Really…what an idiot. There is no excuse for a political party allowing someone this obnoxious and stupid to run under its banner for Congress. After all, stupid people have a strong majority in many districts, and parties have an obligation to mitigate this democracy-mocking problem by at least trying not to nominate candidates like Matt Gaetz. Ethics Alarms didn’t need his latest embarrassment to make this observation about Gaetz: he already earned it several times over. Just peruse his EA dossier. Gaetz’s most recent mention here for being like he is was in April, and a year earlier I expounded on his creepiness at length, concluding in part,

I have seen enough to conclude that Rep. Gaetz is a creep. I don’t like creeps, and as a general proposition I don’t think creeps should be in positions of influence and power, because you can’t trust creeps. They are ethically “bent”….I know that Gaetz is a creep because he screams creepiness, like his stunt of wearing a gas mask on the floor of the House of Representatives during debate over the first pandemic aid bill, and joining a group of Republicans who forced their way into a closed congressional witness deposition during the run-up to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019. ...Then there’s his revelation last year that he has been living with a 19-year-old non-biological male, un-adopted “son”, Cuban immigrant Nestor Galban, whom he met when Galban was 12 and Gaetz was dating his older sister.

Or just listen to the guy.

As in so many other cases, the fact that someone like him could be elected speaks horribly about the voters in his district, the party that nominated him, and the state of democracy generally. His various statements show him to have a scarlet “C” on his forehead.

All of which is a prelude to his most recent episode: saying this to a crowd of Turning Point conservatives yesterday:

“Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.”

But that’s Matt!

Observations:

• If that line came from a stand-up routine by Ricky Gervais or Jim Norton or some other comic, I’d defend to the death his right to say it. However, it’s an offensive, cruel, unfair and simply untrue assertion to be made by a member, especially a male member.
• Democrats, feminists and pro-abortion fans want to frame the Roe issue  into being only a misogynist, “The Handmaiden’s Tale”-like attack on women by cruel men, thus avoiding the real issue, which is that their “choice” comes at the high cost of human lives. Idiots like Gaetz fuel their unethical diversion. His “joke” makes a productive debate over balancing interests in abortion more difficult.
• Of course, what a woman looks like is completely irrelevant to her rights or the validity (or not) of her position on abortion or anything else. Gaetz is engaging in ad hominem tactics.

As I already noted, it’s hardly news that Gaetz is unfit to serve in Congress. This episode just further confirms that we haven’t seen the full extent of his absence of character yet. House leader Kevin McCarthy should seek sanctions against him, and Republicans should rebuke him officially. But McCarthy is pretty bad himself, and his party…well, you know.