Twats of the Day

1. Senator Joe Lieberman

Anytime there’s a “Twats of the Day,” you know Joe Liebertwat is going to be first on my list. Unsurprisingly, he was a twat ten years ago, when he was for eradicating the filibuster, just like he’s a twat now.

"I was concerned the system was being used by the minority to frustrate legislative accomplishments," he said, noting that he wanted to reform the entire system and end filibusters against legislation as well as judges. Had he succeeded, he contended, it would not have helped the Democrats.

He was concerned that legislation was being bottled up. Since then, Lieberman pointed out, the Senate has become more polarized along partisan lines, and the role of the minority has arguably become even more crucial. It is now, he said, one of the only ways to get Congress to work in a bipartisan way.

"Circumstances changed," he said, "and my opinion about supermajorities changed."

Whatever. The real twattiness about which I’m irritated today is that Liebertwat thinks he might still vote for Bolton.

"I'm still a potential vote" for President Bush's nominee for United Nations ambassador, Lieberman, D-Conn., said Wednesday.

[…]

The two have spoken recently and Lieberman, who has generally supported the White House's policies against terrorists, found "he's going to the U.N. not to destroy it, but to reform it."

On the other hand, the senator said, "I'm troubled by what seems to be a repeated record of difficulty by people working with him and for him."

The committee delayed a Tuesday vote on Bolton after new allegations surfaced, notably a report that he threatened a female government contractor.

Lieberman said he wants to study the situation further. "I have not reached any conclusions," he said.

Yeesh. I still can’t believe this guy was the Dems’ VP nominee at one point. How embarrassing.

2. Rep. John Graham Altman

Our next twat of the day is South Carolina Rep. John Graham Altman, who killed a bill that would have protected the victims of domestic abuse against their batterers and raised a domestic battery charge in SC to a felony from a misdemeanor. (Yes, that’s correct—domestic battery is still considered a misdemeanor in SC.) Altman explained:

“I mean you women want it one way and not another. Women want to punish the men, and I do not understand why women continue to go back around men who abuse them… tell me what self respecting person is going back around someone who beats them?”

Probably not many, but that’s the problem with being a victim of sustained abuse—self-respect ain’t that easy to come by.

Altman did, however, find it in his heart to protect gamecocks from cockfights the same week he killed the domestic abuse bill.

“I was all for that. Cockfighting reminds me of the Roman circus, coliseum.”

Give the man props for consistency. Either way, if you’re a cock, he’s got your back.

3. Senator Rick Santorum

Our third twat of the day is none other than Rick Santorum, the handsome heterosexual lunatic currently serving as Republican Senator for the proud state of Pennsylvania. I know he’s been up to a lot lately, what with comparing gays to bestialists and trying to eradicate the filibuster, but this time, his twatitude is more in the Tom DeLay-bought-by-corporate-interests kind of area. After having received nearly $4,000 from AccuWeather’s founder and executive VP, Santorum last week introduced a bill proposing that federal meteorologists be banned from competing from companies such as (ta-dum!) AccuWeather and the Weather Channel!

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) introduced the bill last week. The senator's supporters (among them the founder and executive vice president of AccuWeather) note the bill provides an exemption that would allow organizations the National Hurricane Center from alerting the public to hazards.

"The National Weather Service has not focused on what its core mission should be, which is protecting other people's lives and property," said Barry Myers, the Executive Vice President of AccuWeather told the Palm Beach Post Thursday. "It spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year, every day, producing forecasts of 'warm and sunny.'"

Um, yeah. They also do things like help warn people about hurricanes and tornados, which are, in case the federal government has forgotten, not just convenient tragedies for funneling federal money to swing states.

A spokesman for Florida's Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson was taken aback by Santorum's bill, questioning the intelligence of a bill that the senator believes might be dangerous in the wake of several hurricanes.

"The weather service proved so instrumental and popular and helpful in the wake of the hurricanes," Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin told the Post. "How can you make an argument that we should pull it off the Net now? What are you going to do, charge hurricane victims to go online, or give them a pop-up ad?"

In a release Apr. 14, Santorum said the bill was sorely needed.

“With the support of my colleagues, we can pass this legislation to modernize the description of the National Weather Service’s roles within the national weather enterprise, so that it reflects today’s reality in which the National Weather Service and the commercial weather industry both play important parts in providing weather products and services to the nation,” Santorum said.

In other words, just another privatization scheme bought and paid for by the private enterprises who most stand to benefit from it.

4. Former Texas TV News Anchor John Criswell

This guy is just off the charts:

Tuesday's Volunteer Center of Collin County lunch was not the appropriate place for former longtime local TV news anchor John Criswell to make statements about personal religious beliefs, the center's executive director said.

[…]

"I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, every word of it," Criswell told almost 600 attendees.. "Like many other evangelical Christians, I understand that my only purpose on earth...the only reason I take up space and breathe in air...is to add to God's Kingdom, and when that purpose has been completed. I know where I will be for eternity."

[…]

Criswell's speech also linked the news media to Satan.

Until the media stops portraying people of faith as "crackpots and dangerous zealots no different from fanatics who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center...the fight is not over," he said.

Referring to an earlier linguistic comment that listeners infer, but speakers imply, he added, "Did I just infer that some in the media in America are acting as the tools of Satan? No. Remember, you infer, I imply," he said.

Okay, Nutty.

Gee, I can’t imagine why anyone would assume he’s a crackpot, or a zealot, or a fanatic. Someone who takes an opportunity to address a crowd, there to hear about a Volunteer Center, about how the media is a tool of the devil is perfectly reasonable and totally not crackpottish, zealous, or fanatical. Ahem.

This ends our examination of twattery for today. I could go on (and on and on), but there’s only so much time in a day.