Radar ranks the 10 biggest fools on the Hill

Congress, as any CSPAN viewer can attest, has never been a bastion of intelligence. As far back as two centuries ago, Samuel Johnson was demeaning the nation's legislators as a "circus of rogues and fools." But when it comes to sheer stupidity, the men and women of the 109th have distinguished themselves as a breed apart.

Despite a notoriously compliant president and Republican majorities in both houses, they've spent over 600 days in session without conducting a shred of productive business, which is not to say they've just sat around. As the war in Iraq raged out of control, they futilely postured over an unconstitutional flag-burning amendment that was clearly destined to go up in flames. They rallied around the brain-dead Terry Schiavo after the Senate majority leader, watching her on television, claimed to detect signs of life. And their hijinks culminated this month with l'affaire Mark Foley, which raised the question of just who a guy needs to blow on the Hill to get the attention of the brain-dead House leadership.

But in a notably dumb year, perhaps the dumbest move came from Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, who sponsored a bill seeking $20 million in taxpayer money for a party to celebrate America's victory in Iraq. Not long ago such flagrant obtuseness might have ensured the senator a place on our annual list of America's Dumbest Congressmen. Alas, given this year's stiff competition, he didn't even make runner-up.

10. Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Bunning is a Hall of Fame pitcher who, during his eight years in office, has shown "little interest in legislation that doesn't concern baseball," writes Time magazine. And Kentucky doesn't even have a major-league baseball team. His campaign style is so completely unhinged that political observers openly speculated in 2004 that the then-73-year-old was suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's. "His is a tragic case of descent into senility," says one Hill staffer, "except without the 'descent' bit." To scotch the rumors, Bunning was forced to hold a press conference and offer up doctor's reports.

Among his antics that year: Telling a group of GOP fundraisers that his Italian-American opponent, Daniel Mongiardo, physically resembled Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay; referring on the stump to the tragic terror attacks of November 11, 2001; and adding a federal security detail to his campaign in the firm conviction that members of Al Qaeda—the masterminds of November 11—had targeted him for elimination. ("There may be strangers among us," he darkly informed a Paducah TV crew.)

The piece de resistance, though, was a debate with Mongiardo: Bunning notified event organizers at the eleventh hour that he was tied up with legislative business in Washington and would have to participate via satellite. During the event it was painfully obvious that the incumbent was delivering his debate points with the aid of a teleprompter, violating the event's ground rules. And whatever urgent business Bunning claimed to be in town for couldn't have had anything to do with his job—the Senate had gone into recess the previous Monday.