-Caveat Lector- >>>For those of you who courteously read my note to Mr O'R following his tirade against TakeBacktheMedia for boycotting Rush (who Mr O'R claims to be entitled to "Free [read: Paid] Speech", the section on Billie O might have some resounding echoes. O-Hell, I included it at the end. A<:>E<:>R <<<
>>>Embedded linques at site <<< The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 98) http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/index.html February 10, 2003 Bill Of Wrongs Edition We skipped a week last week, so there's quite a mishmash of idiocy to be found in this week's Top Ten. First place was an easy choice - Bill O'Reilly's unbelievably hypocritical performance on "The O'Reilly Factor" last week propels him straight to the top. Meanwhile, Tom DeLay (2) has a new take on racial quotas, Clayton Floyd (3) hates peace, Dick Cheney (4) has got his head in the sand, and Mark Sanford (5) is a chickenhawk extraordinaire. Two weeks ago you saw the State of the Union speech, but what's the real state of the union? Well George W. Bush is in sixth place, and if his portrayal of himself as a compassionate warmongering bleeding-heart liberal conservative is accurate, it ain't up to much (special bonus: the graphic for last week's nonexistent Top Ten). Elsewhere, Laura Bush (7) is scared of poetry, Ari Fleischer thinks that Nelson Mandela is a "do- nothing", and Jim Saxton (10) has come up with a great way to stick it to the French. Enjoy, and don't forget the key! Bill O'Reilly Last week Bill O'Reilly surely laid claim to the title "Most Hypocritical Man In America." Our story begins with Vietnam-era veteran turned peace activist Mark Stinson (aka Symbolman) and his website TakeBackTheMedia.com. Mark happened to be listening to radio lardbag Rush Limbaugh one afternoon when Limbaugh called all peace activists "Anti-American, Anti-Capitalist Marxists and Communists." Disgusted, Mark decided to organize a boycott of Limbaugh's show. Using his site to give the boycott momentum, he was soon attracting attention from the mainstream media, and it wasn't long before he was invited to appear on FOX's "The O'Reilly Factor." A bold move to be sure, and Mark had to weather a storm as O'Reilly accused him of wanting to take away Rush Limbaugh's freedom of speech (uh, I don't think the Bill of Rights says you have the right to a radio show) and insisted that organizing a boycott was in itself un-American. But it only took a mere 24 hours for O'Reilly to trip over his own laughable rhetoric. The following night "The O'Reilly Factor" hosted Jeremy Glick, a peace activist whose father died in the World Trade Center attacks. Evidently O'Reilly didn't really want to hear Glick's opinions - as Glick tried to explain that one of his reasons for opposing war is that it always seems to be America who trains and arms the bad guys in the first place, O'Reilly first tried to shout over him, and the interview finally ended with the First Amendment champion shouting "Shut up! Shut up! Cut off his mic!" (If you don't believe us, you can hear the audio here.) Man, you've got to love Bill's appreciation for freedom of speech. As for O'Reilly's opinion that boycotts make one un-American, he must have forgotten how he got Ludicris fired by boycotting Pepsi (which is odd because he seemed quite proud of it at the time!) And he didn't seem to mind when the attorney general of Illinois wanted to boycott Abercrombie & Fitch. In fact, when it comes down to it, Bill also didn't have a problem yelling at someone to "Shut up! Shut up!" when they said something he didn't want to hear. Yup, he truly is a great American. If only we could all follow Bill O'Reilly's fabulous example. Tom Delay And now for some more hypocrisy on a grand scale. At a recent meeting of Republican leaders, Tom Delay touted his new plan to hire more African Americans as GOP staffers. "One of our problems was, in the hiring of African Americans, we can't find good conservative African Americans to work for us," said Delay, who seemed genuinely unsurprised at this revelation. "But I've got 20 résumés now of young conservatives." According to the Washington Post, "Participants at the meeting said the party needs to recruit more blacks to serve on staffs of House and Senate Republicans, which could translate to more black candidates and voters in the future." So lets get this straight: the Republican Party, which strongly opposes affirmative action, wants to hire staffers based entirely on the color of their skin. The hypocrisy here is to be expected; what's sickening is that rather than doing this to actually help minorities, they're simply trying to cover up their racist tendencies and win votes by parading blacks around. Absolutely disgraceful. Clayton Floyd Here's something interesting - did you know that some people meet the idea of "peace" with "dismay?" If not, you should check out Missoula, Montana. All it took was Ward 2 Councilman Jim McGrath attaching a photograph of a peace sign to the lid of his city- issued laptop computer, and the next thing you know people's panties had been twisted into uncomfortable bunches all over town. Ward 6 Councilman Clayton Floyd seemed particularly affected by the photo and displayed all the symptoms of a first-class wedgie. "I've heard from a number of folks indicating dismay with what Jim has displayed on his laptop," said he, expressing "concern" about the problem. Good grief. To his credit, Council President Jack Reidy decided that, "We've got more important things to do" than worry about Jim McGrath's laptop. He probably should have added, "Oh for God's sake Clayton, it's a photograph of a peace sign, not ritual Satanic murder. Get your head out of your ass for once in your life, will you? Dick Cheney You can rely on our great leaders in Washington to tell the truth, especially about life and death matters such as war. Can't you? It was revealed last week that then- Defense Secretary Dick Cheney fired a Commerce Department demographer named Beth Osborne Daponte in 1992 because she - whoops - attempted to calculate how many Iraqi civilians died during Gulf War I. See, not long after the war, Cheney said that "we have no way of knowing precisely how many casualties occurred," and was then promptly embarrassed by Daponte's estimates: 13,000 civilians killed directly by American and allied forces, about 70,000 civilians killed subsequently from war-related damage to Iraq's infrastructure. Then, according to MSNBC, "After a reporter called Daponte and included her estimates in a story about war casualties, her boss informed Daponte in writing that she was being dismissed for releasing 'false information.'" Nice. Incidentally, Daponte now estimates that the civilian death toll in Iraq was even higher during the Gulf War. But that probably won't bother Dick Cheney. Remember, we have no way of knowing how many casualties occurred. Mark Sanford Early last year Republican Mark Sanford joined up with the Air Force Reserve because (he says) he wanted to set a good example for his four sons, and because he came to admire military service during his three terms as a member of the U.S. House. That was certainly an admirable thing to do, particularly considering that the War on Terror was just getting underway, and we salute Mark Sanford for his courage, selflessness, and patriotism. Oh, did we mention that he was also running for governor of South Carolina? Of course, we would never suggest that someone might join the military for cynical campaign- year resume-padding. But, you gotta love this... with a real shooting war almost certain, now- Governor Sanford wants out. He swears on a stack of Bibles that he's gotta quit, like now, because he's just too busy governing the state, but not because they were about to ship his ass off to war or anything like that. George W. Bush Two weeks ago the nation waited with bated breath for George W. Bush to describe the state of the union, and hey - guess what? According to Dubya, the state of the union is strong! Light those firecrackers. Of course, if Bush were either a) an honest man, or b) not merely a robotic chimp reading his lines as programmed, he would have admitted that the state of the union is nothing short of bizarre. We're going to blow up Iraq because they looked at us funny, and then if Iran and North Korea look at us funny then by God we'll blow them up too. (And you, Canada - just watch it, okay?) Then we're going to cure AIDS in Africa, presumably by buying lots and lots of vastly overpriced drugs from Dubya's buds in the pharmaceutical industry - don't worry, I expect we'll pay them off with the money we get from selling the oil we steal from Iraq. Meanwhile we won't need any more oil back here in America because we're all going to drive around in hydrogen-powered cars - yes, despite wanting to dig up America's national parks Bush is just a great big environmentalist wacko at heart. Who'd have guessed it? By the way, I think we must have solved the problem of whatsisname, you know - that guy with the long beard and the AK47. George didn't mention him at all, so we've probably caught him or blown him up or something. Maybe he never even really existed. It's getting hard to remember. What else? Well, after busting the budget on an invasion of a country that didn't commit the 9/11 attacks - but just imagine if they had! - we're going to fund Medicare, Social Security, education, and every other government program that is vital to our society, by magically pulling money out of our asses. And finally, since it's obviously been working great till now, we're going to fix the economy by doing exactly the same thing we've been doing for the last two years, only more so. Yes folks, the state of the union is... idiotic. Laura Bush First Lady Laura Bush had invited poets from across the country to a poetry symposium on February 12 to discuss Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman, but abruptly postponed it when she learned that some of the participants would be sharing poetry with anti-war themes. One of the poets even planned to wear a scarf with (gasp!) peace signs on it. Mrs. Bush's spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez explained that "While Mrs. Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum." As a former librarian, the first lady has a unique appreciation for the importance of keeping a strict wall of separation between literature and politics. We wouldn't want any thinking with our reading, now would we? Apparently the symposium will be rescheduled for March with a new discussion topic: "pretty flowers and fluffy bunnies." Win Smith Jr. Brown nose alert! State Senator Win Smith of Connecticut wants to rename Tweed- New Haven Regional Airport in honor of his idol, and our great leader, George W. Bush. It's kinda fitting in a way - Poppy gets George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Reagan gets Ronald Reagan National Airport just outside of DC, and Dubya gets George W. Bush Regional Airport in Tweed, Connecticut. Sort of illustrates the Chimp's achievements compared to his predecessors (although I probably shouldn't use the word "achievements"). But anyway, the mayor of New Haven has decided that this is a terrible idea, since a) they've already named a bunch of roads after Dubya, and b) despite the fact that he was born in New Haven, Bush won't even have it acknowledged in his biography. Course not - cowboys don't come from Connecticut, silly! Ari Fleischer Let's face it - there's not a lot of worldwide support for Bush's Oil War. Nelson Mandela has recently been very critical of Bush's Iraq policy, and while the White House recently received a letter of support from eight European nations, that means the other 40 or so nations in Europe decided to take a pass. But Ari Fleischer recently tried to blow off any criticism by thanking the eight European leaders who support Bush. At a recent press briefing he said, "The president expresses his gratitude to the many leaders of Europe who obviously feel differently" than people like Nelson Mandela. "He understands there are going to be people who are more comfortable doing nothing about a growing menace that could turn into a holocaust." Yeah, I guess Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela is a bit of a "do-nothing" isn't he Ari? I mean, he didn't do much while he was locked up in that cell for 30 years, did he? Jim Saxton And finally, it seems that some members of Congress are a bit confused about the concept of making international friends and building global coalitions. Rep. Jim Saxton of New Jersey, chairman of a new House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities is calling for the United States to boycott this year's Paris Air Show if France doesn't fall into line and start shipping troops to Iraq. Well that should tell them, Jim! Perhaps since Jim Saxton is in charge of "unconventional threats," he's used to coming up with unconventional solutions. But when you're talking about building a coalition for war, a foreign policy of "it's my ball and I'm taking it home," seems a tad... immature. And we thought the adults were supposed to be in charge. See you next week! This week is our First Quarter 2003 fund drive. © Democratic Underground, LLC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: Euphorian To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 7:31 PM Subject: What A Rush! I watched your program with some interest tonight (a little too cold to be barbequing), with especial attention on the segment with the "TakeBackTheMedia" fellow. What piqued my interest was the assertion you made about the Rush boycott advocate (RBA) being against Rush's "free speech". What a canard! That's what we call in the rumours and propaganda swamp, "ducking" the issue. The issue is -- of course -- that Rush spews his verbal venom and vehemence with impunity for the most part, being more at domestic poultrifiation (somewhere between a chicken and turkey) than canardiac, simply because he rarely -- if ever -- engages in dialogue or debate with those who just might oppose him, his bitten nail points, or those of his string-pullers. His methods are reminiscent of the cut (the cheese) and run group I recall after all these years from grade school. In one instance where I will agree with the English, it is high time Rush let his backside have a rest and let his mouth do some interpretative expression of his deepre thoughts. Of course, I would hate to imply or for Rush to infer that he has a fixation on one certain malexercised and therefore enlarged part of his anatomy. One thing gives many people the idea that Rush can be equated with rash ... as a person ... is his belicosity when it comes to war and its supposed relationship to patriotism, something from which he was personally disqualified due to an uncomely yet comedic comedo on his squat end. One might wonder if he was disqualified from acting on his b anal martialian retensions due to the physical imperfection "there", that he might be as well unqualified because of the comedo somewhere above his shoulders. That, of course, assuming he takes a hint from the English. Protecting Rush's "free speech" is oxymoronic. Again he does not encourage others to exercise theirs because he would have to display some sense of responsibility for what he says, as in being challenged (as if he wasn't already!) or being called into account for his innumerable misstatements and inaccuracies with which he preys unmercifully on his (hopefully, for him) unsuspecting audience. (At least you give people an opportunity to disagree before you retake control of the redirection of discussion!) We only need refer to his well-known declaration that anti- war (as if his "back there" was pro-war!) demonstrators are somehow less qualified as Americans (even the Vietnam and other war veterans) than he is. I didn't notice tonight on your show nor have I read anywhere his offer to retract, clarify, or amplify his lingua flatus. And no one offered either to light a match ... no cigar. Freedom of any kind has inherent a requirement for responsibility. That people such as those who are operating "TakeBackTheMedia" and others addressing different areas of the demagogue-debunking cottage industry, that they are occupying their time with the pursuit of truth shows that freedom is not merely granted or sponsored: it must be won on the fields human interaction ... and honourably! None of this cut and run stuff! A<:>E<:>R Red River of the North P.S. >>For your amusement<<< Joe Conason's Journal Rush -- nailed on his own show! Plus: Will disclosure requirement cause Kissinger to resign? - - - - - - - - - - - - Dec. 5, 2002 | Squawk radio A plucky Salon reader -- let's just call him "Greg from Orlando" since that's how his friends over at the EIB network know him -- sent a fascinating memo Wednesday about the methods he has used to bring a bit of balance to Rush Limbaugh's radio show. This is his version of their most recent encounter: "Scored a direct hit on the Hot Air Hindenburg today, making the kind of call to Rush Limbaugh halfway through his show that [made] him a stuttering fool and [had] all of the callers who followed trying to repair the damage. His show started with the usual relentless demonizing of liberals, this time John Kerry from Massachusetts, a Vietnam War hero whom Rush was mocking as 'Lurch,' using the Addams' Family theme song. But when he tried to twist Kerry's words [from] Sunday on Meet the Press -- about how 'Sometimes in war a leader looks behind him and the troops aren't there,' as somehow showing [Kerry] as incompetent or a failure -- I'd had enough. "I jogged to the nearest phone and dialed a dozen times till I got through, then told his call screener that I'd like to make the case that Kerry isn't going to be painted as a garden-variety liberal as easily as they think, given his war-hero status and foreign policy credentials. Guess I sold the screener, because I was put through onto the air within seconds ... "I told Rush the same thing on the air and then asked him if he'd seen the New Yorker piece on Kerry. [A penetrating, thoughtful profile by Joe Klein that I ought to have mentioned last week.] {{Can be seen at http://salon.com/politics/conason/2002/12/05/bush/index.html }} Forwarded for your information. 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