Contest Results: Bachmann Wins "Craziest In Congress" Title

The challenge was: name a member of Congress is crazier than my crazy congresswoman, Michele Bachmann (R-MN, 6th District).

Now remember, we were trying to figure out “who’s the craziest”—we’re not going for “worst”, “evil,” “corrupt,” “degenerate,” or “just plain stupid” here (although any of those qualities will not disqualify a crazy candidate.) We’re looking for congressional representatives who’ve said or done more “crazy things” than Bachmann—on the record, in the news.

The response to the challenge was overwhelming, given the fact that I’ve only been writing in to the Kos for a month and nobody knows or cares who the f I am. Here are some of the names that were entered.

Tom Tancredo (R-CO, 6th District) kept coming up regularly. Representative Tancredo has apparently suggested bombing Mecca and adopting a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) against the Muslim world. He has helped to found the “Americans Have Had Enough” Coalition and appeared at one of their functions to sing “Dixie” wearing a Confederate officer’s uniform. (Tancredo’s a pretty good entry, I must admit. Trying to revive the MAD doctrine to ensure the destruction of billions of Muslims if we are once again subjected to a terrorist attack, and singing Dixie while wearing a Confederate officer’s uniform—well, that certainly puts you in the Michele class. But it does not make you the champ.)

Steve King (R-IA) sounds like a contender. He's a reeeeal piece of work. According to a commenter on Kos, King has:
…compared Abu Ghraib to a frat party.
…insisted that Baghdad was safer than Washington DC.
…played with a Lego border wall on the House floor.
…equated illegal immigrants with serial rapists and cattle.
…professed his admiration for Joe McCarthy, "American hero."
(Not bad, not bad. I liked the part where he played with the “Lego border wall” thing on the floor of Congress. Was that on C-Span? Did he have tiny little Mexican action figures climbing over it?)

Another Kos commenter insisted that he had won because Dan Burton (R-IN) was crazier than Michele. He reported that Burton had attempted to feel up a Planned Parenthood representative and once invited reporters into his backyard to watch him shoot up a watermelon with a pistol (to prove that Bill Clinton had Vince Foster murdered.)
He noted the extraordinarily sleazy nature of Burton’s career; extraordinary since Burton had been chair of the House Government Reform Committee. (But “endless sleaze” does not equal “craziness.” I gave Burton big points for inviting the press over his house to watch him shoot up a watermelon, which, in his mind, proved that Clinton was a murderer. Very, very good, but simply not enough to get you into the Bachmann League. One swallow does not a summer make; one home run doesn’t make you Ted Williams.)

Among the other suggested contenders were Sue Myrick (NC-9), Virginia Foxx (NC-5), and of course “Mean Jean Schmidt” (R-OH). Schmidt is the one who drew national attention to herself by suggesting that 38 year Marine Corp veteran Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) was a cowardly, cut-and-run type. (Okay, that’s stupid and mean and represents the worst in politics—but “crazy?” As for other contenders, it’s no good just to send in the name, you got to give the evidence to play.)

Anyway—I declare myself and Bachmann the winners (so far), on the basis of the sheer weight of documented evidence which I provided when I entered her name in the lists. Nobody else even came close to providing ten documented incidents of craziness, like we did. (Picture me holding up her hand in the air; we’re smiling—the champions. Cue the balloons, confetti and tickertape.)

And we fought with one hand tied behind our backs. There was a lot of other documented stuff I could have used—stuff out of her own mouth. But I didn’t use it—the quotes on why evolution is bullshit, the “let’s keep the nuke option available for Iran,” etc. I didn’t even have to go there, to claim the championship.

But Michele and I will go there--if we have to--to keep the crown. (It is an actual crown, by the way. It is made out of tin foil and Christmas lights and keeps the aliens from taking over her mind.) And remember—Bachmann’s only been in Congress three months. Keep watching the skies...