Shouldn't there be an entrance exam?

Long time no blog, such is life during football season and the extra work it brings.

I was amazed to read that a 9/11 conspiracy theorist is running for Congress in Florida District 15. The interview reads like a parody of the loony left, but it seems to be on the level. There's some boilerplate wackery about the government's complicity in 9/11, Halliburton, blaming the CIA for millions of deaths, the claim that Mumia Abu Jamal is a political prisoner (!), the Bush "fascist regime," and the inevitable "We would not be the target of terrorists if we didn't have a foreign policy which uses military power to subdue third world countries so our multinational corporations can steal their resources." And a new one to me, the claim that video games being used to decondition recruits from a reluctance to kill.

It's not surprising to hear this kind of hate speech on the far left (or far right, for that matter) blogs, but how does a guy who has lost all ability to think rationally get one of the major parties' nominations for a US House race? Looking past how disturbing it is that he could win a primary and what it says about a segment of FL-15 voters, shouldn't there be some kind of basic competency test for a guy to even get into the primary in the first place? Potential UTexas football players have to at least fill out their name and get an SAT question or two right to play, would it be too much to ask the same of potential congressmen? If I'm a Florida Democrat, I'd like to have some assurance that the party at least plans to run sane candidates.

Just when you thought politics in 2006 had run out of ways to shock...and that Mark Foley was the most disturbing guy in Florida politics.