This Week We All Met Marlin Stutzman

"Who they hell is Marlin Stutzman?" people were asking Thursday morning. No one had ever heard of him before. Now the whole nation knows who he is-- or at least knows he's the guy who said:

"We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."

President Obama, who had probably never heard of Stutzman 'til today either, answered him: "You have already gotten the opportunity to serve the American people. There's no higher honor than that… [T]he American people aren't in the mood to give you a goody bag to go with it. What you get is our intelligence professionals being back on the job. What you get is our medical researchers back on the job. What you get are little kids back in the Head Start." Slate pointed out that admitting "I don't know what that even is" is one of the worst things a congressman who just voted to shut down the U.S. government can say. Stutzman must be praying folks back in Fort Wayne and Decatur don't read Time Magazine this week.

Folks in IN-03 know perfectly well who Marlin Stutzman is. Before going to Congress in 2011, the crackpot extremist had served in both houses of the Indiana state legislature, starting in 2002. And he ran for the Senate in 2010 as a Tea Party candidate against Dan Coats, claiming Coats was too mainstream for Indiana. He only got 29% of the vote but that didn't discourage him. He planted rumors-- which were true-- that Republican Congressman Mark Souder, a former Coats staffer and a married abstinence fanatic, was sexually harassing a young, married female staffer. Souder resigned in disgrace (blaming "this poisonous environment of Washington, DC"). What he didn't mention though is that it wasn't anyone poisonous in DC who got him in trouble; it was Stutzman, one of his own staffers, who stabbed him in the back. Stutzman's pilot, when he was running against Coats, was the husband of the girl Souder was boinking! He told Stutzman and Stutzman and his especially vile wife made sure the rumors went everywhere before Stutzman loudly denounced Souder.

With an R+13 PVI, Stutzman's district is the reddest in Indiana. Obama did worse there (36%) than any other district in the state last year. Richard Mourdock, the insane Tea Party candidate the GOP ran, unsuccessfully, for senator won every county in the district, as did the far right gubernatorial candidates, Mike Pence, as did Romney and, as did Stutzman himself.

Stutzman has been a zombie extremist in Congress with one of the House's most horrifyingly anti-family voting records. A member of the House Financial Services Committee, he's routinely takes legalistic bribes from the very organizations he's supposed to be overseeing. In his brief time in Congress he's already gobbled up $68,250 from the insurance industry, $65,750 from commercial banks, $37,900 from stocks and bonds peddlers, and another $31,650 from lobbyists. And he's a real dummy. He makes no sense at all: