For the past two months, Idiocy Watch has been our attempt to keep up with all the dumb and outrageous things said about America and the terrorists. Last week we asked readers to vote for the comment they considered to be the dumbest, most outrageous to date. More than 7,000 votes later, here are the results, in reverse order:

9. "Six men [the heads of Viacom, Fox News Corp., Disney, Vivendi, Sony, and Time Warner-AOL] are deciding what you're seeing in film, and they own all the small companies.... Now, within reason, they let [filmmakers] do certain things, and that is far better obviously than, say, the Arabs where they don't let you do anything, and I agree it's relative. But we are in a dilemma. We have too much order.... And I think the revolt on September 11 was about order. It was about fuck you, fuck your order... And is it time perhaps to reconsider the world order? Is it time to wonder why the banks have joined the movie companies and all the corporations, and where this is all going?" --Oliver Stone, quoted by Jeffrey Wells on Reel.com, October 10

8. "How we dare even prate about democracy is beyond me. Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale. It's far worse than anything that occurred in the Roman empire, until the praetorian guard started to sell the principate. We're not a democracy, and we have absolutely nothing to give the world in the way of political ideas or political arrangements." --Gore Vidal, interview with the New Statesman, October 15

7. "Civilization is Genocide" --banner carried by protesters in Berlin on October 8, as seen in an AP photo by Markus Schreiber

6. "In a situation like this, of course you identify with everyone who's suffering. [But we must also think about] the terrorists who are creating such horrible future lives for themselves because of the negativity of this karma. It's all of our jobs to keep our minds as expansive as possible. If you can see [the terrorists] as a relative who's dangerously sick and we have to give them medicine, and the medicine is love and compassion. There's nothing better." --Richard Gere, in an interview with ABCNEWS Radio, October 10

5. "It may have seemed meaningless at the time, but now we know why 7,000 people sacrificed their lives: So that we'd all forget how Bush stole a presidential election." --Cartoonist Ted Rall, Philadelphia City Paper, September 27

4. "If I see someone come in that's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt [wrapped] around [it], that guy needs to be pulled over and checked." --Representative John Cooksey (R-Louisiana), September 17

3. "There will be no emancipation for women anywhere on this planet until the Western domination of this planet is ended." --Sunera Thobani, professor at the University of British Columbia, speaking at a feminist conference in Ottawa, October 1

2. "In a war on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden will either be left alive, while thousands of impoverished, frightened people are bombed into oblivion around him, or he will be killed in a bombing attack for which he seems quite prepared. But what would happen to his cool armor if he could be reminded of all the good, nonviolent things he has done? Further, what would happen to him if he could be brought to understand the preciousness of the lives he has destroyed? I firmly believe the only punishment that works is love." --Alice Walker, The Village Voice, October 9 issue

And, squeaking out a win with 18.6 percent of the votes:

1. "Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California--these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!" --Michael Moore, Michaelmoore.com, September 12

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Answers

P.S. From TheNewRepublic.com

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

I'm totally speechless.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

Pity they weren't!

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001

richard gere makes me want to vomit

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001