Jan Brewer is Sacha Baron Cohen's latest 'Who Is America?' target

Bill Goodykoontz | The Republic | azcentral.com

Show Caption Hide Caption Sacha Baron Cohen's long history of duping people From Ali G to Borat, here's a look back at some of his most memorable moments.

When he was the host of "The Daily Show," the great Jon Stewart once called Arizona the "meth lab of democracy."

Maybe Sacha Baron Cohen was watching that night. Because Arizona has been a godsend for him and his show, "Who Is America?" Following in the footsteps of angry people who didn't want a mosque built in Kingman and disgraced former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio,who was duped into agreeing to oral sex with President Donald Trump, former Gov. Jan Brewer showed up on the latest episode Sunday night, explaining to a tiny plastic toy that he was eligible for automatic weapons — even though he wanted to use it for ethnic cleansing.

Of toys. Still.

Really, it's a wonder Cohen went to any other state.

As pure television entertainment, Brewer saved an otherwise lame episode, although seeing Gretchen Rossi, a former star of "The Real Housewives of Orange County," duped was satisfying. As a former leader of the state, Brewer was ... bizarre.

She appeared with the Cohen character OMGWhizzBoyOMG — the same character who duped Arpaio. The character, a Finnish TV presenter, hosts a show in which he and guests unpack toys (bizarre as that sounds, this is hardly the most ridiculous premise of "Who Is America?"). Brewer unpacked Fizzy Fireworks, with Cohen's character providing the voice.

“I don’t know how to tie my shoelaces, but please, can I have a semi-automatic gun?" the Cohen character said. "I would be very good at shooting people.”

"A certain kind of machine gun, you can," Brewer said to the toy. "Certain kinds are off-ground."

And, after a pause: "They ought not to be, though."

"How old are you?" Brewer asked the toy.

"Me, I'm 21, but I've got the mental of age of 3."

"But the majority of people aren't mentally ill, and they're not running around," Brewer said, evidently apropos of nothing, though who knows how it was edited.

"Oh, I'm not menatlly ill," the toy said. "I just want to ethnically cleanse all the limited-edition Shopkins."

"Well, that's crazy," Brewer said.

"Oh, but can I still buy a machine gun, please?"

"Yes," Brewer said, "you can."

MORE: Jan Brewer aims to deliver Trump voters for Martha McSally in Senate race

This doesn't do justice to how surreal the segment was. Again, there's no way to know how it was edited, but Brewer's unprompted volunteering of information was strange at best. But Cohen traffics in the absurd. And while some have complained he targets conservatives, on Sunday he also went after Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, himself a former Democratic presidential candidate.

Both were targets of Cohen's worst character, Dr. Billy Wayne Ruddick, a fictional conservative website host. He tried to get Stein to say global warming was a myth and Dean to say that Hillary Clinton, um, has a penis (a doctored photo came into play in both interviews). As with all of the Ruddick segments, the target ends up looking better than Ruddick, and by extension Cohen.

So why bother? With anything else, really. Why not just call this "Who Is Arizona?" and be done with it.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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