The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 282

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 282

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The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 282

March 12, 2007
Scoot Over Edition

Welcome to the 282nd edition of the Top 10 Conservative Idiots. It's a big list this week with a lot to get through. Scooter Libby (1) goes down, The Pardon Patrol (2) pops up, and Fox News (3) wigs out. Elsewhere, C.W. Bill Young (5), Phil Gingrey (6), and Virginia Foxx (7) try to spin their way out of the Walter Reed debacle, while Pete Domenici, Heather Wilson, and the DOJ (8) get caught up in a brand new Washington scandal, along with - gulp! - Karl Rove (9). Don't forget the key!

Scooter Libby and Friends

Au revoir, Scooter Libby - last week Dick Cheney's right-hand man was convicted of perjury, making false statements, and obstruction of justice. Ouch.

Upon hearing the news, the Veep emerged blinking from his lair to announce that he was "disappointed with the verdict ...Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service." (Well, apart from all that perjury and obstruction of justice nonsense, but never mind that.)

Meanwhile the White House said that President Bush watched the verdict on television and, "He's saddened for Scooter." Boo frickin' hoo.

It's all a bit strange really, given that Scooter is now a convicted felon. How come neither Dick Cheney nor George W. Bush saw fit to mention that they were, oh, I dunno, disappointed with his behavior? Or perhaps point out that they're not really cool with members of their staff committing crimes? The fact that they didn't, and that nobody even really noticed that they didn't, pretty much sums up the sad state of the administration's affairs these days.

So what's next for Scooter? According to CNN:

Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million. A hearing on a presentencing report is scheduled for June 5.

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said, "He is virtually certain to go to prison if this conviction is upheld."

Given the bleak outlook, I now see two scenarios developing, which I have illustrated below.

Scenario 1: The Ken Lay Scenario

Scenario 2: The Caspar Weinberger Scenario

So which will it be? Maybe Bush & Co. could have pulled off Scenario 1 in 2002, but things have changed. Chances are good that we'll be looking at Scenario 2 in the not-too-distant future.

At least, we will if these folks have anything to say about it...

The Pardon Patrol

Scooter's conviction means he's likely going to see some prison time, and that means he's going to need a Get Out Of Jail Free card. After all, we can't have rich white lawyers going to prison, can we? That would make a mockery of the entire judicial system. Extended prison sentences are for people who get caught carrying an eighth of an ounce of marijuana, not for high-ranking public servants who lie to the FBI in order to cover up possibly treasonous activity by the Vice President.

And so "rule of law" conservatives were falling all over each other last week to call for Our Great Leader to pardon Libby, based on the fact that... well, they didn't like the verdict.

National Review Online got the ball rolling with an editorial entitled "Pardon Libby," published just hours after the verdict came down. NRO notes that, "The trial that concluded in a guilty verdict on four of five counts conclusively proved only one thing: A White House aide became the target of a politicized prosecution set in motion by bureaucratic infighting and political cowardice."

Really? I thought it proved Libby was guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice. Silly me.

NRO goes on to blame "partisans," Joe Wilson's "paranoid persecution theory," a "scandal-hungry media," and "petty agendas" that "subverted justice," finally suggesting that, "Reasonable people can conclude that it was only Scooter Libby's imperfect memory - not willful deception - that gave rise to the charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice."

Yes, never mind the inconvenient fact that a jury of his peers just found Libby to be dead guilty of willful deception. Hyper-partisan conservatives - I'm sorry, I mean, "reasonable people" - can still conclude that he is completely innocent!

The "travesty of justice" theme was carried far and wide across the conservative blogosphere and into the mainstream media, with many very upset wingnuts such as Kate O'Beirne and Ed Rogers having little tantrums all over the place. Rogers was particularly (and comedically) upset on "Hardball":

ED ROGERS: I know Scooter Libby. What stops him is the truth. Scooter Libby will tell the truth and...

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Why hasn't he done it so far?

ROGERS: ... the sentencing guidelines are what they are. I think he has.

MATTHEWS: What has stopped him...

ROGERS: I think he...

MATTHEWS: ... from telling the truth?

ROGERS: I think he has told the truth.

MATTHEWS: You mean the jury's wrong.

ROGERS: And I think his defense - yes, I think the jury was wrong. I don't think justice was done. I think it's unfair what's happened. I think it's...

MATTHEWS: How much did you stick into the defense fund...

ROGERS: ... bad what's happened.

MATTHEWS: ... to justify this argument?

But before the Pardon Patrol gets too excited, they should probably take note. According to Newsweek:

...there's one significant roadblock on the path to Libby's salvation: Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff does not qualify to even be considered for a presidential pardon under Justice Department guidelines.

From the day he took office, Bush seems to have followed those guidelines religiously.

(snip)

Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon">usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush's White House. They "require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application," according to the Justice Web site.

Not that that will stop Our Great Leader, you understand. Expect a pardon about four hours before Bush slinks out of the White House for good in 2009.

Fox News

So just to recap, Scooter Libby was found guilty on one count of obstruction of justice, guilty on two counts of perjury, guilty on one count of making false statements (about conversations with Tim Russert), and not guilty on a second count of making false statements (about conversations with Matt Cooper). What a terrible result for the Bush administration! How could Fox News possibly spin it?

Oh ye of little faith. Here, courtesy of NewsCorpse, is how Fox News reported the Libby verdict:

No, it's not Photoshopped. DUer TNOE actually took a picture of her TV set:

So there you have it, folks. In the parallel universe of Fox News, Scooter Libby is not guilty!

Newt Gingrich

Back in 1998, Salon ran an article explaining why then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was doing his best to avoid making hay out of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

...it's not compassion that tempers the speaker's censure of Clinton's self-destructive sexual compulsions. It's self-protection. Gingrich, lest we forget, has a closet full of sexual misconduct.

For one thing, Gingrich pioneered a denial of adultery that some observers would later christen "the Newt Defense": Oral sex doesn't count. In a revealing psychological portrait of the "inner" Gingrich that appeared in Vanity Fair (September 1995), Gail Sheehy uncovered a woman, Anne Manning, who had an affair in Washington in 1977 with a married Gingrich.

(snip)

Gingrich refused to comment on Manning's charges, though he has admitted sexual indiscretions during his first marriage -- hey, it was the '70s, man! But Newt's oral sex denial proved embarrassing at a time when he was the secular leader of the "family values" crowd, appearing frequently at Christian Coalition gatherings.

(snip)

So don't expect Gingrich to hector Clinton about adulterous oral sex. He's been there and done that. That's a Pandora's Box he'd rather not re-open.

But that's exactly what happened last week when Gingrich was interviewed by Focus on the Family leader James Dobson and admitted that "he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair," according to the Associated Press.

That's right - Newt didn't just participate in extramarital oral sex in the 1970s, he was cheating on his wife during the Lewinsky scandal.

And yet according to the AP, "Gingrich argued in the interview ... that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity."

Yes, I know it's confusing. But don't worry - in the wacky world of conservative morals and values, it all makes perfect sense.

C.W. Bill Young And Friends

Obviously you've heard the news about disgraceful conditions in some of the buildings at Walter Reed hospital, where wounded American troops returning from the Middle East are quartered. But did you know that senior House Republicans have known about these conditions for years? According to Think Progress:

Congressional Quarterly confirms today that senior House conservatives, including the chairmen of the appropriations and oversight committees, knew about the neglect and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed years before they were exposed by the Washington Post.

Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-FL), former chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said he stopped short of going public with the hospital's problems "to avoid embarrassing the Army while it was fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

So top Republicans - who, just to remind everyone, held the majority in the House from 1994 to 2006 - decided that it would be a good idea to keep their mouths shut about wounded soldiers living in moldy, rodent-infested quarters. Can you believe it? Wait, don't answer that.

But C.W. Bill Young went one step further: Think Progress also notes that "while Young claims he didn't want to go public with the problems at Walter Reed, he was more than willing to use wounded veterans publicly as a political cudgel."

Here is Young on the House floor on 11/18/05, speaking against Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) redeployment plan:

YOUNG: So tonight, Mr. Speaker, we need to send a strong message to our troops and to their families. For those families who are dealing with the loss of a loved one, for those families who are dealing with a seriously wounded soldier or marine who might be at Walter Reed Hospital or at Bethesda Hospital or at Landsthul in Germany, we need to let them know that we are here to support them.

Hey, Rep. Young, just so you know: if you support the troops, that means you don't spend years covering up the fact that many of those wounded in combat get to come back to America and share their rooms with mice and cockroaches. What's wrong with you?

Phil Gingrey

And now for a correction. I would like to apologize for suggesting that supporting the troops means not covering up their squalid living conditions. According to Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Naturally), supporting the troops actually means blaming them for their squalid living conditions. Here's Gingrey at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week:

I want to say for the record that, Mr. Chairman, that, um, I have been to Building 18. I have been to Walter Reed on a number of occasions, but specifically in regard to this issue went to take a look first-hand.

Having grown up in a motel, when I was going to medical school and living in one of the rooms, when I saw this old Walter Reed Motor Inn, it really reminded me a lot of, Mr. Chairman, of a, of the motel that my parents had in Augusta, Georgia. It's not a five-star hotel, make no mistake about it, but it's not a flophouse. It's not a dump. It's not a dive. It needs some work, no question about it. I'm not making excuses, of course. And when I read the Washington Post report I was glad to know that those cockroaches were belly up. It suggested to me that at least someone was spraying for them, Mr. Chairman.

Man, talk about lowering the bar. We've gone from George W. Bush's declaration that, "We are -- should and must provide the best care for anybody who is willing to put their life in harm's way," to Rep. Gingrey's, "Well, at least it's not a flophouse."

By the way, if you're planning on staying in the Augusta, Georgia, area any time soon, I would highly recommend avoiding the old Gingrey Motel.

Gingrey continued...

And, of course, if you leave food around in a motel room or a dorm room at a college, you're going to get some mice show up at some point in time.

Yes, if only those wounded soldiers would clean up after themselves. Lazy bastards. And let's be fair - they've got a lot of time on their hands. What do you say, Rep. Gingrey? They could at least have given their rooms a lick of paint or scraped some of that mold off, right?

Or put up some new wallpaper?

Oh well. At least the cockroaches are belly-up.

Virginia Foxx

Fortunately Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-Undeniably) has been digging into the Walter Reed scandal and discovered who the real culprits are. Surprise! It's the Democrats.

Appearing on C-SPAN, Rep. Foxx, who is a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said:

I was a little surprised when I heard Bob Filner in the earlier session say that what we have to do is hug and love our veterans. That's never been something that the Democrats have done. The Republicans have I think very much loved and hugged our veterans and been extremely grateful to them for what they've done. But they haven't received the respect I think that they should have received from the Democrats. It's the Democrats who are always talking about cutting the budgets and are never, and not, I think, respecting our military like we should.

Yes, those rotten Democrats who have been out of power for the past twelve years are always talking about cutting budgets. Not like Republicans, who are very respectful of the military.

Wait, what's this?

"The U.S. House of Representatives approved billions of dollars in cuts to veterans' programs over the next 10 years - on the same day it unanimously passed a resolution of "unequivocal support" for the nation's troops overseas. Proposed by President Bush as part of his 2004 budget plan, the reductions - estimated at $28 billion - would erode health-care benefits already stretched by other budget shortfalls, raise costs, and decrease veterans' access to medical care." -- Yes!, Summer 2003

"The governor of Pennsylvania on Saturday said the federal government must do a better job helping America's war veterans and criticized proposed budget cuts affecting them." -- CNN, March 2005

"The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans' health care two years from now - even as wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system." -- Associated Press, Febraury 2007

But you have to understand that these budget cuts aren't the fault of Republicans either. Rep. Foxx continued...

It's again, a bureaucratic problem and the Democrats always look for more government. Let's have more government, let's let the government take over more things.

(snip)

They were in control for forty years, and then the Republicans took over. So they were in control for forty years. That's where the bureaucracy comes from. Most of the people who are in the bureaucracy now have been there for a long, long time.

Amazing isn't it? The deplorable conditions at Walter Reed are the fault of the Democrats because they were in power twelve years ago. Meanwhile, the GOP is not to blame because they were only in power for the twelve years when all this crap actually happened. Never mind the fact that Republicans were elected in 1994 promising to reform government and do away with all this terrible bureaucracy that Rep. Foxx is now whining about. And never mind that, as noted above, the Republican chairman of the Oversight committee just admitted that he has known about the conditions at Walter Reed for years but didn't want to say anything because it might be embarrassing.

Yes, never mind all that. According to Rep. Foxx, it's completely unfair to hold the GOP accountable for the broken promises, the Veterans Administration budget cuts, the Walter Reed scandal, and anything else that happened on their watch. And that, my friends, is Republican responsibility in action.

Pete Domenici, Heather Wilson, and the DOJ

The burgeoning U.S. Attorneys Scandal - which really needs a good snappy name, come on people - reached the halls of Congress last week when Senate Democrats announced that they are getting ready to subpoena Justice Department officials. According to the Washington Post:

The new subpoena threat followed dramatic testimony Tuesday from six of the fired U.S. attorneys, including two who alleged that GOP lawmakers or staffers had made improper telephone calls asking about ongoing criminal investigations. A third prosecutor said a Justice Department official warned him two weeks ago that he and his colleagues should keep quiet or risk retaliation.

If you haven't been following this story - and I wouldn't blame you because it seems like these days there's a new conservative scandal every five minutes - here's a quick recap from the Guardian:

Alleging heavy-handed political pressure, fired U.S. prosecutors testified Tuesday they felt "leaned on" by Republican lawmakers to seek indictments and hushed by a Justice Department official who did not want them talking about their dismissals.

Testifying before Democratic-controlled congressional committees, six of eight recently ousted prosecutors said they were fired without explanation. Several described what they said was improper pressure by Republicans on pending cases.

New Mexico's David Iglesias told lawmakers he felt pressed by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., last October to rush indictments against Democrats before Election Day in November.

(snip)

In perhaps the day's most dramatic testimony, Iglesias told senators he felt sickened when Domenici hung up on him after being told that indictments in a corruption case against Democrats would not be handed up before the November elections.

"He said, 'Are these going to be filed before November?'" Iglesias recalled. "I said I didn't think so. And to which he replied, 'I'm very sorry to hear that.' And then the line went dead."

Last week Sen. Domenici (R-Obviously) admitted that he had called Iglesias, but denied putting pressure on him. Coincidentally, Domenici also lawyered up, hiring Lee Blalack to represent him. In case you were wondering, Blalacks' last famous Republican client was Duke Cunningham (see Idiots passim) who is currently serving eight years in prison. Way to go.

Meanwhile Rep. Heather Wilson (R-Categorically) also admitted that she had contacted Iglesias, but rather than trying to pressure him, was merely trying to help him.

Wilson said in her statement that many of her constituents had complained about "the slow pace of federal prosecutions" in corruption cases and that one unidentified constituent told her that "Iglesias was intentionally delaying corruption investigations."

Wilson also said she was trying to help Iglesias. "If the purpose of my call has somehow been misperceived, I am sorry for any confusion. I thought it was important for Mr. Iglesias to receive this information and, if necessary, have the opportunity to clear his name."

Sure. I mean, we all know how that works, right? "Hi there Mr. Iglesias. Real nice office you've got here. It would be a shame if something happened to it. Hey... just trying to help."

So what will happen next? According to the Post, "The telephone calls to Iglesias by Domenici and Wilson appear to put them in conflict with congressional ethics rules that bar contacts with federal agency officials during most active investigations." And that's not all. Last week the House Judiciary Committee expressed an interest in whether or not the White House has anything to do with all this.

The plot thickens...

Karl Rove

Or does it? Last week Karl Rove described the prosecutor purge as "normal and ordinary":

Look, by law and by Constitution (sic), these attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and traditionally are given a four year term. And Clinton, when he came in, replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys. When we came in, we ultimately replace most all 93 U.S. attorneys - there are some still left from the Clinton era in place. We have appointed a total of I think128 U.S. attorneys - that is to say the original 93, plus replaced some, some have served 4 years, some served less, most have served more. Clinton did 123. I mean, this is normal and ordinary.

Well, sure, replacing U.S. Attorneys when a new president comes to power may be normal and ordinary, but firing prosecutors for political purposes when they've been given positive performance reviews is most certainly not normal and ordinary. Here's former Clinton chief-of-staff John Podesta:

Mr. Rove's claims today that the Bush administration's purge of qualified and capable U.S. attorneys is "normal and ordinary" is pure fiction. Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in - as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 - is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution. These U.S. attorneys received positive performance reviews from the Justice Department and were then given no reason for their firings.

We're used to this White House distorting the facts to blame the Clinton administration for its failures. Apparently, it's also willing to distort the facts and invoke the Clinton administration to try to justify its bad behavior.

And according to the Associated Press:

Q: How often are U.S. attorneys fired?

A: Excluding the current controversy, the Congressional Research Service found just five instances over 25 years in which U.S. attorneys were fired by the president or resigned following reports of questionable conduct. A Reagan-era prosecutor was fired and later convicted in federal court in connection with charges that he leaked confidential information. A Clinton appointee resigned over allegations he bit a topless dancer on the arm during a visit to an adult club following a loss in a big drug case. The CRS study did not include departures that followed a change in presidential administration, when turnover is common.

So Rove was lying. What a surprise. But what's this? According to McClatchy Newspapers:

Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state's U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.

In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

"Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.

"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.

"I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah,'" said Weh.

Oh yes, the plot thickens all right. Keep a close eye on this story.

Glenn Beck

And finally, it's two in a row for Glenn Beck who made last week's list after trying to out-sexually-harrass Bill O'Reilly. So what's Mr. Beck been up to in the past seven days? Well, according to Media Matters:

On the March 8 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Glenn Beck issued the following warning to members of Congress who support the Democratic leaders' plan to set a date certain for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq: "If your bill goes through, I hope you can't go to bed any single night without the images of body bags of our American soldiers coming off those planes. I hope they dance in your head every single night, because you will be just as responsible for their deaths as anyone who has ever strapped a bomb to their chest and screamed, 'Allah Akbar.'"

Er, yeah. So the people who are trying to get the troops out of the Iraqi meatgrinder are as responsible for their deaths as suicide bombers, whereas the people who are trying to keep the troops in the meatgrinder are good, upstanding patriots. I guess that makes sense.

If you've had your brain replaced with a dog turd.

See you next week!

-- EarlG