Conservatives Behaving Badly

By any honest assessment, last week was a rotten week for conservatives. Often by their own sword did they manage to fall on their own words and deeds, and play up to the very worst of conservative stereotypes of unethical handling of finances and closet racism. By any reasonable standard and objective account, conservatives were terrible advocates for their philosophy last week.

Tom Delay managed to embroil himself in yet another scandal last week, when charged with a felony after an Austin Texas grand jury voted for an indictment that Delay used his Washington PAC in a scheme where corporations such as Sears donated funds to his PAC, and then the corporate donation money was laundered returned back to Texas to be earmarked to help specific republicans running for the Texas legislature to gain a majority in the state house of representatives. Under Texas law, it is a felony for corporations to donate campaign contributions to state candidates. And it is likely that many republicans supported this bill while in legislature in Texas, and probably signed into law by a republican governor as well. A felony seems like very tough penalty for violating this campaign law, and if Mr. Delay is found in violation, the penalty may involve jail or prison time as well as a fine.

Bill Frist, the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, managed to make himself seem like the Martha Stewart of senate politics, and shot a huge hole through any presidential ambitions by a new question into whether he sold some stock that was supposed to be in a blind trust before the price dropped, and raised eyebrows whether he had some sort of inside information on the stock and sold it before an issue would depress the market price. This raises so many questions, that Bill Frist's presidential ambitions may be toast now.

Former Reagan era, Secretary of Education, William Bennett made an absurd statement on his radio program, by making an outrageous comparison that crime could be reduced if all Black babies were aborted. Of course Mr. Bennett did not mean the statement literally, and coupled it with a comment about that such a thing would be immoral and wrong. But it did raise questions of closet racism by Bennett, of equating Blacks with crime, and the genocidal statement of aborting all Black children seemed almost Nazi-like in nature. Even the White House was quick to condemn this stupid comparison statement by Bennett. Bennett usually represents something of an intellectual wing of the republican party, and for the former Education Secretary, this statement hardly seemed very educated or enlightened, and raised questions of closet racism.

This week's conservative idiocy , built on recent absurdity by others such as Rev. Pat Robertson, who called for the assassination of democratically elected President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, then tried to deny the statement was made, but then later issued a statement that he was sorry about the comment. The only reason this comment didn't create a worse international crisis is that Venezuela is a major oil supplier to the U.S. and the has 14,000 Citgo gas stations in America, and could not immediately sever econmic ties to the U.S.

During the hurricane Katrina disater, conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh tried to deflect blame from the federal government, FEMA and President Bush, by attacks on the democratic mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin. Rush Limbaugh committed a so-called Freudian slip by calling this Black mayor, "Mayor Nagger" on the air. Whether this was intended to appeal to the right wing racist audience that is attracted to even worse right wing "hate" radio hosts, or a mere slip on the air is not really known. But with allegations of prescription drug abuse that have clouded his character, Rush Limbaugh is hardly a figure to be admired.

Fox News and Radio commentator, Bill O'Reilly is quick to attack what he calls "culture war" issues, yet a 2004 scandal involving O'Reilly 55, and a 33 year old female co-worker who brought a sexual harassment suit against O'Reilly claiming lewd phone calls from O'Reilly with talk that involved phone sex, vibrators, threesomes, masturbation and loss of virginity, became the material for jokes by late night comedians such as Conan O'Brien. For many, O'Reilly now has little standing when he argues about so-called culture war issues. The Allegations involved in the suit against O'Reilly pulled the rug out from his attacks on mainstream movies and music, and hollow out his "culture wars" attacks into meaningless radio talk show hypocrisy.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is using his role as Attorney General to wage a "war on porn", most likely to enhance his role as a possible Supreme Court candidate to many doubting conservatives. This diverts funds and manpower away from the war on terrorism, illegal immigration of violent gang and criminal organization members or even terrorists, money laundering by drug kingpins, and public official corruption, especially in the Miami area. Many newspapers and columnists such as Arianna Huffington have been highly critical of this new Bush Administration policy as a waste of money as well as a moralistic attack that is misdirected. And the cost of so many expensive bizarre and crazy Bush Administration policies is partly putting Katrina relief costs in a real budget bind. While it appears that most of material that will be targeted is oddball weird stuff far out of the mainstream such as kooky bondage material, this begs the question that if a Web search for such rare, oddball and weird material must be undertaken, then the Internet is hardly overwelmed by such crazy and disturbed, offensive material, so such an expensive war on these nonmainstream adult entertainment Websites will not satisfy the far right who are opposed to the huge supply of much more common supply of mainstream and commercial sleaze on the Internet. This hardly satisfies the concerns of those about the huge mainstream of the sexually eplicit material that is all over the Internet or invades the homes of persons in an unwanted manner through unsolicited spam Emails. The Gonzales "war on porn" makes one wonder why he is so concerned for such rare and oddball material that is probably more difficult to find on the Internet without a long search or tips where to even find such odd fetish material, and children under 18 are highly unlikely to be exposed to compared to the huge supply of far more mainstream and far easier for children to access very explicit material. Organizations such as Morality in Media, Focus On The Family, and other groups are concerned about this huge supply of such explicit material, yet this is not the target. The Bush/Gonzales "war on porn" will not satisfy the far right, creates some late night comedy jokes about the Bush Administration which looks like the workings of moral hypocrites because of so-many unresolved issues such as questions about the Iraq War or Karl Rove and hurts public support, and offends civil libertarians who take an absolute view of the wording of the First Amendment and those who support freedom of expression. Most men, and probably women have visited sexually oriented sites on the Internet, and this even includes church goers and preachers as well, and little evidence exists of a public demand to remove such sites, rather such sites are part of a $10 billion dollar industry that much of the public seems to support in some way. And even major hotel chains and companies profit from cable porn and other material. When the Bush Administration wants to put an oddball bondage Website operator in prison for 50 years, but Bush Administration figures like Karl Rove and others seemingly avoid justice in the minds of some democrats and progressives, then more resentment brews against the Bush Administration. When a female reporter is jailed for 88 days protecting a White House source that leaked a CIA operatives name, and nothing happens at the White House where the leak originated, then resentment builds.

Conservatives wanted power in Washington. But with this power in the Presidency, Senate, House, Supreme Court and the bulk of talk radio, conservatives seem unable to govern the nation effectively with the power they have. Conservatives are far better at constructing petty and meaningless attacks on liberals and democrats by name calling or any means that avoids a discussion of the issues. And numerous and building ethics and character questions are painting an image of conservatives as moral hypocrites and that America's experiment with a conservative government has failed, and it's time for a change to a more progressive direction in the near future in elections.