Last week Representative Chris Shays (R-Conn.) stepped outside the niceties of standard political discourse and put a salty smackdown on Teddy Kennedy. Today the ten-term incumbent forged a new path of questionable discourse, preserved by Greg Sargent (also a New York Magazine contributing editor) at TPMCafe. In a debate with Democratic challenger Dianne Farrell, Shays — a supporter of the Iraq war — expressed his wish that we had entered Iraq earlier. "Now let me just tell you something about the reality. We're there. And if we made mistakes, we're still there. In my judgment, we should have gone in sooner but not for weapons of mass destruction."

Sadly, Shays did not elaborate. But we hope desperately that he will; he'll say something even weirder next time.

CT-04: Shays: We Should Have Invaded Iraq "Sooner," and "Not For WMD" [TPMCafe]