How did we get here? And are we all really this stupid?

What I mean is, how did we get to the place we are now, where a wack-job like Sharron Angle, of all people, can say things like the following, as examples, and be in a tight race for a Senate seat out in Nevada against Harry Reid?

--"I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out." --interview with right-wing talk radio host Lars Larson in Portland, OR, January 2010

--"People ask me, 'What are you going to do to develop jobs in your state?' Well, that's not my job as a U.S. senator."  --May 14, 2010

--"We needed to have the press be our friend ... We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported." --during an interview with Fox News Channel's Carl Cameron, Aug. 2, 2010

--"You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job, but it doesn't pay as much. And so that's what's happened to us is that we have put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry and said you don't want the jobs that are available." --on unemployment benefits, interview with KRNO, July 14, 2010

--"The Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. The Department of Education is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level." --July 12, 2010

--"When I said privatize, that's what I meant. That I thought we would just have to go to the private sector for a template on how this is supposed to be done. However, I've since been studying and Chile has done this." --explaining why Social Security should be phased out in favor of a system resembling the one created in the 1980s by right-wing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Aug. 12, 2010

"I think that two wrongs don't make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade." --Sharron Angle, explaining why she is against abortion even in cases of rape or incest, July 8, 2010

"Government shouldn't be doing that to a private company. And I think you named it clearly: It's a slush fund." -- on the BP escrow account set up at President Obama's urging to pay out oil spill claims, Alan Stock Show, July 7, 2010

"They [Republicans] say, 'You're too conservative.' Was Thomas Jefferson too conservative? I'm tired of some people calling me wacky." --March 21, 2010

Okay, Harry Reid isn't perfect and he's no saint and Nevada can no doubt do better in their representation--you can always find someone "better", one way or another but at least he doesn't say patently stupid, outrageous things, rapid-fire, again and again on the record.

Then, here in Missouri, you've got someone like Roy Blunt, for pity's sake, who's been in Washington 14 years, and there's this huge anti-incumbent sentiment but he's ahead in the polls and he's been shown--factually--to be as dirty a politician as about there ever was. 

Why is Roy Blunt leading in the polls, people?  Are we really that stupid? 

Sure, he's got name recognition and there's the incumbency thing on his side to campaign, you can't deny that, and then the corporations and all his wealthy friends are backing him because they know if he gets back in there he'll take care of them all with his votes but really---are we all that dumb?

It surely seems so.

Links:  http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/republicanquotes/a/Sharron-Angle-Quotes.htm;
http://citizensforethics.org/crew-26-lawmakers-corrupting-halls-congress

UPDATE:  Mon 10/18/10:  LAS VEGAS – Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle told dozens of Hispanic high school students last week that "some of you look a little more Asian to me..."


Man, she's not very bright.  (I'm trying to be nice)

I'd love Tea Party member quotes---if they didn't believe what they said

The Most Ridiculous Tea Party Quotes Wednesday August 4, 2010 A roundup of the most idiotic and outrageous statements made by the nation's most prominent Tea Partiers: "We needed to have the press be our friend ... We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported." —Nevada GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, during an interview with Fox News "I guarantee it's one of their long-term goals, to have one sort of borderless mass continent.'' —Kentucky GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, on the future of North America and secret U.S. plans for a European Union-style merger with Mexico and Canada Tea Party candidate Ken Buck, after being asked why people should vote for him for the Colorado GOP Senate nomination: ''Because I do not wear high heels. She (Buck's GOP primary opponent) has questioned my manhood, and I think it's fair to respond. I have cowboy boots, they have real bulls**t on them. And that's Weld County bulls**t, not Washington, D.C., bulls**t.'' ''There's a communist living in the White House.'' —Former SNL star and Tea Partier Victoria Jackson, at the Tea Party's Tax Day protest in Wahington, D.C., April 15, 2010 ''He has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity.''—Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), member of the Tea Party Caucus, on President Obama's decision to fund international family planning organizations that support legal abortion, Sept. 26, 2009 For more wonderful, utterly stupid quotes from Tea Party members, go here: http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bl-tea-party-quotes.htm