Randi Rhodes: Dictators & Divas

In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak is suspected of having squirreled away some $70 billion. It seems being a dictator in Egypt is almost as lucrative as being a lobbyist in the United States. While Mubarak and his cronies amassed wealth, 40 percent of Egyptians make less than $2 per day. They may be struggling to get a political system like ours, but they already have an economic system a lot like ours.

Sign of the times: the official site for the Egyptian Presidency is literally “under construction.”

With all the craziness in Egypt, we’ve barely had time to look at the craziness at home. This weekend was CPAC, the biggest gathering of loons outside of waterfowl migratory routes. Conservatives are searching for their 2012 presidential candidate. It’s hard—they have to find someone who they like that a person in their right mind would also like, and there’s no overlap there. Case in point, Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll for the second year in a row. Mitt Romney came in second. The fact that people like Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty command even a little respect at CPAC proves that conservatives don’t have to be crazy. You can succeed to a degree by just pretending to be crazy. Sarah Palin, who did not attend, only got three percent of the straw poll vote. But then I’m sure that if she had chosen to attend, and to speak before the conference, that number would be a lot lower.

Hour Two Guest: David Weigel, journalist for Slate & MSNBC, will join Randi to recap the CPAC convention.

Old school conservatives are upset about “disrespectful libertarians” who they say have hijacked the CPAC conference. Conservatives want to give the rich and corporations free reign to do whatever they want. Libertarians agree with that, but they want everybody else to have free reign too. In the libertarian world, we’d all be at the mercy of the wealthy, but at least we’d be able to get stoned and forget about it.

Did you catch the Grammy Awards show? After successfully performing in a tribute to Aretha Franklin, Christina Aguilera took a pratfall on stage. I guess the poor girl can’t remember lyrics and walk at the same time. Justin Beiber’s fans are livid that he didn’t win the Grammy for best new artist. I would tell Justin Beiber’s fans to grow up, but then they wouldn’t be Justin Beiber’s fans, would they?

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Hosni Mubarak says farewell and offers his special thanks to America in this SNL spoof…