R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what that means to me Frank Gaffney:

Frank Gaffney: What he is using is code. . . when he uses the word “respect” in the context of a waist bow to the king of Saudi Arabia for example, and talks about respectful language, which is code for those who adhere to sharia that we will submit to sharia. . . .

David Shuster: We have to know the code? . . .

FG: You should, you should, you should know the code, if you don’t, you’re gonna have sharia here. . . I’m telling you the code as they receive it in the Taliban head quarters, and the al Qaeda caves, and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Ohhh. . . Kayyy. . . .

Step back slowly, and try not to make direct eye contact.

Lest we forget, it was just a few weeks ago that Gaffney was on the same show (that would be Hardball) claiming that Saddam Hussein was behind the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Of course, Gaffney doesn’t have to rely on his ideas being smart or accurate to earn his keep. Ultra-right philanthropies like the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation, among others, subsidize the hell out of Frank; if the newly moribund Pajamas Media was Wingnut Welfare, Frank Gaffney is like a Reagan-era Wingnut Welfare queen.

Honestly, after the last decade, I would be happy never to hear the risible rantings of Gaffney again, but I include him here, in what has become our weekly review of pachyderm poo, because it is, I think, instructive to recall the level of thinking (for lack of a better word) that went into formulating Republican policy during the Bush years, and still backstops the GOP today.

Gaffney and his PNAC pals continue to market their cowardice inside bright, shiny boxes of bluster. And yet (and perhaps I shouldn’t complain because I wouldn’t have much of a post without them), supposedly respectable news shows keep booking these completely discredited fearmongers. Maybe it makes for good television, but it makes for shitty debate.

I find myself asking the same question as Steve Benen: “Is there nothing these guys can say that would force them from polite company?”

Some of the week’s other winners losers after the jump. . . .

Watch out Bobby Jindal, watch out Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford also wants to be America’s Stupidest Governor:

And if you want plain nutty, Alan Gottlieb is like a Costco-sized box of Snickers Bars, warning us about the coming Obamageddon (bonus, inside this clip, you get a snip of everybody’s favorite superfreak, Glenn Beck):