Replies

The full list -

1) SEAN HANNITY, TALK-SHOW HOST
Americans know about Bill Ayers and ACORN primarily because of Hannity, who reaches 13 million intellectually pliable listeners every week through his radio show, in addition to his nightly and weekly shows on Fox News, his bestselling books, and even a conservative dating service. Though Limbaugh has more radio numbers, the blowhard Hannity has the scary momentum.

2) RICHARD LOWRY, EDITOR, NATIONAL REVIEW
Lowry, who insists that waterboarding is not torture and who blogged that Palin winked to him personally during her debate, is the guy who decides which knee-jerk reactionary simpletons — currently including Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Mark R. Levin, Andy McCarthy, Ed Whelan, Byron York, Stanley Kurtz, Michael Ledeen, and Michael Barone — get read by every conservative in the country.

3) MIKE PENCE, US REPRESENTATIVE, INDIANA
Pence, a former talk-show host, famously declared that Baghdad in early 2007 was “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.” He is likely to become House minority leader, and forget Mitt Romney — this is the guy the wingnuts want to nominate for president.

4) MATT DRUDGE, BLOGGER
His site gets more visitors than many of the biggest national journalism outlets, and is the place where Republican campaigns and party officials spread their terrifying talking points. A week before the election, he unveiled that new “Obama is a socialist” story that re-energized the wackos.

5) BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR, WEEKLY STANDARD; COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES
Kristol has a knack for the disastrous: he reportedly championed Palin for veep after meeting her on a conservatives’ cruise; earlier, he championed the invasion of Iraq as an easy romp. Apparently, conservatives will follow him in any idiotic direction.

6) ROGER AILES, PRESIDENT, FOX NEWS
Ailes, with his mentor Lee Atwater, created the “Willie Horton” strategy that helped sink Michael Dukakis in 1988. He brings the same approach to the slipping-in-overall-stature network that is still the conservative oasis for news and opinion.

7) RUSH LIMBAUGH, TALK-SHOW HOST
Still the number-one-rated talk-radio host and media hockey goon, Limbaugh most recently smeared Colin Powell for endorsing Obama — although not with as much flair as he once mocked Michael J. Fox for having a degenerative disease.

8) LAURA INGRAHAM, TALK-SHOW HOST
Anti-elitist from posh Glastonbury, Connecticut, by way of Ivy League Dartmouth, Ingraham is the one right-wing bloviator considered sane enough to be seen in public with — despite her constant bashing of homosexuals, Hispanics, and anyone who wishes to help the disadvantaged.

9) JON KYL, US SENATOR, ARIZONA
Kyl, who sports a sky-high 97 lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, was the first to defend Limbaugh last year, when the radio monstrosity called veterans who oppose the Iraq War “phony soldiers.” Already the minority whip, Kyl could become Senate minority leader if Mitch McConnell is voted out of office next week.

10) JEB HENSARLING, US REPRESENTATIVE, TEXAS
Hensarling led the Republican defeat of the financial bailout bill — “a slippery slope to socialism,” he called it — as chair of the Republican Study Committee, which is the super-conservatives’ caucus on Capital Hill.

11) ED FEULNER, PRESIDENT, HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Feulner ensures that conservative bloviators have smart-sounding rationales for defending their irrational beliefs.

12) SARAH PALIN, GOVERNOR, ALASKA
There is talk of recruiting the Pentecostal moose-killing miracle mom to be the next RNC chair.

13) FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND CONSULTANT, FOX NEWS The most ubiquitous pollster in America, Luntz has a mad genius for convincing conservatives that everybody agrees with them.

14) GLENN BECK, TALK-SHOW HOST
Moving in 2009 to his natural home, Fox News, Beck’s infantile extremism will only become more influential.

15) WAYNE LAPIERRE, CEO, NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION
A Boston College grad, LaPierre is now perhaps the most powerful of the “movement conservative” organizers, who have formed a slapped-together ideology out of a group of unrelated special interests. (Promoted a few spots in our standings because of all the, you know, guns.)

16) ELISABETH HASSELBECK, CO-HOST, THE VIEW
BC grad, Survivor contestant, and young yenta Hasselbeck has unlimited potential within conservative circles. Recently earned Palin’s praise for defending her wardrobe-expenditure malfunction.

17) PAUL GIGOT, EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR, WALL STREET JOURNAL
Gigot is the main conduit for giving mainstream credence to dangerous right-wing ideas.

18) MICHELLE MALKIN, BLOGGER
Malkin’s own Web site, and her Hot Air site, are two of the five most trafficked and linked-to blog sites on the Web for conservatives. Her defense of the US’s internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II set the stage for conservative backing for Bush’s constitutional abuses in Guantánamo and elsewhere.

19) ERIC CANTOR, US REPRESENTATIVE, VIRGINIA
One of the most pro-business members of Congress, Cantor also led the fight against “amnesty” for immigrants, and for congressional intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo. Conservatives were drooling over rumors that he was on McCain’s V-P short list.

20) THOMAS WINTER, PRESIDENT AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, HUMAN EVENTS
Winter is also vice-chairman of the ultra, mega, uber, ur, super-crazy right-wing American Conservative Union. (His online editor, Jed Babbin, is also worthy of this list.)

21) AMANDA CARPENTER, REPORTER/BLOGGER, TOWNHALL.COM
Carpenter, a non-stop cable-TV presence, is only 24 years old and is ridiculous, and yet is already one of the most important shapers of how conservatives take in news.

22) RICHARD LAND, PRESIDENT, THE ETHICS AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION
His justification for the Iraq War solidified the link between the neocons and the Christian conservatives.

23) PHILIP ANSCHUTZ, MULTI-BILLIONAIRE
Anschutz is probably the most important among the ultra-rich funders of the super-conservative movement.

24) PAUL WEYRICH, COLUMNIST
His column in NewsMax and the Washington Times helps set the agenda of conservative thought.

25) KATON DAWSON, CHAIR, SOUTH CAROLINA GOP
The right tried to get him to run for Senate against Republican Lindsay Graham this year. He’s your likely next RNC chair. Buckle up.