“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”—Mark Twain

When assembling the cast of jerks for Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Connecticut History, I purposely stayed away from politicians because, as I say in the book, “there are too many from which to choose.”

Exhibit #130,907 (approximately) is this week’s JERK OF THE WEEK!

Emmett C. Burns Jr.

Mr. Burns (a real-life Democrat and not a fictional nuclear power plant owner) is a delegate in the Maryland House of Delegates, representing the fine city of Baltimore. Recently, when Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo recently voiced his support for same-sex marriage (something he’s been doing publicly since 2009), Burns took exception.

Via the Huffington Post:

In a letter dated August 29, 2012 and addressed to Ravens owner Steve Biscotti, Burns writes “I find it inconceivable that one of your players, Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo, would publicly endorse Same-Sex marriage, specifically as a Ravens football player.”

“Many of my constituents and your football supporters are appalled and aghast that a member of the Ravens Football Team would step into this controversial divide,” wrote Burns, “and try to sway public opinion one way or another.”

According to WBALTV, Burns became upset when he learned that Ayanbadejo had contributed a pair of Ravens tickets to a fundraiser for Marylanders for Marriage Equality. After expressing his dismay at Ayanbadejo’s actions in his letter, Burns then asked the Ravens to silence the 36-year-old veteran.

“I am requesting that you take the necessary action, as a National Football League Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employees and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions. I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing.”

Now, normally I’d go off on a rant here condemning Burns (“They are saying Boo-urns“), but Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe has already stepped up to defend his NFL brother Ayanbadejo—and same-sex marriage—in a wonderfully eloquent and *amazingly awesome* open letter.

I won’t quote the whole thing, although I highly recommend you read it (if you haven’t already—NSFW language). Here’s just a bit …

As I suspect you have not read the Constitution, I would like to remind you that the very first amendment in this founding document deals with the freedom of speech, particularly the abridgment of said freedom. By using your position as an elected official (when referring to your constituents in order to implicitly threaten the Ravens organization) to argue that the Ravens should silence Brendon Ayanbadejo from voicing his support for same-sex marriage, not only are you clearly violating the First Amendment, but you come across as a narcissistic fromunda stain. What on Earth would possess you to say something so mind-boggingly stupid? It baffles me that a man such as yourself, a man who relies on that same First Amendment to pursue your own religious studies without fear of persecution from the state, could somehow justify stifling another person’s right to free speech. To call that “hypocritical” would be to do a disservice to the word. “Mindfuckingly, obscenely hypocritical” starts to approach it a little bit.

I am not about to change my football allegiance to the Vikings, but I will forever root for punter Chris Kluwe.

Thanks for kicking a jerk where it counts!

If you want to kick me where it counts—my wallet—you know what you can pre-order at Amazon.com.

Thanks!

Here’s one you really can’t make up, a person who will no doubt also win a Darwin Award in addition to being named JERK OF THE WEEK!

This week’s “winner” is:

RANDY LEE TENLEY

I don’t have a picture of the late Mr. Tenley, so this will have to do.

What is this, you ask? It’s a ghillie suit, a 3-D camouflage outfit sometimes used by military snipers. Apparently, the 44-year-old Tenley was wearing one at the time of his unfortunate demise. And no, he wasn’t mistakenly shot by a hunter—he was run over by two cars out in Big Sky country.

I’ll let the NBC news affiliate in lovely Kalispell, Montana, tell the story.

Troopers say [Tenley] was in the right-hand lane of Highway 93 South when a 15-year old Somers girl hit him.

“He probably would not have been very easy to see at all,” said Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Jim Schneider.

Another car swerved, and a third car, troopers say driven by a 17-year old Somers girl, ran him over.

“It appears the pedestrian was well into the driving lane,” said Schneider. Officials closed Highway 93 for two hours on Sunday night, as firefighters directed traffic and officers investigated. What they found is troubling.

“According to his companions, he was out there in the ghillie suit attempting to incite a sighting of Bigfoot, to make people think they had seen a Sasquatch.

But, dispatchers received no calls of the sort, just the one that sent emergency crews rushing to the scene. Sunday night’s investigation is ongoing. Troopers say Tenley likely drank alcohol yesterday, but they’re still waiting on toxicology results to see if he was impaired.

Poor Sasquatch—why do we continue to besmirch your noble name? Somewhere, Bobo weeps …

Seriously, although your first impulse is to laugh about how this possibly drunken idiot got himself killed—and really, you probably should—the tragedy here and why Tenley is the jerk of the week is because not one, but two teenaged girls are most likely absolutely traumatized for life by accidentally killing another human being with their motor vehicles. Yeah, it was a joke gone awry and certainly neither one’s fault, but I’m pretty sure they’ll never forget that nightmarish, sickening feeling of hearing a body slam against your car as the life is knocked out of it. Just an awful experience.

It can’t really compare, but I ran over a woodchuck on the Taconic Parkway about 15 years ago and I can still vividly recall the sick thuds as it bounced between the pavement and the car floor as I passed over it. Ugh.

And yes, posthumously calling Tenley a “jerk” is absolutely a case of “speaking ill of the dead,” which is ideal as my Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Connecticut History comes out in on Sept. 18. Rather than wait for a Bigfoot to show up with it, you may just want to pre-order it now at Amazon.com.

Gotta say right up front, I find the story of this jerk pretty damned amusing.

This week’s JERK OF THE WEEK is

Csanad Szegedi

Who in the blue hell is that? you’re no doubt asking yourself (you know, if you talked to yourself like you were The Rock).  Well, that makes sense. Unless you’re a member of the Hungary’s Jobbik political party—or deeply anti-semitic—chances are that you’re not familiar with Mr. Szegedi.

Here’s a description of him from The New York Times:

As a rising star in Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party, Csanad Szegedi was notorious for his incendiary comments on Jews: He accused them of “buying up” the country, railed about the “Jewishness” of the political elite and claimed Jews were desecrating national symbols.

Szegedi is also “a founding member of the Hungarian Guard, a group whose black uniforms and striped flags recalled the Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party which briefly governed Hungary at the end of World War II and killed thousands of Jews.”

Charming fellow, right?

The real key here to all this is the word “was.” In a turn of events that seems as if it was orchestrated by M. Night Shayamalan or came straight out of an Alanis Morissette song, it has come to light that Szegedi himself is actually Jewish.

Again, from the Times.

Following weeks of Internet rumors, Szegedi acknowledged in June that his grandparents on his mother’s side were Jews — making him one too under Jewish law, even though he doesn’t practice the faith. His grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor and his grandfather a veteran of forced labor camps.

Apparently, Szegedi’s grandparents hid their heritage from their family to protect them from persecution from narrow-minded hateful bigots such as their own grandson. Awkward!

Of course, I immediately thought of Clayton Bigsby from “Chappelle’s Show” (Warning: Absolutely NSFW language).

When Szegedi was confronted with the evidence—and after he got his jaw off the floor and the shpilkes out of his genechtagazoink—he immediately tried to hush it up, offering cash and political favors to make his bitter truth go away. No such luck.

After being publicly exposed, Szegedi then tried to claim that he’s never made any disparaging comments about Jews, despite an abundance of evidence—TV interviews and his own speeches, for examples—to the contrary.

The good news is that because of everything, Szegadi has been forced to give up his political party power, and is currently being called on to resign his seat in the European Parliament. Of course, I don’t quite understand why he would be asked to step down now—it seems as though the anti-semitic agenda would’ve been frowned upon from the start, rather than after this startling revelation—but the fact that somehow karma and/or irony has come back to kick him in his jerk ass, is all good by me.

So to Csanad Szegedi, I say congrats on being named JERK OF THE WEEK!

Oh, and mazel tov!

And coincidentally, Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Connecticut History hits bookstores on Rosh HaShanah, Sept. 18. Or if you want to be a mensch, feel free to pre-order it from Amazon.

So to help promote my upcoming book, Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Connecticut History, which is scheduled to hit bookshelves on Sept. 18, but [*shameless plug alert*] is available for pre-order from Amazon.com, I thought I’d try out a new feature here.

As you may have guessed, it’s called:

JERK OF THE WEEK!

(Like the colors? Took me extra to do that, but anything for you, dear blogeroos.)

I’m reasonably sure you can figure out the concept by the title, so let’s just get to it, shall we?

So the inaugural JERK OF THE WEEK, for Aug. 1, 2012 is …

Jerry Sandusky!

Okay, now I know you’re saying, “Uh, gee … going out on a limb there, ain’t ya’? This guy could be JERK OF THE CENTURY” But the reason—aside from the horrifyingly obvious—why I’m picking Mr. Ped State this week is for his comments from earlier today.

Apparently, according to his attorney Joe Amendola, in regard to the NCAA’s punishment of the Nittany Lions for his scandal, Jerry Sandusky said, “To do what they’re doing to Penn State is so unjust.” Amendola added that Sandusky “loves the program and he loves the university.”

Yeahhhh … that’s Uncle Jerry, just full of love for everyone, which is pretty much how he got in trouble in the first place.

That aside—is Sandusky fracking kidding or what?! He’s upset about the sanctions—a bunch of wins vacated, loss of scholarships and post-season eligibility and a $60 million fine, among other actions—against an athletic program and a university that turned a blind eye to his abhorrent crimes for better than a decade?! He’s taking issue with the disciplinary actions against the school that looked the other way while he casually went about RAPING YOUNG BOYS?!!!! Are you serious?!

Look, I’m no legal expert or PR guru, but I’m pretty sure after you’re convicted of such heinous acts in a court case where your own adopted son was ready to take the stand against you because you raped him too, you NEED TO SHUT THE FRACK UP … FOREVER!!! Seriously, no one anywhere gives a rodent’s posterior what you think about ANYTHING, let alone what happens to a lousy football program and an administration that ignored the fact that you were [*insert your own crass metaphors for the rape of young boys here*]! Just shut your rape hole, crawl under a rape rock and go the rape away!

But then, you gotta love this nugget (from the linked ESPN article):

“He continues to believe that the truth will come out at some point, and that he’ll get another trial or another opportunity to establish his innocence,” Amendola said.

Really?! Really and truly?! That’s a special kind of jerkery, that right there is.

Congratulations Jerry Sandusky. In case anyone, anywhere doubted it—which I’m pretty sure they didn’t—you, sir, are the Jerk of The Week! I only hope your new roommates deliver your “award” in a way that you might appreciate. Repeatedly.