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It may be early to say this as the 2016 “presidential” marathon grinds through the first of two long years, but the Republican contenders — including the ones who are faking indecision to rake in dark money — seem determined to set a new record for saying imbecilic things. (Before someone makes the “what about Democrats” point, let me say that Mrs. Clinton says a lot of things, good, bad and indifferent, but rarely are they idiotic.)

Here’s a sampling of this week’s silliness. What’s really remarkable is that it does not include Senator Ted Cruz.

Rand Paul: “You and I shouldn’t leave this next generation of leaders to be brainwashed by America-hating socialists and Marxists.” Mr. Paul was referring to American colleges and universities. Beyond a call to sign a petition, he didn’t say what conservatives should do about them. Invade them? Maybe Donald Rumsfeld could help him with another wildly successful shock-and-awe operation. As they used to say to Joe McCarthy when he claimed to have a list of Communists in the State Department – show us the names, Mr. Paul. Sometimes the “libertarian” candidate makes sense. But this is just right-wing propaganda. Expect more of this and less of his principles as the race heats up.

Jeb Bush: “ISIS didn’t exist when my brother was president. Al Qaeda in Iraq was wiped out when my brother was president.” As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker pointed out, this is not true. Al Qaeda in Iraq was not “wiped out” during George W. Bush’s presidency – not even close. What actually happened is that it morphed into ISIS, or the Islamic State, feeding on the disarray created by President Bush’s incompetent invasion of Iraq, which among other things drove the Sunni military class into the arms of insurgents and terrorists.

Chris Christie: A two-fer. One is that if President Obama had retaliated against Syria’s President Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons early in the civil war, the United States could have deposed him. Only a politician who thinks the known world ends at the entrance ramps to the George Washington Bridge could come up with that one. Since Russia backed Mr. Assad, and Syria is not controllable with traffic cones, there was no possibility the United States was going to overthrow him. Also from Mr. Christie: Senators who support amending the Patriot Act are in cahoots with Edward Snowden. No, they are in cahoots with the Constitution.

Marco Rubio: “We’ve reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage you are labeled a homophobe and a hater.” And: “After they are done going after individuals, the next step is to argue that the teachings of mainstream Christianity, the catechism of the Catholic Church, is hate speech and there’s a real and present danger.” This is cookie-cutter right-wing nonsense, predicated on the notion that if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, or advocate on behalf of those Americans, you are anti-religious or more specifically un-Christian. It’s a lie. Mr. Rubio might want to acquaint himself with Ireland. Or he could just read this column by Frank Bruni.

Rick Santorum: The former senator from Pennsylvania and former failure at running for president – who plans to torment America with another run – has been out of sight this week pending his big announcement. He says and believes so many ridiculous things that it’s just easier to give you this link to ThinkProgress.org, which did a nice job summing up a few of them.