Dumbfuckery du Jour

A cornucopia of dumbfuckery for ye today, my darlings.

Let us lead with one of the dumbest states in the union, my old home state of Arizona, where the governor has resorted to puppet shows in an attempt to ridicule her critics:

In recent days, the right has been attacking Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for criticizing Arizona’s draconian new immigration law without having read the entire text of the bill. Now, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has employed a frog puppet to mock Napolitano and Holder in a newly released campaign video.

[snip]

While Holder and Napolitano should probably have read the bill, they were, as Andrea Nill writes on the Wonk Room, “likely briefed by someone who had read SB-1070 in detail.” Brewer’s video simply attempts to distract the public from the substantive problems with the legislation.

The last refuge of the xenophobic ignorant is a sock-puppet theater.  Oh, and it turns out Arizona's law isn't just very likely unconstitutional, but in violation of international covenants as well.  When my old home state fucks up, they certainly fuck up big.

This year's an election year, and the Cons have quite the field developing.  We have Rand "Fuck Civil Rights and ADA" Paul, whose dumbfuckery only begins with his confusion over the Civil Rights Act and continues on through a veritable bazaar of inane loony-libertarian beliefs.  But don't let his burning stupidity blind you to the glow coming off of other candidates, such as Idaho's Vaughn "Don't Care What It Is" Ward:

In Idaho, Vaughn Ward is running for the Republican nomination in Idaho's 1st House district, and has received a fair amount of support from prominent right-wing voices. On Friday, former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Fox News) even made a campaign appearance with him.

But Ward is quickly becoming one of the year's most embarrassing candidates.

Idaho Republican Vaughn Ward has already come under fire for mimicking other candidates' policy language on his website, but now the congressional candidate is facing accusations of plagiarizing from another source: President Barack Obama.

In a kickoff speech for his campaign in January, Ward used language that closely followed Obama's 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention, and a conservative Idaho blog spliced together the two sets of remarks to show their similarities, accusing Ward of cribbing from Obama's remarks.

After watching the video released by a local far-right activist, it's hard to deny the fact that parts of Ward's speech were lifted directly, word for word, from Obama's 2004 speech. In fact, it seems more than a little bizarre that Ward and his campaign would assume no one would notice -- that '04 convention speech was pretty widely seen. Someone was bound to think, "Wait, that sounds kind of familiar."

[snip]

What's more, Ward seems to keep running into trouble. Last week, he was asked in a debate whether he would vote in Congress to support Puerto Rican statehood, Ward said he opposes "extending statehood to some, to any other country," adding that he doesn't care "what country ... wants to become part of America." Told that Puerto Rico is an American territory, not a foreign country, Ward said, "I really don't care what it is."

Ignorance and unoriginality!  Quite the combo.  I'm sure he'd be the Teabaggers' most favoritest candidate if he wasn't filching bits from Obama's speeches.  It's apparent no one ever educated Ward on what a U.S. territory is and why it's important to understand the difference between one of our own territories and an actual foreign country, but I'd at least have thought he'd be schooled that Obama = Hitler/Mao/Stalin/TheAntichrist.  Just seems strange to me that a far-right nutjob who thinks all Puerto Ricans are filthy furriners would filch from someone so despised by the rabid right wackaloons he's trying to woo.

And yet, even his weapons-grade stupidity just doesn't seem quite the match for someone who doesn't even realize Jack Bauer's a fictional character:

Chuck DeVore, a California state legislator and Tea Party-backed candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, has a new Web video claiming that "Jack Bauer," the protagonist of the action-adventure show 24, would support him for Senate. 

I wish I could say I was feeling more confident about solid Democratic majorities being comfortably elected this fall, but I'm not sure - too many voters don't pay attention to politics, and so those middle-of-the-road conservatives who reflexively vote R might not notice that all the sane Rs have become Ds, and all that's left with Rs after their names are a bunch of batshit insane fucktards without a lick of common decency or common sense in 'em.  George was right: the Republican party's in trouble.  I just hope staunch Republican voters realize it in time.

Bonus dumbfuckery o' the day: Faux News craftily cut out the applause for Obama's West Point speech.   Fair and balanced in name, but not in game, as always.

And here's another Faux News Moment that makes me wish I had a clip of Rocko's Modern Life handy.  Alas, all I can do is point you to the relevant quote:

Filburt Shellbach: Ed! Ed! You have been charged with treason. How do you plead, froggy-lips?
Heffer Wolfe: He looks funny.
Filburt Shellbach: Shut up! Ed, I am your conscience.
Heffer Wolfe: I'm his conscience, too.
Filburt Shellbach: What?
Heffer Wolfe: Don't say I, say we.
Filburt Shellbach: What?
Heffer Wolfe: We! We!
Filburt Shellbach: All right. Wee-wee!
Heffer Wolfe: [Snickers] You said "wee-wee." Say it again.
Filburt Shellbach: Wee-wee!

Hey, if AZ's governor can attack people with frogs, I can hit Faux with a Nickelodeon kid's show.  At least Rocko is actually funny.