don't forget the as-yet-to-be-fixed key.

George W. Bush

It occurred to me this week that there's a really easy way to reduce our independence on foreign oil: we'll simply harness the energy from the Bush administration's flaming pants. If the last two weeks are anything to go by, those pants are going to be burning brightly well into the foreseeable future.

Up until two weeks ago George W. Bush was leaving no stone unturned in his effort to uncover the identity of the mysterious White House leaker. Then it was revealed that the mysterious White House leaker was none other than... George W. Bush. What a surprise. This week's flaming pants bombshell comes in the form of an equally dastardly piece of dissembling by Our Great Leaker and his administration cronies.

Remember those scary mobile biological weapons labs that Saddam Hussein sent off into the Iraqi desert, ready to whip up some anthrax or botulism or whatever it was he was supposed to be dropping down our chimneys? Sure you do... Colin Powell gave a dire assessment of them during his infamous presentation to the U.N. Here's how it was reported by the Los Angeles Times:

February 6, 2003

Providing a trove of new details, Powell said the Iraqis are using the mobile units as research facilities and as small factories to produce quantities of such agents as anthrax and botulinum. He displayed diagrams of how three truck trailers can be parked together to function as a small factory, with piping, compressors, fermenting tanks and dryers.

The factories "can be concealed easily, either by moving ordinary-looking trucks and rail cars along Iraq's thousands of miles of highway or track, or by parking them in a garage or warehouse, or somewhere in Iraq's extensive system of underground tunnels or bunkers," Powell said in his presentation.

Calling the laboratories "one of the most worrisome aspects" of the U.S. intelligence on Iraq, he said the facilities are sophisticated and noted that the powder that emerges from the dryers is the most lethal form because it can be inhaled and get into the bloodstream.

Scary stuff! Shame it was all a great big load of bullpoop.

After the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military discovered two so-called mobile biological weapons labs and investigated them thoroughly. While the Pentagon dispatched a secret team to inspect the vehicles, Colin Powell continued to argue that they were designed for nefarious purposes:

May 22, 2003

"The intelligence community has really looked hard at these vans, and we can find no other purpose for them," Powell told reporters in Washington.

But Powell said that the labs had been cleaned to the point that "you can't find actual germs on them."

"We don't know whether they have been used for that purpose or not, but they were certainly designed and constructed for that purpose," Powell said.

"We have taken our time on this one because we wanted to make sure we got it right. And the intelligence community, I think, is convinced now that that's the purpose they served."

Then, on May 27, 2003, the Pentagon's secret team reported back to the Defense Department. They were unanimous: the vehicles had nothing whatsoever to do with biological weapons. What happened to the report after that? According to the Washington Post, "The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped 'secret' and shelved."

But here's the funny part: despite being in possession of a report which demonstrated overwhelmingly that the vehicles found in Iraq were not mobile weapons labs, the Bush administration continued to describe them as such over and over... and over... and over.

June 5, 2003

GEORGE W. BUSH: We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents. (Saddam Hussein) is a man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them. ... We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth.

June 27, 2003

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, are those analysts in INR Bureau now as confident as the CIA was that the mobile vans are, in fact, for biological warfare?

SECRETARY POWELL: Their confidence level is increasing.

September 7, 2003

DICK CHENEY: We had intelligence reporting before the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We've, since the war, found two of them. They're in our possession today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack.

January 22, 2004

DICK CHENEY: We know, for example, that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program.

By the way, did you hear the recent news that Iran could produce a nuclear bomb in 16 days? Don't pay any attention to what that the administration said before about this sort of thing. This time they really mean it.

Scott McClellan

The day that the latest set of Bush administration lies were revealed, Scott McClellan was furious. His chubby little cheeks puffed up and he flashed that stern glare that the White House press corps has come to know and laugh at. Then he exploded:

SCOTT McCLELLAN: You know, I saw some reporting talking about how this latest revelation - which is not something that is new, this is all old information that's being rehashed - was an embarrassment for the White House. No, it's an embarrassment for the media that is out there reporting this. I brought up with some of you earlier today some of the reporting that was based off this Washington Post report, and I talked to one network about it and they have publicly - well, they've expressed their apologies to the White House. I hope they will go and publicly apologize on the air about the statements that were made, because I think it's important, given that they had made those statements in front of all their viewers. And so we look forward to that happening, as well.

According to Editor & Publisher, McClellan had previously singled out ABC for a special tongue-lashing, saying, "This is reckless reporting and for you all to go on the air this morning and make such a charge is irresponsible, and I hope that ABC would apologize for it and make a correction on the air."

So did ABC apologize? Judge for yourselves! Here's the video of their nightly news broadcast post-Scotty's tantrum, and thanks to DU's "rephrehensor," here are some screenshots:

Oh dear, that doesn't look much like the apology Scott was expecting. Perhaps he was getting a little ahead of himself here. Just a thought, but before ABC apologizes for reporting the news, perhaps George W. Bush should apologize to America for all the disastrous shit that his administration has lied us into over the past six years. C'mon Mr. President. Just one little mea culpa. Throw us a bone here.

Donald Rumsfeld

Throughout the Iraq War, George W. Bush has constantly cited his faith in the "commanders on the ground." Whether it be questions of troop levels, body armor, or morale, Bush has passed the buck dozens of times to his top military brass.

Funny how Bush's faith in his military commanders only applies when it's useful to him politically. Last week six retired generals, two of whom have not long returned from Iraq, publicly criticized Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Major General Charles Swannack (82nd Airborne Division in Iraq) said, "I really believe that we need a new secretary of defense because Secretary Rumsfeld carries way too much baggage with him."

Major General John Riggs spoke of Rumsfeld's "arrogance" and said, "They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda."

Major General John Batiste (1st Infantry Division in Iraq) said, "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them."

Major General Paul Eaton (oversaw Iraqi troop training) said, "Rumsfeld has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his Cold Warrior's view of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower."

Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold said Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out "with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions."

General Anthony Zinni said, "Poor military judgment has been used throughout this mission."

And George W. Bush said last week that "Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my full support and deepest appreciation." So much for listening to his commanders.

The Pentagon

Don't worry though - while Donald Rumsfeld may have royally screwed up the Iraq War, the Pentagon is spending plenty of time and effort focusing on the real threat to America. Last week it was revealed that "After months of silence the Department of Defense has confirmed that it spied on groups opposed to 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell', the law banning openly lesbian, gay and bisexual service members," according to 365Gay.com.

Oh, my apologies - did you think the real threat to America was Al Qaeda or some other shadowy terrorist organization? I'm sorry to disappoint you. It's homosexuals.

Last December media reports said that the Pentagon has been spying on "suspicious" meetings by civilian groups, including student groups opposed to the military's "don't ask, don't tell".

The reports said that the Pentagon had spied on New York University law school's LGBT advocacy group OUTlaw and gay groups at the State University of New York at Albany and William Patterson College in New Jersey.

In February, the DoD acknowledged in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee that it had 'inappropriately' collected information on protesters but did not name any of the organizations.

(snip)

Although the newly released reports may not be a complete list of groups monitored, it does confirm domestic surveillance of protests at New York University , the University of California at Berkeley , and the University of California at Santa Cruz.

So rest assured that while Iraq may be a quagmire of epic proportions and Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, at least the Department of Defense has got a good solid secret database of uppity gay Americans.

The Pentagon

Don't expect that database to stay secret for long though. Last week it was revealed that Afghan merchants have been selling stolen U.S. military data drives at a market just outside Bagram Air Force Base, containing "what appears to be a trove of potentially sensitive American intelligence data," according to the Los Angeles Times. One drive obtained by a reporter "holds scores of military documents marked 'secret,' describing intelligence-gathering methods and information - including escape routes into Pakistan and the location of a suspected safe house there, and the payment of $50 bounties for each Taliban or Al Qaeda fighter apprehended based on the source's intelligence."

I guess we're giving away our top secret information over there so we don't have to do it over here.

Meanwhile, if you thought that the United States was supposed to be against state-sponsored terrorism, think again. Raw Story reported last week that the Pentagon is wooing Iranian terrorist group the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) "in order to create strife in Iran in preparation for any possible attack."

"The US army secured a key MEK facility 60 miles northwest of Baghdad shortly after the 2003 invasion, but they did not secure the MEK and let them basically be because (then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul) Wolfowitz was thinking ahead to Iran."

(snip)

"We disarmed (the MEK) of major weapons but not small arms. (Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld was pushing to use them as a military special ops team, but policy infighting between their camp and Condi, but she was able to fight them off for a while," said the intelligence official. According to still another intelligence source, the policy infighting ended last year when Donald Rumsfeld, under pressure from Vice President Cheney, came up with a plan to "convert" the MEK by having them simply quit their organization.

"These guys are nuts," this intelligence source said. "Cambone and those guys made MEK members swear an oath to Democracy and resign from the MEK and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them."

You know, I have a strange feeling that this has all happened before...

The best-known and most feared mujahideen were the various loosely-aligned opposition groups that fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980s and then fought against each other in the following civil war.

The mujahideen were significantly financed, armed, and trained by the United States (the Carter and Reagan administrations), China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. President Reagan praised them as freedom fighters, and an American movie at this time, Rambo III, portrayed them as heroic. This connection is ironic, in light of the future turn of events in which many of the same men would end up as a major threat to the United States. This sort of blowback, in which a state would help to create a force to fight another state, but that same force would then turn against its creator, was seen earlier in the 20th century, e.g., the German support for the Bolshevik underground in Russia which inevitably ended in the Soviet threat to Germany and the creation of Soviet satellite East Germany.

(snip)

A wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden was a prominent mujahideen organizer and financier; his Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) (Office of Services) funneled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi government. In 1988, bin Laden broke away from the MAK.

Maybe I'm just imagining things.

Dick Cheney

Following hot on the heels of George W. Bush's recent example, Dick Cheney threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals home opener last week. If you read the Washington Post's initial reporting, you'd think that the event unfolded something like this:

"The first pitch of the Washington Nationals' second season at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium was low and away, bouncing in the dirt before being scooped up by catcher Brian Schneider. For that, Vice President Cheney received a round of boos from the home crowd this afternoon.

It's true that Cheney's less-than-powerful pitch didn't make it all the way to the catcher's mitt without bouncing.

But it's not true that the crowd's jeers were "for that." Crooks and Liars has the raw AP video from the event. Take a look and you'll see that Cheney was heartily booed from the second he stepped out onto the field.

In a related Associated Press story, George W. Bush said last week that "he sure is glad Vice President Dick Cheney is not going to be campaigning to replace him."

Finally! Something George and I can agree on.

The Washington Post Editorial Board

The gentle cleansing of Dick Cheney's reputation wasn't the only example of the Washington Post carrying water for the Bush administration last week. Following revelations that George W. Bush lied about his knowledge of the leaking - I'm sorry, "disclosure" - of a classified National Intelligence Estimate in 2003, the Post ran an editorial titled "A Good Leak."

Excuse me?

"President Bush was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons," read the editorial. "But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr. Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that Democrats are leveling."

Handled the release clumsily? That's an understatement. And it still doesn't explain why Bush went on and on about hunting down the leakers when he was involved from day one.

But the most curious thing about the Post's editorial is that it contained statements which directly contradicted a report on the Post's front page that very same day. Thanks to DUer "Sparkly" we can quickly compare portions of the editorial and the front page article. See if you can spot the discrepancies...

EDITORIAL:
Vice President Cheney initially chose to be secretive, ordering his chief of staff at the time, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the information to a favorite New York Times reporter.

ARTICLE:
The first of those conversations, according to the evidence made known thus far, came when Libby met with Bob Woodward, an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, on June 27, 2003.

EDITORIAL:
In fact, (Joseph Wilson's) report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

ARTICLE:
Cheney, in a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, was said to describe Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger the previous year - in which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there - as "a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," CIA case officer Valerie Plame.

EDITORIAL:
After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge.

ARTICLE:
Fitzgerald said the grand jury has collected so much testimony and so many documents that "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."

And so on.

Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell has an in-depth report on the Post's editorial screw-up here which is well worth reading.

The RNC

The GOP opened a huge can of worms with its recent efforts to use immigration as an election weapon, and is now in the process of trying to slam the lid shut again. How best to do that? With lies, obfuscation and propaganda, of course! Last week the RNC announced a series of Spanish-language radio ads which are "designed to shoulder Democrats with the responsibility for legislation passed by the GOP-controlled House that would make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges," according to the Associated Press.

You won't be surprised to learn that that story is 180 degrees from the truth. From the Associated Press report:

The Senate has not voted on the issue of penalties. In the House, Republicans drafted legislation to make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges. Democrats say they were denied a chance to eliminate criminal penalties from the bill.

At another point, Republicans tried to substitute misdemeanor charges for felonies in the bill. Democrats opposed that effort, with at least some of them saying they wanted no criminal penalties at all. Republicans then passed the overall bill - including felony charges - on a largely party-line vote.

See how this works?

The Republicans wanted a bill which would make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges, but the Democrats wanted to remove those criminal penalties. So the Republicans tried to replace felony charges with misdemeanor charges, but the Democrats wanted to remove those criminal penalties. So the Republicans pressed ahead with the bill - including felony charges - and the Democrats voted party-line against it because they wanted to remove those criminal penalties.

And then the Republicans said that it was the Democrats fault that the felony charges were included, with Bill Frist announcing that "House Democrats ... voted to oppose House Republican efforts to reduce the crime of unlawful presence in the United States from a felony to a misdemeanor. Instead, they voted to make felons out of all of those who remain in our country illegally." He then had the gall to say that "we are disappointed with the House Democrats' lack of compassion."

Not as disappointed as I am with the Republican party's lack of ethics, morality, and ability to tell the truth.

Congressional Republicans

Now you've seen how they operate on immigration, let's see how long it takes for the Republicans to try to pin this on the Democrats:

Government spending hit an all-time high for a single month in March, pushing the budget deficit up significantly from the red-ink level of a year ago.

In its monthly accounting of the government's books, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday that federal spending totaled $250 billion last month, up 13.7 percent from March 2005.

Government receipts also were up, rising 10.6 percent from a year ago, to $164.6 billion. That left a deficit for the month of $85.5 billion, a record imbalance for March.

Oh, those fiscally-responsible, small government Republicans. How pleased the GOP base must be with their handling of the nation's finances.

Penn State College Republicans

And finally, College Republicans have been featured on the list many times for lending their voices to the national dialogue in ways which will go down in history as profoundly racist, homophobic, or just plain stupid. And they apparently have no intention of stopping.

Last week, College Republicans at Penn State University announced their intention to join the raging debate on immigration by playing a "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game." I know you can't wait to learn how to play this game, so I'll tell you. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "People would be invited to 'catch' group members wearing orange shirts symbolizing illegal aliens."

Then what? Sadly, the Post-Gazette doesn't say. Are they deported from campus? Beaten up? Handed over to the "Minutemen?" They're wearing orange shirts, so perhaps the College Republicans are suggesting that they should be sent to Guantanamo Bay. No, wait - I've got it. They're going to put them to work cleaning their dorms for two bucks an hour.

Anyway, the idea was deemed to be an incredibly bad one by all concerned - apart from the chairman of the PSU College Republicans who said of his detractors, "I think they're just misinformed."

Look out for the PSU College Republicans' next exciting event, the "Stop a Gay Wedding Game," where participants will track down pairs of same-sex couples wearing pink shirts and then lock them up until they convert to heterosexuality.

See you next week!

-- EarlG