KEITH OLBERMANN: First — because these people may or may not be alive, but they're just as much trouble as the un-dead — here are "Countdown's" top three nominees for today's "Worst Persons in the World."
The bronze? Ann Coulter, speaking to the clown college that was the Conservative Political Action Conference, in which she compared President Obama to rapper and reality TV performer Flavor Flav.
(Excerpt from video clip) ANN COULTER: Voters with forty years of politically correct education are ecstatic to have the first black president. They just love the idea of it, even if we did get Flavor Flav instead of Thomas Sowell.
OLBERMANN: Now, the difficulty with that, beyond the insult, and the haplessly dated cultural reference — Flavor Flav? — the difficulty with comparing somebody to Flavor Flav is that it inspires others to compare you to figures associated with Flavor Flav. Like Amanda "Ice" Dohner from season three of Flavor Flav's "Flavor Of Love." Makes you yearn for the picture of Wayland Flowers and Madame, doesn't it, Annie?
The silver tonight to Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas. The man who once earmarked nearly a million dollars of road improvements around his own home, he has been caught using his position in the House to try to make a business profit. Why would one do this, when one's financial disclosures become public?
Congressman Smith's includes a very sad timeline. In July 2010, Smith and the rest of the Border, Maritime and Global Counter-Terrorism subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee, conducted a hearing on sensor equipment in Predator drones being used to try to catch drug smugglers coming over the Mexican border. They were told that the sensors were made by FLIR Systems.
Not long after the hearing, FLIR Systems got a large chunk of $600 million in new funding for border-security equipment, including Predator drone sensors. Within three months, Congressman Smith began buying stock in FLIR Systems. A purchase of between $1,000 and $15, 000 in FLIR stock on October 4th. Another purchase of between $1,000 and $15,000 in FLIR stock on October 6th, same thing on October 15th and November 10th and December 10th.
And then, in January 2011, FLIR Systems got another federal contract, for $101 million. Smith's office claims the purchases were made by a blind trust. And if that dubious claim really is true, then we need to worship that blind trust and bring it sacrifices of goats and frankincense, because all those guys can tell the future.
But our winner tonight? Congressman Steve King of Iowa.
He took to the CPAC circus to announce that he has succeeded against forces so evil that they merited comparison to the Stasi, the East German secret police of the '70s and '80s — Capitol Hill operations staffers who were in charge of upgrading the light bulbs to those energy-efficient ones.
"So I got this green bag right here. And I filled it up with the black-market light bulbs. And I brought them back to my office here in the Capitol. Whenever I need to put a bulb in the lamp, I reach in this green bag and I screw it in there and smile. A little bit of my liberty back. A little bit of our freedom back. And I want to challenge you to do the same thing. Bring back some of that liberty, some of that freedom."
King went on to attribute his loss of light-bulb freedom to quote "Nancy's Stasi troops," which sounds like a great line in Congressman King's endless war against mental health. Except Mr. King seems to have not noticed that the Republicans won the House in November 2010, so that for the last thirteen months, the people who have him by the light bulbs would be John Boehner's Stasi troops.
Representative Steve "How Many Congressmen Does It Take To Screw Up A Light-Bulb Story" King of Iowa. Today's "Worst Person In The World."
