Should Politicians have to take IQ tests?

With George W. Bush no longer in political office, one would have hoped that we no longer need to suffer any more painfully ignorant statements from politicians. However, it would appear that nature does, indeed, abhor a vacuum and - with Mr. Bush gone - politicians such as County Supervisor Peggy West have rushed in to fill it...

With no small amount of debate going on in the US with regard to Arizona's soon-to-be implemented Immigration Law, the County of Milwaukee were discussing whether they - like other parts of the USA - should call for Milwaukee businesses to boycott Arizona businesses. Step forward Supervisor Peggy West - click here for a Youtube video of her testimony.

For those who missed it, Peggy West declared that:

"If this was Texas, which is a state that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would have to look twice at this. But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border."

The only problem is, Arizona is directly on the border with Mexico...

Arizona Senator Jon Kyle swiftly followed this up by sending Ms. West a letter that confirmed this fact:

"You will be interested to learn that Arizona does indeed share a border with Mexico. I have enclosed a map for your convenience."

He helpfully enclosed the map seen at the top of this post. Peggy, perhaps slightly embarrassed at her geographical slip assured voters that:

"I did get a passing grade in Geography in high school and in college and I do obviously know that Arizona is on the border"

Peggy then went on to suggest that she had meant to say that Arizona had the second longest border. Which obviously makes a lot of sense taken in the context of what she said. Perhaps, instead of following in the footsteps of George W. Bush, Peggy should have taken a leaf out of the book of a rather more respected President, Abraham Lincoln:

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."