I enjoy the “Top 10 Conservative Idiots” so much that I am often tempted to simply reproduce the list in its entirety here… but that wouldn’t be right (or left), would it? Here are a few highlights, (a week late, sorry) you can read the rest here.
2. The Justice Department
Back in 2001 John Ashcroft sent a memo urging federal agencies to resist the Freedom of Information Act. “When you carefully consider FOIA requests and decide to withhold records, in whole or in part, you can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies to protect other important records,” he wrote. Now, after three years, they seem to be running out of reasons for resisting requests – because they just came up with the dumbest one yet. The Center for Public Integrity requested information on foreign lobbyists back in January, and last week they were told that, “Implementing such a request risks a [computer] crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating.” What? What bullshit! Retrieving information from the Justice Department’s database will potentially destroy it? Who the hell builds their software? Laurel and Hardy? In light of this recent news, I strongly suspect it won’t be long before we start straying into “the dog ate it” territory.
8. Allen Raymond
Who is Allen Raymond, you ask yourselves? Allen Raymond is the former chief of GOP Marketplace, a telemarketing company. The Republicans hired Raymond’s company to provide telemarketing services in New Hampshire during the 2002 elections, which included a close race between Jeanne Shaheen and John Sununu, who won by fewer than 20,000 votes. So why is Raymond on the list this week? Well, because last week he pleaded guilty to jamming Democratic telephone lines on election day. The lines were set up by Democrats in an effort to organize rides to the polls as part of a get out the vote effort, and they were jammed by Raymond’s company for an hour and a half. Raymond will be sentenced in November and faces up to five years in prison. And the Republican vote-theft machine rolls on…
9. Marc Balestrieri
Since George W. Bush’s recent multi-million dollar ad blitz against John Kerry failed to bear much fruit, it’s apparently down to individuals such as Marc Balestrieri to try to put a dent in the senator’s reputation. Mr. Balestrieri is a Catholic lawyer who last week filed heresy charges against John Kerry. That’s right folks – heresy charges. It seems that of all the pro-choice Catholics in America, John Kerry needs to be sought out for special attention and excommunicated from the church. According to the Washington Times, Mr. Balestrieri also filed an “additional complaint charging ‘harm’ to himself as a result of Mr. Kerry’s pronouncements on abortion and related issues.” Of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Kerry being a Democrat running for president – Marc Balestrieri would, I’m sure, file the same charges against any pro-choice Catholic that he happened to come across. Because this is all about poor Marc Balestrieri and his oh-so-delicate faith which John Kerry is threatening to destroy (although apparently priests diddling young boys didn’t set Marc off) and has got absolutely nothing to do with politics. So there.
