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Rep. Todd Akin is in a primary race to challenge Sen. Claire McCaskill for her Senate seat in Missouri. Akin is also a hardcore Americans For Prosperity corporate candidate and all-around not-nice guy. But even for a not-nice corporate guy, this comment of his at a recent debate was so deeply out of touch with reality that it deserves some attention, even from the President.

Here's what he said:

America has got the equivalent of the stage three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in. So first, to answer your question precisely, what the Democrats get rid of the private student loans and take it all over by the government was wrong, it was a lousy bill, and that’s why I voted no. The government needs to get its nose out of the education business.

Please take note of the following facts which Akin doesn't care about but which the rest of us should:

1. Education is not a business. It's how civilized countries invest in remaining civilized. I repeat: Education is NOT now, nor should it ever be, a business.
2. Federally guaranteed student loans were the brainchild of the Republican God of Economics, Milton Friedman. Friedman argued that there was too much risk to private lenders, therefore:
   

   But whatever the reason, there is clearly here an imperfection of the market that has led to underinvestment in human capital and that justifies government intervention on grounds both of "natural monopoly," insofar as the obstacle to the development of such investment has been administrative costs, and of improving the operation of the market, insofar as it has been simply market frictions and rigidities.

   [...]

   A governmental body could offer to finance or help finance the training of any individual who could meet minimum quality standards by making available not more than a limited sum per year for not more than a specified number of years, provided it was spent on securing training at a recognized institution. The individual would agree in return to pay to the government in each future year x per cent of his earnings in excess of y dollars for each $1,000 that he gets in this way.

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Tea party Republican Todd Akin, who refuses to meet with his constituents, has inspired them to take their questions to the web and Twitter with the #AskToddAkin campaign. The website, AskToddAkin.com allows concerned citizens to automatically send tweets that question why the representative opposes programs that help the people of Missouri.

The AFL-CIO says:

So far, he hasn’t been willing to meet with voters in his district, even though he’s been traveling far and wide to tea party meetings and fundraisers hours outside of his district. When his constituents held a town hall meeting a block from his office, he wouldn’t even contact them to decline, although he did issue a press statement saying he wouldn’t go to a “Union Hall,” calling the town hall meeting a “Rally and Protest.”

Among the questions voters can ask Akin:

Lately, there would seem to be a whole lot more people who have a direct channel to the Big Guy Upstairs than one could have humanly thought possible.

It is oft-said that "God works in mysterious ways". But when Michele Bachmann hears voices telling her to run for president, am I the only who thinks the most likely explanation is a batch of bad clams or one-too-many nights role playing The Book of Eli with her equally demented husband Marcus?

Perhaps, these are the very same voices that have shared with her the important role "Founding Father John Quincy Adams" played in ending slavery as he battled the oncoming scourge of puberty? I don't know, just a stab in the dark.

Regardless, whether it is gay marriage or spotting the Virgin Mary in your gordita, our re-embrace of culture-by-theology in the United States (not unlike much of the rest of the world) has led supposedly "serious people" to say things that not so long ago would have landed them a starring role in Girl, Interrupted.

In our current age, in fact, possessing a direct cerebral channel to Deus (or at least claiming you do) would seem to be a requirement for receiving an invitation to a GOP presidential debate.

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