Former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett: "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." [Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America, 9/28/05]
Pat Robertson: "If [Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it." [Christian Broadcasting Network's The 700 Club, 8/22/05]
Bill O'Reilly to San Francisco: "[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. ... You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." [Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 12/8/05]
Bill O'Reilly, agreeing with caller that illegal immigrants are "biological weapon[s]": "I think you could probably make an absolutely airtight case that more than 3,000 Americans have been either killed or injured, based upon the 11 million illegals who are here." [Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 4/15/05]
Rush Limbaugh: "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 8/12/05]
Rush Limbaugh on the kidnapping of peace activists in Iraq: "I'm telling you, folks, there's a part of me that likes this." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/29/05]
Ann Coulter: Bill Clinton "was a very good rapist"; "I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties"; "I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning." [New York Observer, 1/10/05]
Ann Coulter: "Isn't it great to see Muslims celebrating something other than the slaughter of Americans?" [Syndicated column, 2/3/05]
Radio host Glenn Beck: "[Y]ou know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year." [Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program, 9/9/05]
Tucker Carlson: "Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he's nice, but you don't take him seriously. That's Canada." [MSNBC's The Situation with Tucker Carlson, 12/15/05]
American Family Association president Tim Wildmon: Liberals "don't have the kind of family responsibilities most people have, and certainly not church responsibilities." [American Family Radio's Today's Issues, 5/11/05]
David Horowitz on Cindy Sheehan: "It's very hard to have respect for a woman who exploits the death of her own son and doesn't respect her own son's life. ... She portrays him as an idiot." [MSNBC's Connected: Coast to Coast, 8/16/05]
Radio host Neal Boortz on the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams: "[T]here will be riots in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. ... The rioting, of course, will lead to wide scale looting. There are a lot of aspiring rappers and NBA superstars who could really use a nice flat-screen television right now." [Boortz.com, 12/12/05]
Pat Buchanan: "Our guys" in Iraq "have got every right to have good news put into the media and get to the people of Iraq, even if it's got to be planted or bought." [MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, 12/1/05]
National Review editor Rich Lowry: Given EPA-mandated "small-flush" toilets, "[h]ow is it possible to flush a Quran down the toilet?" [Young America's Foundation speech, 8/5/05]
Neal Boortz, suggesting that a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution: "I dare say she could walk out of that hotel and walk 100 yards in either direction on Fulton Industrial Boulevard here in Atlanta and have a job. What's that? Well, no, no, no. ... Well, you know what? [laughing] Now that you mention it ... [i]f that's the only way she can take care of herself, it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers." [Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show, 10/24/05]
Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson: Same-sex marriage would lead to "marriage between daddies and little girls ... between a man and his donkey." [Focus on the Family radio program, 10/6/05]
Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid: "Have you noticed that many news organizations, in honor of former ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings, have embarked on a quit smoking campaign? So why don't our media launch a campaign advising people to quit engaging in the dangerous and addictive homosexual lifestyle? ... It appears that the homosexual lifestyle is as addictive as smoking." [Accuracy in Media column, 12/14/05]
The Top 10 Bitterest Ironies of 2005
1. Fiddling While Rome Burns (Black and White Version):
How bitterly ironic was it to see George W. Bush doing everything he could to act like the commander-in-chief who was determined to be all over Hurricane Rita (which struck his home state of Texas) after being non compos mentis and Missing in Action when the residents of New Orleans (mostly poor and black) were awash in suffering after Katrina. Where were those Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard troops hired to defend their states, I wonder?
2. Burnt Flesh:
How bitterly ironic was it that the U.S. military ultimately acknowledged that it used the very same chemical weapon (white phosphorous) on civilians during the November, 2004 attack on Fallujah that Saddam Hussein used (when he had chemical weapons supplied by the U.S.) on the Kurds to put down the uprising in Kurdistan in 1991.
3. Saddam and Sadism:
How bitterly ironic is it that the U.S. used former Soviet Gulags, Saddam's torture chambers, and a string of "black sites", such as Poland, Romania, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to carry out torture on detained "suspects," only a few of whom have ever been charged, much less convicted, of anything.
4. Bush and Rove Don't Know Jack:
How ironic was it that Bush and his "Brain" neither of whom served in combat) would attempt to smear one of the most decorated veterans in Congress, Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) for suggesting that the U.S. should pull out of Iraq sooner than later, because a military victory is not possible and the blowback from Iraq is only bound to increase our risk of future terrorism rather than abating it?
5. Reverse Robin Hoodism:
How ironic was it to see the Congress cutting $50 billion in programs for the poor in order to redistribute yet another $70 billion to the richest Americans. Now that's keeping the Christ in Christmas, isn't it? As Robert Reich pointed out in a recent column, the religious right fights tooth-and-nail against Darwinism while it embraces a far more perverse doctrine, "social Darwinism," (which was the brainchild of Herbert Spencer) to justify its economic redistribution from the poor to the rich. For the record, Charles Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey, so the church fathers then were more enlightened than the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson.
6. So Many Children Left Behind:
How ironic is it that the U.S. is one of only two countries which have not signed the treaty on the rights of the child (the other being Somalia!) Oh, the company we keep! And not only do we execute the more of its citizens than any country on the planet, but we execute minors and mentally handicapped people. Our infant mortality rate ranks 24th out of 29 developed nations.
7. Barbarians at the Gate:
How ironic is it that more than 1,000 Americans have been executed since the restoration of the death penalty in ____? Perhaps even more ironic still is the recent polls showing that about the same percentage of the population believes that torture is justified as those who support the death penalty. And many of these supporters claim to be Christians. The commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" carries no footnotes in my Bible. And the Gubernator greeted a clear case of redemption with vengeance. Here again, the U.S. is in a very small circle of friends who still execute other human beings (whether or not they're guilty) that includes only China, Vietnam, and Iran. 97% of all executions occur in these four countries. Oh what faith supporters of the death penalty have in the infallibility of government, the legal system, despite all of the counter-evidence.
8. Sometimes a Suspect is Just a Suspect:
How bitterly ironic is it that after almost four years in the limbo of being disappeared, the U.S. government finally released Jose Padilla. We are reported to be still holding between 13,000 and 17,500 detainees in Iraq, approximately 400 in Guantanamo, and who knows how many others in Afghanistan or by third-party countries we use to outsource torture. When interrogations are not designed to produce evidence for use in a legal case, then torture is simply terrorism. One wonders whether the reason the many detainees are not being released is because they may very well tell their stories and expose the lawlessness of U.S. policies and practices.
9. Torturous Times:
How bitterly ironic was it that George W. Bush (or his dim-witted handlers) chose Panama for the site of Bush's claim that "We do not torture?" That the School of the Americas (widely known as the School of Assassins or the School for Torture) was located in Panama from 1946 to 1984, prior to moving to Ft. Benning, Georgia. The National Security Archives are teeming with reports of atrocities committed by the graduates of the SOA. Nice venue, Dubya. Must have made Daddy proud.
10. Déjà Vu All Over Again:
How bitterly ironic is it that the Bush Administration bottled up the release (until the 2004 election had concluded) of documents showing that the pretext for the Vietnam War was faked and hyped just like the Iraq war. Indeed, there was no aggression by the North Vietnamese against U.S. vessels in the international waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. And now we learn that King George has defied the law and dusted off Nixonian tactics for spying on U.S. citizens. If the country had known either of these things prior to the 2004 election, Dubya might have been able to take an even longer vacation at the ranch, after all that hard work of being President!
2 comments:
Shea,
Love the statement part!
When I get a chance I will link to it as a contrast to my media postings :)
-Jack
As long as there are people like you who display the stupidity, there is always hope that more people actually start using their brains. Let's hope 2006 brings more sanity!! Keep up the good work!
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