Craziest Republican of the Day: Anna Falling

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Tulsa mayoral candidate is today's clear pick. Her #1 priority is not the economy, or crime, or energy, or any other such key issue. Rather, she wants to put a creationism display at the Tulsa Zoo.

Let me repeat that, because, at first glance, it reads so crazy as to be incredible: She wants to put a creationism display at the Tulsa Zoo.

A creationism display at a zoo. (How about a flat-earth display at the Smithsonian?)

That's #1 for Anna Falling.

"It's first. If we can't come to the foundation of faith in this community, those other answers will never come. We need to first of all recognize the fact that God needs to be honored in this city."

Uh-huh.

She uttered these words at a rally held outside the zoo. Her supporters responded, as you might have expected, with a flurry of "hallelujahs."

"We will also look for people who want to characterize the origins of both man and animals in a way that honors Judeo-Christian science that proves God as the creator."

Judeo-Christian "science"? Interesting. What it really is, of course, is fundamentalist theology, and what Falling is, of course, is a hardcore theocrat.

It makes her crazy to put such idiocy at the top of her priority list. Surely Tulsans would be better severed with a more relevant public policy agenda. But she's not crazy -- given that she's clearly playing to her constituents -- as much as she is, simply put, extreme. Delusional, perhaps, but certainly extreme.

Crazy in her theocratic extremism, a pre-Darwinian -- and obviously anti-Darwinian -- zealot.

But, then, it's Oklahoma. Maybe she's the perfect candidate, the voice of the mainstream in a world where James "global warming is a hoax" Inhofe is a star.

Or will the good people of Tulsa stand up and reject such nonsense?