Of the kooks, by the kooks, and for the kooks

And she was doing so well, with everybody on that side thinking she was only a closet secessionist...

Anti-Washington activist Debra Medina was on the brink of knocking U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison out of a likely Republican gubernatorial runoff, but she may have spoiled her chances Thursday with her remarks on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

A series of public opinion polls of likely Republican primary voters this past week had indicated that Hutchison was dangerously close to losing second place to Medina in the contest to oust incumbent Gov. Rick Perry.

Medina has benefited from a pair of solid debate appearances, and millions of dollars in attack television advertising by Hutchison and Perry has made her the none-of-the-above candidate for conservative voters.

But Medina may have stumbled Thursday when talk show host Glenn Beck asked whether she believed the government was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Medina said people raising that question were slinging “mud” at her but went on to say:

“I don't have all of the evidence there, Glenn, so I don't, I'm not in a place, I have not been out publicly questioning that. I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard. There are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there so I have not taken a position on that.”

Where exactly is the line drawn on the Right between crazy and sane? Beck is a birther, and he's calling Medina crazy for being a truther?!?

These are people who think climate change isn't happening, that evolution isn't happening, that Barack Obama isn't a US citizen, that the Earth is only 6000 years old ...

Some on our side want to suggest that this a plot executed by the Perry campaign. I think that has the potential of being as big a conspiracy theory as MIHOP itself. The only real story here is that Medina pulled a Clayton Williams -- which is a big enough (and funny enough) story all by itself.

Really, all you need to do is just sit back and watch the lunatics set fire to each others' hair for the next few days.