Until late Sunday evening, this week’s contest for Cluebat of the Week was a runaway.

Pat Robertson has been a frequent entrant for Carnival participants since we started. The man seems to have a terminal case of foot in mouth disease which would be harmless if his flights of rhetorical fancy were confined to matters religious. Alas, the good Reverend has, on occasion, allowed thoughts to spill out of his nominally empty head regarding politics and international affairs. And since the prism he views the world through is colored by a thundering old testament like faith in a God who smacks people down on a regular basis for being bad, what we usually end up having is that volatile mix of gasoline and nitroglycerin – politics and religion. The results are predictable.

By saying that the stricken Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was punished by God for dividing the Holy Land should have been simply ignored by the press and public, given Robertson’s minuscule TV audience and (despite the left’s claim that he is in “Karl Rove’s Rolodex”) less than zero impact on national politics. But who can blame the press when here in the 21st century, we have someone who believes so fervently in this ancient, angry God who hurls lightening bolts at humans who displease Him – or Robertson himself which makes one wonder if the former Presidential candidate can’t tell the difference.

Robertson’s insensitivity would normally have allowed him to walk away with Cluebat of the Week except late on Sunday, his cluelessness was surpassed in a big way by Carnival Hall of Famer Ted Kennedy.

It seems that the Senator from Chappaquiddick got a hold of a bottle first thing in the morning and, at a breakfast roundtable, made this jaw dropping statement about Judge Alito:

“This nominee was influenced by the Goldwater presidency,” he said. “The Goldwater battles of those times were the battles against the civil rights laws.” Only then did Kennedy acknowledge that “Judge Alito at that time was 14 years old.”

It is gratifying to see Teddy live down to his reputation. For more than 40 years he has been making it up as he goes along and getting away with it because his name is Kennedy. What is remarkable, of course, is that while he emulates his Presidential brother in matters of the flesh, he couldn’t hold a candle to JFK when it comes to expressing himself. Not to be unkind, but the youngest Kennedy is one of the more incoherent members of the Senate. Unless one of his cadre of wordsmiths writes something down for him to say, he is a lost sheep, a bumbling, fumbling, mumbling, bundle of incomplete sentences, dangling participles, disjointed non-sequitors, and frequent double negatives. The Washington press corps covers this up by filling in the incomplete sentences and tidying up his modifiers so that they actually have something to quote. Otherwise, if they quoted him verbatim, he would sound like a stuttering three year old rather than a United States Senator.

So for demonstrating the kind of incoherence and idiocy we’ve come to know and love here at the Carnival, Ted Kennedy is the Carnival’s Cluebat of the Week.

We have some great posts as usual. Just keep clicking.

The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.”
(Voltaire)

“Mais oui, mon ami! And the only way to contemplate stupidity is to listen the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee grilling Judge Alito.
(Me)

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Miriam recognizes the supreme irony contained in the title of Stephen Spielberg’s Munich. The more I read about this movie, the less I want to see it.

Cao at Cao’s Blog fisks one of her tormentors, a Transylvanian named “Soj” who is as clueless as they come.

Look who’s stonewalling now? DJ at Bacon Bits fills in the details of the New York Times stiffing their public editor over the NSA intercept story.

Michael Hussey (“Disaffiliates – Think Twice” is a great name for a blog) enlightens us about the ancient and dishonorable Industrial Workers of the World, or “Wobblies” as they have been nicknamed since the turn of the 20th century. I didn’t even know they still existed.

The Wonder Years Blog takes Veep Cheney to task for his clueless speech at a Harley Plant where, instead of talking about economic gains under Bush, he talked up the war.

Ilkka Kokkarinen is a Finnish-Canadian with an excellent blog “Sixteen Volts Per Minute.” Check out his takedown of Finnish Stalinists – it’s worth your time.

The Headmistress is “gabberflasted” at TV coverage of the tragic mine disaster in West Virginia and sternly lectures the press. Maybe a good rap on the knuckles with a ruler would be more efficacious, ma’am.

Tom Bowler has some interesting thoughts about the recent revelation that Saddam trained 8,000 terrorists in the years leading up to 9/11, something yet to be commented on by anyone in the MSM. I guess documents, pictures, and testimony regarding the terror training camps just isn’t enough proof. After all, they may have been tourists at a fantasy camp.

Wonderwoman gives us more idiocy from our friends north of the border who want to cure alcoholics by giving them…alchohol. Now that’s a great idea. And when you read what the clueless medical director says about people who are getting the free booze, you will want to spit. BTW - 17 people died as a result of this program. I guess that’s one way to solve addiction problems.

Minh-Duc returns to the Carnival with a vengeance. Read his take down of Spielberg’s Munich. First class stuff.

Josh Cohen has a gut churning post about an insurance company that refuses to pay for an anesthesiologist during a colonoscopy. Yeah…bad pun but read the damn thing, willya?

I saw this post by Iris floating around the blogosphere last week. They make the case that clueless doctors may have contributed to Prime Minister Sharon’s stroke. On such cluelessness does history turn… (NOTE: See update below)

The Carnival is attracting quite a stable of side-splitting satirists. Here’s your weekly dose of giggles and guffaws from our masters of the craft:

Mr. Right has “College Journalism Exam with Answer Key!”

The totally clueless Peace Moonbeam has a very happy New Year.

Buckley F. Williams brings us DC’s Mayor Marion Barry and “Crack Is Crack… I Want My Groceries Back.”

Check out those sites for some of the best political satire you can find on the right!

Blog goddess and Carnival Pin Up Girl Pamela at Atlas Shrugs looks in askance at the recent gathering of former defense and foreign policy experts who came to the White House to “advise” the President on Iraq. What advice Robert McNamara – the architect of our victory in Viet Nam – could give is the real head scratcher for me.

The equally lovely Mensa Barbie gives us the lowdown on a billboard from the Middle East that asks drivers to obey the law and law enforcement officials. Yep, I guess they better if they know what’s good for them.

Don Surber has a laugh out loud bit of cluelessness about local health inspectors in a small town whose stupidity ended up costing the town a great bakery.

Mark Coffey has Part II of “None Dare Call it Treason” which isn’t exactly true because Mark not only calls a spade a spade, but is confirmed in his naming Cindy Sheehan “Jackass of the Year.”

Duncan Avatar has some French cluelessness that was all over Drudge last week about the performance artists who took his art just a wee bit too seriously. Duncan wonders what would happen if he tried the same thing.

AJ Strata is laughing at the idiot Democrats and their “Now you see him now you don’t anti-Alito witness. Quoth AJ on the Dems new motto: “We Deserve to be Trod Upon” Yep.

The always entertaining and sometimes infuriating Jack Cluth has a real doozy as his “Dumbass of the Week. Hypocrisy knows no ideology or political party.

Ferdy the Cat has some serious and sobering thoughts about the Ariel Sharon and the Intifada. Plenty of cluelessness to go around in some respects. ” I suspect we’ll find that it does more good to build a hospital in Gaza than it does to blow up civilians in Tel Aviv,” saith Ferdy. They don’t call him the smartest cat with his own blog for nothin’.

Banished almost to the foot of the class for handing in their homework late, those pokey pachyderms at Elephants in Academia has the skinny on some local moonbats and their effort to impeach the President of the United States. Tilting at windmills in Madison, WI is a required course.

Jay wants to Stop the ACLU from succeeding in calling off the leak investigation by the Department of Justice into the NSA intercept leak. What a bunch of whiners.

The folks at Different River have an article on the tax benefits of living together rather than being married. Alas, those of us who live in sin already were aware of this little quirk in our tax code.

Finally, here’s my post on Pat Robertson and his soulmate President Ahmadinejad from Iran who both seem to be stuck on stupid.

UPDATE

Barak of Iris Blog points out that indeed, the folks at that fine site scooped the world on the incompetence of Sharon’s doctors contributing to the Israeli Prime Minister’s stroke. Here’s a story that Drudge has been carrying all day confirming that.

Not the first time those guys have beaten the MSM to a story…probably won’t be the last!