The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 297

July 2, 2007
Ann For The Money Edition

Ann Coulter's (1) most recent book is out in paperback. Can you tell? Meanwhile, GOP hopefuls Mitt Romney (2), Rudy Giuliani (3,4) and Fred Thompson (5) are racing to the bottom, and Jonah Goldberg (6) still digs Dick Cheney. Enjoy, and don't forget the key!



Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter continued her bizarre jihad against the Edwards family last week, telling Good Morning America that she's learned her lesson from calling John Edwards a "faggot" and next time she'll just "wish he'd been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."

Is anyone else starting to notice a bit of a pattern in Coulter's comments? (And I'm not just talking about the increase in invective whenever she has a new book out.)

First it was nutty fascist stuff like, "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building" and "we need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals." Then she got personal, suggesting that John Edwards drove around with a bumper sticker which read, "Ask me about my son's death in a horrific car accident." And now she's resorted to calling Bill Clinton a "latent homosexual" and Al Gore a "total fag" and John Edwards a "faggot."

I'm just wondering how her most recent comments mesh with the conclusions she draws in her book Slander. For example:


Projection much? "Latent homosexual." "Total fag." "Faggot." And we're the ones who are supposed to have run out of ideas?



Mitt Romney

''We were terrible to animals. Everybody would get BB guns and shoot (frogs behind the Bush home), or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.'' -- Terry Throckmorton, childhood friend of George W. Bush

If you're looking for another president who exhibits unusual cruelty towards animals, look no further than Mitt Romney. Last week Romney told an anecdote which was intended to impress reporters with his "emotion-free crisis management" but turned into a sordid - and possibly illegal - tale of pet abuse.

According to Time magazine:


Way to go, Mitt! Now that's what I call "emotion-free crisis management."

And "common sense-free crisis management," and "compassion-free crisis management," and "safety-free crisis management," and...



Rudy Giuliani

New York's least favorite son bounced back from the recent news that his South Carolina campaign chairman Thomas Ravenel had been indicted for dealing cocaine (see Idiots 296) by, er, hiring Ravenel's father to serve as Lowcountry chairman. Fair enough. After all, it's not like Arthur Ravenel was the one allegedly dealing cocaine.

No, according to CNN, Arthur Ravenel "has his own controversial history."


Curious to know what something like that looks like? Wonder no more...


How delightful.



Rudy Giuliani

That's not all... last week Rudy Giuliani made an appearance at Pat Robertson's Regent University and once again blamed Bill Clinton for 9/11.


Oh Rudy, are you going to make me pull out the 9/11 Commission Report again? Very well then. Let's see what, aside from actually arresting, trying and convicting the people responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing, the Clinton administration did before 9/11.


And now the Bush administration:


So anyway, I wonder how Rudy squares his comments blaming Bill Clinton for 9/11 with his September 2006 comments where he "defended Bill Clinton ... over the former president's counterterrorism efforts, saying recent criticism on preventing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is wrong?"


Odd. But of course, that was when Giuliani was merely "very interested in considering" running for president. Now he's actually running for president, history appears to have revised itself.



Fred Thompson

I guess Rudy's got to come out swinging now that Fred Thompson has stolen his thunder. Thompson, the crusty star of NBC's "Law And Order: Criminally Infirm," is leaping ahead in the polls despite not actually announcing that he's running for president just yet. He's milking that manly stench for all it's worth.

Unfortunately Republicans may soon find out that Thompson is yet another top-tier candidate they don't like. Here's how McClatchy newspapers reported his appearance in New Hampshire last week:


So it really does look like a tough pick for the Republican base this year. They don't like their cross-dressing pro-choice former mayor of New York, or their dog-abusing Mormon from Massachussetts, or their doddering senator from Arizona who - try as he might - just can't pander hard enough.

Yup, it looks like they're going to be stuck with Phone-It-In Fred; campaign slogan: "Wake Me Up On Election Day."



Jonah Goldberg

These days even Dick Cheney's staunchest fans are keeping pretty quiet about his recent insistence that the vice president's office essentially constitutes a fourth branch of governement. (See Idiots 296.) So step forward Jonah Goldberg who has perhaps the most, er, unusual defense of the veep's position.

According to Think Progress:


See? Dick Cheney doesn't care, which is a sign of character and integrity. I know what you're thinking - what happened to that "compassionate conservatism" the new millennium was supposed to be all about? I hate to break this to you, but I'm afraid Dick Cheney killed it with a shotgun and told its corpse to go fuck itself.

Goldberg continued:


So never mind the law-breaking... conservatives think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are the best presidential team ever, because, gosh, can't you imagine having a beer with them, and wow, wouldn't Dick Cheney look cool if he was eating a sandwich while he was giving a policy speech?

And then they're surprised to find out that only 20% of Americans think the country is heading in the right direction.



Dana Perino

Don't worry though - there's a good reason why Dick Cheney (and George W. Bush, come to that) can't be quizzed by Congress about their criminal activities. Here's White House spokeswoman Dana Perino to explain it all:


Yes, that's right, it would be awkward if the vice president had to be investigated. "Oh, well, let's see, on Monday Vice President Cheney has afternoon tea with the Saudi ambassador, on Tuesday he's got an all-dayer with excutives from Shell, KBR, and Pfizer, Wednesday he's undergoing hypnotherapy to help him forget Scooter Libby, Thursday he has to be plugged into his machine that sucks the life force out of young children, and Friday he's counting his money. Then of course he'll be hunting pre-wounded quail over the weekend. So it's a bit awkward. Try again in about ten years."



The Bush Administration

Last week Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released a report based on documents obtained from the Department of Homeland Security. The report uncovered this interesting information: it turns out that the Bush administration had a plan to deal with Hurricane Katrina all along - they just didn't implement it. Here's are some excerpts from FEMA's "Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Plan":


And how would FEMA deal with the catastrophe?


Sounds like a plan. So what went wrong? Well, the CREW report discovered that:


Ladies and gentlemen, the Bush Administration.



Karen Hughes

According to Radio Free Europe, "A new poll of people in 47 countries shows growing negative feelings about the United States around the world. Among the findings in the survey, released on June 27, is that majorities or pluralities in all but six of the countries view the United States unfavorably."

And whose fault is that? Well, according to Karen Hughes, Bush crony and current U.S. undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs (ie. she's in charge of catapulting the propaganda), the problem extends far beyond the diastrous invasion of Iraq.


Hmm... so a lukewarm in-flight meal or one Windows blue-screen-of-death too many are just as responsible for the current near-universal dislike of the United States as the occupation of Iraq. Who would have guessed?



Joe Lieberman

And finally...


So we're going to be in Iraq until the 24th century then?


Lieberman also said that we've got the enemy "on the run."

Sure have - we attack one town, they run over to the next one, and when we move on they run back again. Rinse and repeat until Halliburton's profits cause a rift in the time-space continuum.

See you next week...

-- EarlG