By real person I’m meaning Homer Simpson/Fonzie, etc., other fictional characters on programs don’t count. Also, I’m referring to the person themselves and not their (alleged) views, so while I find Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to be capable of espousing viewpoints that Forrest Gump and Terry Schiavo would see the logical holes in (many of which I doubt even Coulter and Limbaugh believe) I seriously doubt either of them are unintelligent (though ymmv so feel free to nominate them).
My two two nominees (who are going to be very very hard to top):
Glenn Beck- for the life of me I cannot understand his appeal or why he has a career that doesn’t involve sitting in a cubicle and annoying the hell out of co-workers by forwarding every conservative U.L. email he gets and by blathering on endlessly about his theories on life, the universe, and everything (and how none of his teachers/professors/wives/co-workers are smart enough to “get” him) in the breakroom. If I needed any more proof that this man’s a total knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing moron, his interviews with John Hagee and Ben Stein (part of the Expelled publicity tour) would have proven it. He doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about and yet it doesn’t make him want to learn more or to shut up.
While not indicative of stupidity perhaps, I also have to add this guy’s pathos: he cried on air when Mormon president Gordon Hinkley died about what a dear and wonderful man the world had lost and how there was a void in his life. It’s worth mentioning that while Beck is indeed a Mormon, 1- he never met Hinkley 2- Beck only became a Mormon after he was an adult (i.e. it’s not like he grew up with Hinkley as an authority figure) 3- while I’m sure he was a clean living decent person and I’m sure it was a loss to his [real] dear friends and family, Hinkley was 97 YEARS OLD! He’d had a good run- I’ve never seen Beck shed tears over the troops in Iraq or the other real tragedies on earth.)
The other nominee, and for much the same reason- “I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about and I’m fiercely proud of it!”- is Kirk Cameron. It’s not the fact he’s gone Fundie, that’s his business, but the fact that 1- the dude honestly seems to think he knows how all atheists think because “I used to be one” (I’m guessing he was an ‘unthunk’ one, plus he was 17 or younger) 2- the very famous on these boards ‘banana’ arguments 3- the fact he continually and continually argues Pascal’s Wager and yet has clearly never heard the term “Pascal’s Wager” or read its refutations. A good thing the guy’s still cute because he is an imbecile.
I can understand anybody going on a spiritual quest, and while Fund. Christianity isn’t the path I’d choose I’ll accept it in a person, but you’d think that if somebody was really serious about accepting Jesus etc., AND that same person had the financial liberty to do so, he’d actually read and become educated in Christian apologetics (a Christian version of Tevye- “if I were rich I’d have the time that I lack… and I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men” etc.). Cameron seems completely unconcerned and unfamiliar with the fact there are even books on the damned topic. I’ve wondered if the Kiwi guy he dances for on the talk show has him under and imperius curse (and if he does, I’ll bet you anything he’s seen his elusive nipples).
Back when Ricki Lake had a talk show I thought she was the stupidest talk show host ever, but since she’s been off the air for quite a while, I can’t actually remember any specifics.
My money remains on Larry King, who at a glance appears to be a senescent old man selected at random from a nursing home – except that as near as I can make out, he’s been dribbling out his senile nonsense since… when was it he first entered my consciousness as the Archetype of babbling senility? Was it really 1983?
How is this even possible?
ETA: Oh, hi Shamozzle. A favourite example is when he aked a woman who had been raped repeatedly “What was going through your mind as he was making love to you?”
A couple of years ago or so Larry was interviewing Alison Arngrim, the former child star who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. The subject was incest, and Arngrim was speaking as an incest/molestation survivor. She stated up front that her molester was male and not her father, but she did not wish to reveal exactly who he was (brother/cousin/uncle/etc.) for personal and legal reasons, and for purely personal reasons she didn’t wish to reveal exactly what happened between them other than to say it was sexual in nature.
King asked her “Was this relative on your father’s side of the family?”
King: Was he closer to your age or your father’s age?
Arngrim: I’d rather not be specific as to who he was other than a close relative… I’m not really here to discuss my own life but to discuss child sexual abuse in general and the organization I work for, and my personal experiences happen to be why I am their media representative.
King: Was he somebody who lived in the house with you? How old was he when you were born? Is he somebody you still see at Christmas? What relation is he to your siblings? Is he a sibling? Is he here tonight? Got a picture of him? Bigger than a bread box? Did you call him Uncle Ernie? Was he your mother’s half-brother from Oklahoma? etc.etc.etc. To each one Arngrim repeats “this isn’t about me but about the organization… I don’t want him identified, I will say he’s still alive and that’s a large part of why”, but he just kept on and kept on and kept on asking questions about the identity before finally getting it through his head that she wasn’t going to say “It’s my half-brother Louis who lives at 1234 Massengale Disposable Lane in Rochester NY”. So then he turned to what happened.
“So how far did it go?”
“I really don’t want to discuss the details of my personal molestation other than to say it began when I was a child and went on until I was a teenager and I went through the same emotional problems the children helped by this organization are going through…”
“Was there penetration?” (ACTUAL QUESTION!)
A.A.: I’m not going to discuss it.
“Could you have gotten pregnant from what he did to you?”
A.A. (now visibly pissed but keeping it together) “I just said I don’t want to talk about it!”
As it was she was on his show for about half an hour and talked for about 1/3 of her airtime about the actual organization she’s involved with. The rest was fending off Larry’s “Do you have any pictures? Will you show us on the monkey where he touched you? How was he as a kisser?” type questions. I kept expecting Allison’s husband or manager (or Allison herself) to just knock the hell out of him, but alas, no.
I agree.
A woman named Coulter cried “Treason.”.
She did it without any reason
Though we know that she lied,
Twas perhaps justified:
On her brain, I’m afraid, there’s a lesion…
-Al Franken