Local color goes national

*

Champaign, Ill., Mayor Jerry Schweighart (SCHWY-hart) has earned his 15 minutes of fame on HuffingtonPost.

See, Mayor Schweighart is a birther, and he can't understand why his opinion is controversial. It's controversial because President Obama's birth certificate has been produced for the record and the "Kenyan version" was exposed as a counterfeit before the election (but I'm too lazy to look for the links on a Saturday morning). OK, whatever. This is no surprise to residents who have long known of Schweighart's far-right-wing orientation. But he's some kind of imposing fascist strongman, or even a strong mayor for that matter. He generally avoids inflammatory interjections into city politics, other than the odd periodic stupid comment that a few wingnuts applaud and everyone else ignores.

Predictably, the comments thread on HuffingtonPost is every bit as clueless as anything Crazy Uncle Jerry might utter. According to a commenter called "What's going on," everyone should sign a petition to "help us citizens of Champaign get this guy out of office." Commenter "LouisGA" declares that at "Champaign town meetings" the mayor "insists on wearing his white sheet and hood." No, he actually doesn't.