In Which I Nominate My First Idiot of the Week

Without further ado, under the category of "Please Tell Me This is a Joke," the inaugural Idiot of the Week (IOW) award goes to . . . Katherine Harris of Florida! Name sound familiar? Think back to the 2000 presidential elections. Think "recount." Think "Florida Secretary of State." Think "please don't let sane Floridians make this mistake again."

Much of the world hasn't heard from Ms. Harris since her hand helped Bush into the White House. The Republican party, in gratitude, helped Ms. Harris into the House of Representatives. Ms Harris is now in the midst of a fight for her political life, running for the Senate in a race that, apparently, no state or national Republican of any stature is willing to support. She's gone through several campaign managers and the current one is not smart enough to keep her boss from giving an interview to the Florida Baptist Weekly in which she says, among other things, that only Christians should be elected to office in the U.S.--but I won't try to paraphrase. Jim Stratton of the Orlando Sentinel posted this to the Chicago Tribune News blogs (I've bolded my favorite part):

If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," she [Harris] told interviewers, citing abortion and gay marriage as two examples of that sin.

"Whenever we legislate sin," she said, "and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong. . . ."

Harris also said the separation of church and state is a "lie we have been told" to keep religious people out of politics.

In reality, she said, "we have to have the faithful in government" because that is God's will. Separating religion and politics is "so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers," she said.

"And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women," then "we're going to have a nation of secular laws. That's not what our founding fathers intended and that's [sic] certainly isn't what God intended."

Send your own nominations--we'll make this a regular Monday feature!