Before his latest achievement, the Oklahoma Republican Senator’s induction into the Hall of Fame was all but assured, a shoe-in really, earned through a career of denying not only that all available evidence to the contrary human activity is not causing the Earth to warm, but that the Earth isn’t warming at all, and furthermore, and certainly highest on his resume, claiming the scientific consensus arrived at by hundreds of the world’s best climate scientists is a massive conspiracy and venal hoax. He has burnished his reputation for sub-Homosapien stupidity (And I honestly don’t mean any insult to the beloved critters here) and insidiousness by claiming that each and every winter snow storm is prima facie evidence the world is not warming. Yes, that stupid.

He also has earned points in the Major Dipshit competition by proposing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. So he’s not just a little slow and culturally trapped in a cave, he’s a genuine bastard.

He sucks up oil industry campaign money at the velocity Lindsay Lohan ingests powder. And naturally, he’s engaged in righteous jihad against the Environmental Protection Agency, and were he to get his way, it no longer would exist. 

He was one of only nine senators to vote against John McCain’s anti-torture amendment to the 2006 Defense bill. He went so far as to say on the Senate floor that America’s problem is not that we torture but that we talk about it too much, and such negative talk about it emboldens the terrorists. He also stated he was “outraged by the outrage” at the abuses at Abu Ghraib, claiming, wildly contrary to the actual facts, that most of the people there were guilty of high crimes, and deserved anything they got. He added that the prisoners “wake up every morning thanking Allah” that they are being abused in an American prison and not one of Saddam Hussein’s. Yes, that stupid.

So while it has long been clear that as a wretched human being the man has some real chops, he reminded us today not to forget his past accomplishments, by going to the Senate floor and praising Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, the dictator accused of mass killings and targeted assassinations, and whose refusal to step down after a UN monitored fair election precipitated a civil war. Inhofe is thick as thieves with Pat Robertson and the Christian right, a community Gbagbo and his wife have cultivated, a fine group of pals they all are. Today Inhofe put up a smiling picture of Gbagbo on the Senate floor and said, “This is the happy face of President Gbagbo. This is the face I know. This is the president he’s been president since 2000.” Asked in an interview about Gbagbo’s atrocities, he said, “I don’t believe it. If you learn and know these people, you draw your own conclusions.” Yes, he’s that stupid.

So in a day and age when little is accomplished, and few rise above the ordinary to meet the challenges of these times, Inhofe has risen to the top of the compost heap.