A lot of attention was given to South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson for his outburst last week during President Barack Obama’s health care address, but I’m not sure why.

Yes, Wilson looked silly screaming “You lie!” and interrupting Obama during a televised speech watched by millions, but we’ve come to expect this kind of behavior from our elected representatives.

Whether it’s a “wide stance” in the bathroom stall or committing adultery on a wife struggling through breast cancer, tabloid scandal is what shapes the current landscape of American politics. I expect embezzled funds, morally questionable behavior and carnival antics from our nation’s leaders.

I didn’t expect a similarly preposterous declaration of falsehood to appear in Harvard University’s campus newspaper, however.

Last week, beneath the media frenzy surrounding Wilson’s two infamous words, The Harvard Crimson published an advertisement plainly stating the Holocaust was a hoax that never happened.

Immediately after the ad drew attention, Harvard Crimson President Maxwell Child issued a statement explaining the ad simply “fell through the cracks.”

In the words of “Saturday Night Live Weekend Update”: Really, Harvard? Really?

An ad declaring that a horrendous coordinated plot to exterminate the Jewish population in Europe never happened “fell through the cracks” and made it to the pages of a newspaper belonging to one of the country’s most recognized and revered institutions of higher learning.

Really?

This is an institution that accepted a paltry 7 percent of its applicants this past year. It’s a place where many of the world’s greatest minds teach, conduct research and learn. You can have the mind of Will Hunting and not get inside the pearly gates of Harvard.

It makes sure no one not up to its standards falls through the cracks.

So, it naturally seems ironic that such an exclusive society of genius minds has such poor oversight that an ad denying the Holocaust can “fall through the cracks.”

It’s harder to fall through the cracks and get accepted to Harvard than it is to break into Fort Knox. But getting space in the Harvard newspaper for propaganda, well, that’s a different story.

Granted, this isn’t the first time Harvard looked iconoclastically stupid.

In 2005, then-president of Harvard Lawrence Summers made comments suggesting women were less capable of succeeding in the fields of science and engineering. Summers later resigned his position amid fierce scrutiny.

Yet Harvard, like any college, is supposed to be a place that cultivates enthusiasm in today’s young minds, forging future leaders who change the world and don’t let things slip through the cracks. Or leaders, at least, who take responsibility for their mistakes.

Former senior members of the Crimson include Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Roosevelt was president during World War II and Kennedy fought in it.

I doubt they would let something denying the Holocaust “slip through the cracks.”

So, what’s more surprising? A fit-throwing Congressman from South Carolina looking stupid or Harvard?

It doesn’t matter. We’ll focus on Kanye West looking stupid for the next two weeks instead.

Reach Dustin at dustin.volz@asu.edu.