Broun wants everyone who wears "Arabian dress" to get the thorough patdown at TSA security checkpoints -- even though anyone even half-knowledgeable about antiterrorist security can tell you that no terrorist will wear garb that attracts attention to themselves. They are uniformly intent on blending in and being unnoticed. Anyone wearing "Arabian dress" is actually not likely at all to be a terrorist. [...]

I remember back in the day that the political columnist Jack Anderson ran an annual piece naming someone or other the "dumbest member of Congress". (I remember this because two of my congressmen from Idaho -- George Hansen and Steve Symms -- were perennial winners.) I don't think anyone does it anymore, but someone should. Because Paul Broun would win. A lot.

Joe Conason, in fact, named Broun the stupidest member of Congress last year. I'd say he's in the running again this year.

This is a guy who, just days after the 2008 election, declared that "he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship." When one of Broun's supporters wished aloud for someone to shoot President Obama, Broun laughed and brushed it off. This is the guy who thinks a vital piece of legislation is to declare a "Year of the Bible".

On health care, Broun was equally reality-based (which is to say: not at all), saying thing like this:

"If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States -- the Great War of Yankee Aggression."