All the cool kids are running year-end Top 10 lists, so I thought I’d join in the fun and write about my 10 favorite political stories of the year.
This list is intended to be, shall we say, quirky. If it were a serious list of the most important political events of 2003, it’d be a very different list. The war in Iraq was obviously the major news event of the year, but it didn’t make my top 10.
I also went out of my way to leave Bush out of this. It’d have been easy to do a very long list of things Bush did that drove me nuts — lies about weapons of mass destruction, lies about aluminum tubes, lies about 45-minute strike capability, lies about unmanned Iraqi drones, lies about taxes, lies about the deficit, lies about Medicare, lies about the environment, lies about the recession, and so on. These were all vitally important stories, not to mention evidence of why he should be replaced in 11 months, but none of them were among my “favorite” political stories of the year.
In terms of criteria, I considered stories that were bizarre and/or ridiculous, events that either made me laugh or gave me a headache, and sometimes both. This is about the kind of stories that I felt compelled to write more than one post about because I was fascinated by what might happen next.
And without further ado…
10. Freedom Fries
It’s just as moronic now as it was in March. Reps. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.) took time from their busy congressional schedules to tinker with the menu in Congress’ cafeteria — using their authority to change the name of “french fries” to “freedom fries” in the House dining hall. Jones, who came up with the idea, told one newspaper, “This isn’t going to change the debate or course of the world. It’s a gesture just to say to the French, ‘Up yours!'” Just the kind of class and tact we’ve come to expect from Republicans nowadays.
9. Pat Robertson recommends “nuking” the State Department
Few, if any, figures in public life have said more insane things that TV preacher Pat Robertson. He’s truly in a league of his own. In October, Robertson offered up his gem of 2003 by suggesting that the U.S. State Department deserves to be hit with a nuclear bomb. The comment came just four months after Roberson told his TV audience that we might need “a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up.” The State Department was not amused, calling Robertson’s remarks “despicable.” Alas, as always, Robertson maintains his lunatic fan base and hasn’t suffered too much long-term damage.
An uneducated, bad actor with zero political experience, who hasn’t had a hit in years, announces that he’s ready to be the chief executive of the nation’s largest state and the world’s fifth largest economy. But enough about Gary Coleman…
Looking back, I’m still mystified by Schwarzenegger’s vapid campaign and it’s unusual ability to be void of any substance, details, or seriousness. I’ve never seen a more intentionally vacuous political platform. I’ll never forget when Schwarzenegger, in response to a question about his inability to explain how he’d accomplish anything as governor, say, “The public doesn’t care about figures. They’ve heard figures for the last five years, figures and graphs and percentages and all this.” Classic. Oh wait, he won.
7. Fox News Channel sues Al Franken
One of the stories I couldn’t make up if I tried. Franken writes a book called, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,” and the Fox News Channel sues him for trademark infringement, claiming that FNC owns the phrase “fair and balanced.” It still sounds more like a story from The Onion than reality. In this case, all’s well that ends well. Franken’s book went to the top of the bestseller list and a federal judge humiliated the network’s attorney’s in open court, ultimately dismissing the case as being “wholly without merit both factually and legally.”
6. Bill Bennett’s gambling problem
After years of making himself rich by moralizing endlessly about everyone else’s faults, we learned that our self-proclaimed virtue czar, Bill Bennett, had a little trouble with gambling. Did I say “little”? I mean a compulsive habit that led him to drop, in one instance, more than $1.4 million in one two-month period. Some reports suggested he’s lost as much as $8 million during his gambling career. Since the story broke, Bennett has insisted that his “gambling days are over,” only to say a couple of months later that he’s only sworn off “excessive gambling” and might bet on football if his favorite team makes it to the Super Bowl. How very sad.
5. Rush Limbaugh gets busted for drugs
The same guy who said, “[I]f people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up,” happens to be the same guy buying and using illegal drugs. I’m not the type to make fun of someone for a drug addiction, but Rush Limbaugh has done as much as any individual to coarsen our national political dialog. For too long, he was railing, in Bill Bennett-like style, against America’s alleged character and moral ills, and yet all-the-while was secretly a junkie using his housekeeper to buy thousands of addictive painkillers from a black-market drug ring. Oh yeah, and Rush is still facing a possible indictment.
4. Sen. Rick ‘Man on Dog’ Santorum
The most twisted of this year’s political stories came by way of Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R). Santorum started quite a political controversy in April by equating “consensual (gay) sex” with polygamy, bigamy, and incest. Sure, the comment was offensive to gays and those of us who find homophobia morally reprehensible, but Santorum was just getting started. He went on to explain that he believed the government should outlaw gay sexual relations, that the right to privacy “undermine[s] the basic tenets of our society,” and — best of all — he argued that allowing gays to have sex was tantamount to allowing “man on dog” bestiality. Not only was Santorum proving himself a supporter of a totalitarian state, he also hinted at the fact that he’s a sick weirdo.
3. Nick Smith gets offered a bribe on the House floor
Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) doesn’t appear to be one of the lawmakers susceptible to party pressure. After all, Smith, who turns 70 next year, is planning to retire at the end of his term in order to honor a self-imposed term limit pledge. But his son, Brad, will be running to take over his father’s seat. With this in mind, when Smith announced he was planning to vote against Bush’s Medicare bill, as-yet-unnamed “House GOP leaders” told Smith his son would enjoy $100,000 in campaign contributions in exchange for his vote. Smith stuck to his guns and voted against the legislation, but the more important angle was that some Republican lawmakers illegally offered Smith a bribe on the House floor, which happens to be a serious felony. The Justice Department is still reportedly looking into the matter.
2. Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore
Roy Moore has never been your typical Religious Right nut. Sure, he shares their worldview and desire to establish a theocracy right here in the U.S., but unlike the usual wackos, Moore is the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Correction: he was the chief justice. Settling the age-old question of What Happens When A State Judge Refuses To Follow A Federal Court Order, we now know. He loses his job.
In a year with some terrific political stories, this one had it all. In just this one scandal, we had a vindictive White House illegally leaking word about a political enemy’s wife, we had dishonest spin from Bush aides, we had weapons of mass destruction, we had international intrigue, and we had a felony being committed by at least two White House officials. What’s not to like? We still don’t know who was responsible for the illegal leaks about Valerie Plame, nor what their punishment will be if they’re discovered, so I still have hopes that this story will also make the Top 10 list of Carpetbagger’s favorite stories of 2004.
Honorable mentions go to:
* Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.) blamed his family’s proximity to Muslims for the break up of his marriage. What a moron.
* Lobbying against an effort to restrict drug addicts from buying guns, Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) said, on the House floor, “So does that mean that if you go into a black community, you can’t sell any guns to any black person?” To this day, I have no idea what point she was trying to make.
* TV preacher Pat Robertson began a “21-day prayer offensive” in July, asking God to remove three Supreme Court justices so Bush could appoint fresh right-wingers to the high court and overturn rulings on issues such as gay rights and school prayer. As Tapped said at the time, Robertson “doesn’t exactly say ‘smote,’ but you sort of get the idea.”
* Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) got the ball rolling by refusing to allow Democrats to even read a bill about overhauling federal pension plans before voting on it. Then Thomas dispatched the Capitol Police to remove Dems from a House library. Then 72-year-old Democrat Pete Stark called 50-year-old former police officer and firefighter Republican Scott McInnis a “little fruitcake.” Hilarity ensued as lawmakers almost literally came to blows.