There’s ignorance. There’s stupid ignorance. There’s criminally stupid ignorance. And then there criminally stupid ignorance bordering on insanity.

Meet Todd Akin, who embarrasses and disgraces the great state of Missouri in the House of Representatives.

He loves climate change, and will bitterly oppose any and all efforts to fight it. And that’s because he thinks climate change is “when we go from winter to spring”. And he’s not shy about saying so in public:

This whole thing strikes me if it weren’t so serious as being a comedy you know. I mean, we just went from winter to spring. In Missouri when we go from winter to spring, that’s a good climate change. I don’t want to stop that climate change you know. Who in the world want (sic) to put politicians in charge of the weather anyways? What a dumb idea.

Who in Missouri would want to put this horse’s ass in charge of representing their legislative interests in Washington, D.C.?

But it gets better. You know how Akin knows that it makes sense to oppose climate change legislation? Because it’s opposed by a couple of Republican Congressmen who are not only doctors but, get this, they also graduated from high school science!

We’ve been joined by another doctor, a medical doctor but also a guy who graduated from high school science as well, from Georgia, my good friend, Congressman Gingrey. … So to have actually a guy who’s passed high school science is tremendously helpful. And Dr. Fleming from Louisiana.

(I hope you realized yourself that if Akin actually knows two people who graduated from high school science, that means he must be pretty smart too.)

The collective squirming Akin’s statements touched off in Missouri yesterday surely registered on the Richter scale?

(Akin has been in the House of Representatives for eight years. How he has managed to hide his light under a bushel all this time completely baffles me.)