Fox News has a tendency to worship the Founding Fathers not as pretty-cool-but-flawed revolutionaries, but demi-gods. And yet, when Fox & Friends brings on an actor to pretend to be Thomas Jefferson, co-host Gretchen Carlson talks to him like he's an idiot child.

The morning news crew has had a long history of saying and doing silly things, so when Carlson interviewed a fake Thomas Jefferson about the current Tea Party on Friday morning, the most shocking moment was not a historical error, but a mathematical one (video at right via Talking Points Memo). Carlson didn't seem to understand where big numbers, like the $16 trillion federal debt, come from, and presumed fake Jefferson had never seen a number that size. Either Carlson doesn't think the number $16 trillion existed until sometime in the mid-19th century, or she thinks Thomas Jefferson is (was) dumb. If Carlson thinks Jefferson wouldn't know what a trillion is, you have wonder what she thinks of her viewers.