This is an opinion column.

There’s good news and bad.

The good: Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville ain’t from around here. Hallelujah. He is, as we all knew and is yet again confirmed in extensive reporting by the Washington Post, just another Florida Man doing all the wacky things expected of a Florida Man.

So Alabama can say without qualm: “He doesn’t belong to us.”

The bad: Alabama looks like a state full of Florida Men for electing this guy, for continuing to ignore obvious deficiencies including racist comments, interference in military promotions, connection to a fraudulent hedge fund, a history of dishonesty as a college football coach, and other assorted foolishness.

How can we make fun of Florida when we’re the ones dumb enough to buy this guy’s baloney?

I mean, the Florida Man meme is a pretty funny thing, in a dark, Carl Hiaasen way. You can type your birthday into a twisted website and find just what sort of Florida shenanigans took place on that day.

On my birthday, for instance, a Florida man tried to reach the Bermuda Triangle in his inflatable balloon, and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard.

If your birthday is today – Aug. 12 – your Florida Man is a drunk riding a lawn mower on the highway, begging cops to take him to jail. Which they did.

And the Florida Man for July 4, the birth of our nation, is a guy who went outside at 3 a.m. and yelled things like “boom,” and “bottle rocket,” and “fireworks” as a wakeup call to those whose celebratory shenanigans kept him up at night.

But come on. Those guys got nothin’ on our Florida Man.

In the runup to his election, Alabama’s Florida Man couldn’t name the three branches of government. If he couldn’t learn that in high school he should have at least picked it up from Schoolhouse Rock.

Alabama’s Florida Man is about as learned in geography as in civics. Just last year he tried to speak about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but went a little planetary instead.

“Hopefully we can help out the Uranian people, give them what they need to continue to fight,” he said.

Now he says Ukraine can’t win the war because “it’s a junior high team playing a college team.”

Alabama’s Florida Man has blocked military promotions for months, in the name of life. He has put our nation’s military at risk, which is a threat to lives and an insult to those who fight for us. His antics likely contributed to Huntsville, not in his state of residency, losing Space Command.

Alabama’s Florida Man made millions at Auburn University, largely on the backs of Black athletes, and then, for political gain, blasted diversity programs and defended White Nationalists. What is a White Nationalist, he was asked. “I call them Americans.”

What’s an opportunist? I call it a Tuberville.

Let’s face it, Alabama voted for its Florida Man because it recognized his name from football.

It’s remarkable, really. Alabama’s Florida Man is the guy who made his name beating the University of Alabama six times in row. He walked around thumbing his nose – fear the thumb, if you recall – at that Tuscaloosa team that’s usually pretty popular in this place that is not the Florida Man’s state.

But Alabama’s Florida Man didn’t just embarrass UA. When he quit Auburn in 2008 he still managed to stick the Auburn Family with a $5 million buyout.

I guess that takes us back to the good news and the bad.

The good: Alabama’s Florida man really isn’t one of us.

The bad: We are completely to blame. We gave this man a precious seat of power knowing his past, his lack of qualification, willful ignorance and questionable judgment. We made him a U.S. Senator, and we have to own him.

He is the Alabama Man now. And we owe the country an apology.

John Archibald is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.