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September 12, 2014      4:42 PM

Stanford: Time for GOP to deal with Gohmert

From the left: "It’s time for Republicans to put Gohmert down in front of the cartoons with a juice box. We’ve got enough real problems in the world without making up fake ones."

There are a lot of offensive ways to observe 9/11. A yoga studio near DC offered a 20% off sale (“9 + 11 = 20% OFF!”), and a sex toy company soberly tweeted remembrance of “those lost, & honor those still fighting for freedom.” But the most off-putting way to remember the terrorist attacks on 9/11 was by Rep. Louie Gohmert, who thinks of Sep. 11 as the anniversary of Benghazi, or as he says it, “BENGHAZI!!”

If this were a just world in which a person was judged by his merits and rose in life accordingly, Louie Gohmert would be relegated to writing the sorts of letters to the editor that are never published. He is a cranky man who needs no tin foil to achieve flights of self-assured delusion. He should be mowing lawns for a living and attending John Birch meetings in the evenings. But he’s from East Texas, so he’s a congressman.

It’s guys like Gohmert who have earned congress record-low approval ratings, lower even than colonoscopies, head lice, and root canals. Of course, liberals have their crazies, too. Go to any precinct meeting, and you’ll encounter earnest activists in bedazzled sweatshirts who will insist that George W. Bush allowed 9/11 to happen so that he could invade Iraq so Halliburton could get the oil to make Dick Cheney wealthier. But we don’t elect these people to congress.

Republican primary voters have decided to treat the United States House of Representatives like a tea party meeting and have turned the gavel over to folks like Gohmert, who believe—despite all documented evidence to the contrary—there remain legitimate questions about the president’s birthplace.

Check out the rest of Jason Stanford's column in today's R&D Department

By Jason Stanford