Is it me, or have the right wing pundits and politicians all gone bonkers?

First the President denies having said, "we will stay the course"; and then that idiot John Spencer in New York calls Hillary "ugly" -- and follows up with even sillier (and untrue) remarks; then Limbaugh disses Michael J. Fox for his disease symptoms; ... and now, we have Republican Representative Dave Reichert, whom I met when I lived in Bellevue (his district), stating out of the clear blue that it is his opinion that Global Warming isn't affected by human beings and that modernity's pollution has not given us increased levels of carbon dioxide.

Huh?

Even Al Gore, who is ordinarily calm, was shocked. "Did he say that?" he interrupted when Reichert's opponent commented on Reichert's statements in Seattle on Tuesday ... and then as the conversation (same subject) continued, his face appeared to turn red.

"C'mon! ... and this man is a United States Congressman?" he asked. "You know, 15% of the people in this country believe that the moon landing was staged on some movie lot and an even smaller number believe that the earth is flat! They must all get together on Saturday night and party with the Global Warming deniers."

The Republican members of Congress in my beloved state of Washington have scored pretty low as regards how Washington's Republican Congressmen (and women) displayed their attentiveness to the environment in their voting records. For that and other reasons, Al Gore was here (shown above with Senator Marie Cantwell and Rep. Reichert's opponent, Darcy Burner -- smiling just behind Gore and Cantwell in the photo), in a combination fund-raiser for Cantwell and Burner ... plus urging folks to get out and see An Inconvenient Truth.

Are the Republicans deliberately trying to look like the 21st Century version of the "know nothing" party? My belief in not discussing the Republicans' gay and lesbian sexual orientation (it's truly their own business!) does not extend to discussing their mental prowess ... but what the hell ... everyone reads the newspapers and watches the evening television newscasts ... and doesn't need an unknown blogger to remind them of the genius of our current leadership. Just Google "bushisms"!