Allen West, 2011 Winner:
America's Dumbest Congressman
The indefatigably moronic Rep. Allen West (R-FL), via
Politico:
"If Joseph Goebbels was around, he'd be very proud of the Democrat Party because they have an incredible propaganda machine," West told reporters in the Capitol. "I think that you have, and let's be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit in this, in enabling them to get that type of message out."
West was responding to a question about Congress’s low poll numbers and the fact that public blame is centered more on the Republicans.
The GOP being more blamed for Congress sucking than Democrats are is evidence that Democrats are like Nazis. Got it. What's that? He's got more to say?
The freshman Republican, whose district is in heavily Jewish South Florida, said his reference to Goebbels wasn’t designed to link Democrats to the overall Nazi party.
"I'm talking about propaganda, OK," he said. "Don't start taking my words and twisting it around. I'm talking about propaganda. [...]"
"Once again, you guys will take whatever I say and you will spin it to try to demonize me or demagogue me,” West added. “What I'm talking about is a person that was the minister of propaganda. And I'm talking about propaganda. So please. I'll be prepared to wake up tomorrow and you guys make up some crazy story. Whatever."
OK, reparsing it again: Allen West says his enemies are like Nazi propagandists, but don't go quoting him all out of context and suggesting that when he called them Nazi propagandists, he meant Nazi propagandists. He just meant the propagandist part, not the Nazi part, and you pointing out the very blatant, obvious Nazi part is just demonizing him and making up "some crazy story." I have no joke here, because Allen West is his own joke.
I ... I swear. It's difficult to even make fun of these people at this point. Yes, America is led by terribly stupid people. Yes, the 2010 elections brought us a Republican wave of, well, truly execrable little dimwits, people who probably shouldn't be trusted with car keys, much less political power. And yes, Florida is a haven for this stuff; hell, they elected as governor a guy whose singular biggest accomplishment in life was somehow not ending up in prison for his other accomplishments in life. We're not exactly in a golden age for political discourse.
But when presented with the clown car that is the current Republican caucus, and the constant ridiculousness of people like Allen West, there's really just not much left to say. Apparently, this is all we can expect from our politicians.
Look, I know there's plenty of competition. There's Steve King, and Peter King, and Michele Bachmann, and, hell, just no end of people, but I'm calling it. I know the year's not quite over, I'm calling it anyway. You can't stop me. I hereby declare that Allen West, of the great state of Florida, wins the 2011 prize for America's Dumbest Congressman.
I trust I don't have to justify that statement. Others might be meaner, or even more dishonest, or outright crooks. Others might be bigger panderers or more accomplished hacks. But dumbest? It's not even close.
As a side note, Steve Benen points out that when a Democrat mentioned Goebbels a while back, the resulting Fox News shitstorm nearly caused seizures among their reporters and pundits. Anyone planning on holding their breath while waiting for them to respond with similar outrage to this should summon the ambulance beforehand, please.