Steve King is an odd little political animal. Physically, he manages to mix more caricature fodder than even Richard Nixon. He’s got the mighty stature of a Tom Tancredo, the dour steel face of a Westernized Putin, and juxtaposed Paul Newman blue eyes to top it off. Essentially, he’s a grown-up version of one of those creepy typecast children who grace American remakes of Japanese horror films. In terms of his voting record, King is perhaps one of the most reliable in the House. On any piece of legislation pertaining to brown people, sex, terrorism, or God, you can bet your sweet baklava that King will vote with Reagan in his veins, Scalia in his skin, and Goldwater in his gonads.

This past week though, King showed that he had a talent for something other than grooming the pubes of Newt Gingrich’s Republican Congressional model. Although the prediction has yet to be confirmed, the Iowa Congressman has asserted that he can divine the future based on a powerful understanding of ethnic names. The divination was performed on March 7th to the effect of “if he (Barack Obama) is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the Al Qaeda, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11th.”

While the possibility of King wielding this exciting new power is alluring, let’s take a moment to examine the relatively new field of divining future events based on name recognition and reaction. Think of a mixture of chaos theory and the visionary work of John Edward. The basic formula is this: an action in which a name is present will create an equal or greater REACTION based upon the gravity of that particular name. So, following this logic, Steve King asserts that should Barack Hussein Obama be elected president of the United States of America (action), then Al Qaeda will be dancing in the proverbial streets (reaction). Although few purport to possess the gift of name divination, these name seers are apparently a force to be respected. Of course, one can’t judge the accuracy of a name seer until the predicted reaction to the name in question comes true, so let’s be easy on King for a moment. There’s no need for a rush to judgment.

Now, name divination should not be confused with gross conjecture, soothsaying, or groundless allegation. For example, if I were to say that if King gets reelected to a fourth term in the House, he will be caught giving a bonobo chimp fellatio in an air vent, I wouldn’t be grounding my prediction on any firm, factual basis. However, if I was to say that should Steve King be elected to a fourth term, Americans would fear a regression into monarchy due to the presence of his last name, I would hold a much more defensible and respectable opinion.

So, my question for the great diviner is this: what kind of dance will Al Qaeda be performing around the world? Will they be shimmying down to Chubby Checker’s 1960 hit “The Twist?” Will they be more daring and revive the much-derided piece of 1990s nostalgia, The Macarena? Or will they simply stick to the tried-and-true jihadist rendition of House of Pain’s signature “Jump Around” with Kaloshnikovs pointed skywards? Perhaps we shouldn’t push such pressure for details on Congressman King at this point. After all, he’s just starting out.