I have stood on the Kabul soccer field where hundreds of men, women and children were shot or stoned to death by the Taliban as bloodbath entertainment.

For an NDP candidate to compare very orthodox Jews to a Taliban capable of those atrocities was deemed worthy of firing. Stefan Jonasson was dumped off the ballot yesterday.

This comes on the heels of 17 other candidates fired for self-inflicted gaffes, the most notorious being the Conservative hopeful busted for peeing in a coffee mug on his repairman day job.

But despite so much formidable competition, a Hamilton area NDP wannabe takes the ultimate dummy prize.

It started with Alex Johnstone’s Facebook comment noting the flagpoles in a photo of the Auschwitz concentration camp looked like phallic symbols. Clearly it was grossly insensitive, but only worthy of head-shaking scorn, not a sacking.

But then she told a reporter that she didn’t actually know what Auschwitz was when she posted her comment.

For her edification, more than a million Jews were killed by the Nazis behind those poles. That’s more than the combined soldier death count of Britain, Canada and the U.S. during the Second World War.

But just when you thought this ignorance couldn’t get any more jaw-dropping, you learn that Johnstone is deputy chair of a Hamilton-area school board.

That’s one for the history books. A school trustee in charge of our childrens’ education did not know the name of the most notorious concentration camp on the planet.

What could possibly be next? Her issuing a statement mistaking the Hajj stampede, which killed 700 this week, with an annual rodeo in Calgary?

There’s clearly no minimum requirement for intellect, etiquette or common sense in running for federal office. A few current MPs fail on one or more scores.

But if 18 candidates can pass their party’s vigorous screening process only to be caught by inquisitive cyber sleuths, there’s clearly an epidemic of social media casualties coming to campaigns of the future.

Party war rooms used to be preoccupied with selling their leader or trashing their rivals.

Now their primary purpose seems to be protecting candidates from their own stupidity.

That's the Last Word.