It's a good thing he knows what's important

You may have heard of Rep. Joe Barton. Even if you didn't know anything about him before, he recently distinguished himself as a science expert, mocking Energy Secretary (and Nobel Prize winner) Henry Chu for trying to use the concept of plate tectonics to explain how petroleum deposits could have formed under such cold areas as Alaska and the Arctic Circle, a video he himself posted on YouTube under the heading "Energy Secretary puzzled by simple question".

Not as well known is his stand on government. Like most conservative extremists, he is against big government. He signed Newt Gingrich's Contract on America in 1994, which stated,

This year’s election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money.

So why is he in the news this week? Pretty simple, actually. He's standing up for the kind of principle that any small-government conservative would be committed to: the power of the federal government to decide the national NCAA football champion!

I kid you not. According to Barton, the need for national football playoffs is so obvious, and so important, that if the NCAA won't do it voluntarily he will introduce legislation to force them to do it.

So I ask you: if we can't get Michelle Bachman to say something stupid on camera every week, aren't you glad we have Joe Barton to pick up the slack?