#1370: Ken Bennett

Like many US states, Arizona has no inhibitions when it comes to electing crazies to positions of power. Take Ken Bennett, for instance. Bennett is the former president of the Arizona Senate, and was Secretary of State until 2015. He is also a hardcore birther. In 2012 he announced that although “I’m not a birther,” he was not convinced Barack Obama was really born in the United States, which makes one wonder what he thinks being a birther might involve (yes, we are pretending that he wasn't just lying and pandering). Since Bennett was in charge of running Arizona’s elections at that point he also threatened to keep the president off the ballot in the November election. How did he come to his birtherism? Well, apparently Bennett was following the lead of the state’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had ordered an investigation into the president’s birth certificate in 2011 that concluded that the document released by the White House is a forgery (based on the fact that he had already built his fringe career on the firm conclusion that it was, of course). Yes, that Joe Arpaio. Apparently Arizona’s Secretary of State lent his ear to Joe Arpaio. No shit.

After dimly realizing that he was being perceived as an embarrassment to his state by the rest of the world, Bennett feebly tried to back down.

Diagnosis: It may of course be that he was just trying to endear himself to Arizona’s substantial birther population. Still, he actually went there, and next time we may perhaps suggest he look into the possibility that political candidates may be disguised extraterrestrial reptilians, a view suggested by other independent researchers who are at least no crazier than Arpaio.