Craziest Republican of the Day: Leo Berman

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There are so many crazy conservatives to choose from in Texas, starting at the top with Gov. Rick Perry, neo-secessionist, but let's go with state Rep. Leo Berman, who at an up-with-Glenn Beck event over the weekend (attended by the governor), said this:

I believe that Barack Obama is God's punishment on us today, but in 2012, we are going to make Obama a one-term president.

Now, there's nothing wrong, I suppose, with trying to make Obama a one-term president. That's Republican partisanship for you. But how exactly is Obama "God's punishment on us"? Who's "us"? And what did "we" do to deserve punishment?

Perhaps for civil rights, or for being an open and tolerant society (in general, if not so much in Texas)?

Let's just say that Berman has an ugly history of racism and nativism. As Raw Story reports, he has "built a track record of controversial comments. Last year, activists launched a now-defunct Web site, CensureLeo.com, after Berman told a Chinese-American lawyer to 'kiss his ass' and 'go home,' presumably to China." And in 2007 he "delivered what one blogger called a 'hate-filled speech' in which he claimed that 'illegal immigrants were bringing Polio, the plague, leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria, Chagas Disease and Dengue Fever to the United States in alarming numbers."

Charming... and, these days, oh-so-Republican.

Because however extreme his views, he's more than welcome, it would seem, in the Republican mainstream, particularly in Texas, where craziness, like everything else there, comes in huge sizes.