Politics can be as serious as a heart attack, with unemployment and other issues like climate change being talked about. I mean there is nothing funny about being out of work.

But taking a page out of Governor Jindal handbook it is time to be a bit irreverent. Let’s admit it, you can’t make this stuff up.

When Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said that Republicans do not want to be known as the party of stupid, it got me thinking. Of course, Republicans don’t have a monopoly on stupid.

As our great American political philosopher, Forrest Gump, once said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Or as I like to say, you just can’t fix stupid.

When I was a teenager, I lived at a time when John F. Kennedy was in office and we were coming to the end of a fabulous historical era with, a succession of very strong Presidents. President Kennedy challenged Americans to serve their country and to do something in life that was larger than ourselves. Public service was admired and we had the best and the brightest going out and working in the Peace Corp and serving in Congress. We looked up to those of our father’s generation as politicians to admire irrespective of political party.

Not everyone can run for office, you need to be smart enough and honest enough to stay above the fray. Now we have candidates for high office that I will never forget.

Who can forget Congresswoman Michele Bachman teach us history in one of her debates? Here I am a historian, but I never knew that Paul Revere, on that hallowed night ride many years ago, was helping the British. Who knew? She added to the lore of the rogues gallery of candidates by also stating that the founders had solved the slavery problem. Really!!!

Then there was the television interview with our dear sweet Sarah Palin. And my God was she popular, on talk radio after she was chosen by Senator McCain to be his V.P. candidate, the listeners called in, with the wise comments such as I am going to vote for her because she is hot.

Many men now fill the rogues gallery of the cast of many who have reached their level of maximum efficiency. For all of the men out there, who have chosen to stupidly attack women. Hey guys, women vote!

What science class have they taken to say that women when raped can control whether or not they get pregnant? A candidate from Missouri, I believe Akin, an actual congressman actually said that. It just goes on and on.

Then there are the birthers, who blindly go forward, claiming that the President was born in another country. I, even read, that in a document on line, it states that his place of birth was in a city, supposedly in Kenya. Look up your geography before you try that one again because that city was not even a part of Kenya in 1961.

A certified copy of the President’s birth record from Hawaii was not enough to satisfy these so-called citizens. By the way, did you know that an American woman who is pregnant can give birth anywhere and still by law be an American citizen? Senator McCain was born in the Canal Zone but I did not hear anyone complain. Could it be because he is white?

President Obama’s mother was white and from Kansas, look it up. President Obama is a human being. It seems to this observer that a lot of peoples bigotry is showing in claiming that he is not one of us. Bigotry is not funny, but claiming that he is a black man is.

Racists recently sent vile messages regarding the marriage of Senator’s McCain’s son to a black woman. But the Supreme Court claims that racism is nearly over. That is a joke. Watch out people your bigotry is showing.

Then there was the governor of Louisiana, Edwards, who was in the process of being indicted. He had as a campaign theme, vote for the crook that you know. Unbelievably he won, in spite of being a crook, but at least he was honest enough to admit it. The joke was that they voted for him.

Then there is the current candidate for the Mayor of New York who has given new meaning to the word Wiener. The less I say about him the better, but he is a dog of a candidate.

Whether it was the State Senator of Missouri who said let’s bring back child labor, or the outreach committee at a Conservative Convention this past winter who suggested bringing back slavery, and received a round of applause; you can’t make this stuff up.

There was this crowd of protesters who appeared at a Welfare office in I believe Kentucky, who yelled out to a person walking towards the entrance. One of the protesters in frustration with those who accept assistance yelled out and said something like “Are you blind why are you there for help ?” The man responded by saying, “I am blind.”

These are all examples of the politics of stupid, and there are many more. The ultimate irony and sad truth is that we vote for these people. We presently have people elected to Congress and there purpose for being there is too shut the government down. The joke is on us, isn’t it? The sad truth is that they are there to govern, to be representative of the people to help them out. Why would you ever want to be part of something that you want to shut down?

You look at Wisconsin and North Carolina now and see what dysfunctional government looks like. Schools and education are in disarray, and women’s rights are being violated. A Tyranny of the Minority is occurring when women are being asked to have such invasive procedures if they need an abortion.

When you see the mere act of protest in Wisconsin and North Carolina causing the arrest of hundreds, you wonder if the march of fascism is on the way, when the mere act of disagreeing with a political position is cause for the arrest of veterans and other citizens. You realize that the ultimate joke is on us. As Thomas Jefferson would say, you get the government that you deserve.

Extremism in any form has no virtue. Winston Churchill once pondered on if it were possible to put oneself in the shoes of another person who holds crazy views and his answer was you can not when that person has no common sense. It was a truism then and it is true today. Denial is a river in Egypt, and we are falling apart as a people, and as a nation.

In a humorous note, I remember Harry Truman, saying that he had two choices in life; he could have become a piano player in a whore house or a politician; and He didn’t much difference in the two.

We have too many politicians playing piano in whore houses these days.

We should have the best and the brightest among us serve we the people. We do not need the modern day equivalent of the Know Nothing Party. But let us for the moment laugh at ourselves, we have politicians these days who will continue to feed comedians more examples of the politics of the stupid.