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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:24 pm Post subject: The Michele Bachmann Hate-down |
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We haven't had a hate-down thread in a long time!
Matt Taibbi's Michele Bachmann's Holy War will launch this thread.
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Bachmann was mentored by a crackpot Christian extremist professor named John Eidsmoe, a frequent contributor to John Birch Society publications who once opined that he could imagine Jesus carrying an M16 and who spent considerable space in one of his books musing about the feasibility of criminalizing blasphemy.
This background is significant considering Bachmann's leadership role in the Tea Party, a movement ostensibly founded on ideas of limited government. Bachmann says she believes in a limited state, but she was educated in an extremist Christian tradition that rejects the entire notion of a separate, secular legal authority and views earthly law as an instrument for interpreting biblical values. As a legislator, she not only worked to impose a ban on gay marriage, she also endorsed a report that proposed banning anyone who "espoused or supported Shariah law" from immigrating to the U.S. (Bachmann seems so unduly obsessed with Shariah law that, after listening to her frequent pronouncements on the subject, one begins to wonder if her crazed antipathy isn't born of professional jealousy.)
This discrepancy may account for why some Tea Party leaders don't buy Bachmann as a champion of small government. "Michele Bachmann is � what's the old-school term? � a poser," says Chris Littleton, an Ohio Tea Party leader troubled by her support of the Patriot Act and other big-government interventions. "Look at her record and see how 'Tea Party' she really is."
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She's accomplished nothing . . .
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| Bachmann ended up unseating Laidig � and since then, getting herself elected is pretty much the only thing she has accomplished in politics. That's not an exaggeration: As both a state senator and a congresswoman, Michele Bachmann has never passed a piece of meaningful legislation. Her time in the Minnesota legislature was concentrated in two lengthy and unsuccessful protest campaigns. The first was a jeremiad against school standards, which fizzled out when Ventura's replacement, then-governor and current presidential rival Tim Pawlenty, backed his own version of school standards with the coming of No Child Left Behind. The other was a hysterical campaign against gay marriage that involved some of the strangest behavior ever attributed to an American elected official. |
. . . except perhaps for persecuting gays.
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In 2003, after the Massachusetts Supreme Court issued its famous ruling permitting gay marriage, Bachmann proposed an amendment to the Minnesota constitution banning gay marriage � despite the fact that the state legislature had already passed a law making same-sex unions illegal. Even the politicians who were sufficiently gay-phobic to have passed the original anti-�marriage law were floored by the brazen pointlessness of Bachmann's bill. "It's unnecessary, it's redundant, it's duplicative," said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Ann Rest.
The episode was classic Bachmann, whose political strategy throughout her career has mostly revolved around having her Little House on the Never-Existed Fundamentalist Prairie sensibilities rocked by something she has read (or misread) in the news, then immediately proposing a horseshit, total-waste-of-�everybody's-time legislative action in response. In 2009, after she saw a news story about the Chinese calling on the world to abandon the dollar as its reserve currency, Bachmann somehow took this to mean that the Obama administration might force ordinary Americans to abandon their familiar green dollar bills for some international and no doubt atheist currency. To combat this possibility, Bachmann introduced a resolution to "bar the dollar from being replaced by any foreign currency." Even after the gaffe was made public, Bachmann pressed on, challenging Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to "categorically renounce the United States moving away from the dollar." Imagine Joe McCarthy dragging Cabinet members into hearings and demanding that they publicly disavow the works of Groucho Marx, and you get a rough idea of the general style of Bachmannian politics.
Bachmann's anti-gay crusade in Minnesota was born of similar stuff. Right from the start, she made sure that everyone knew the awesome importance of the task she was taking on, trying to outlaw an already outlawed practice. "This is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in, at least, the last 30 years," she said. She called gay marriage an "earthquake issue," insisting that failure to pass her proposal would mean that "sex curriculum would essentially be taught by the gay community" and that "little K-12 children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal, natural, and perhaps they should try it." Much as Sarah Palin's actual speeches sometimes melt indistinguishably into Tina Fey's SNL parodies, Bachmann's anti-gay rhetoric at times features a campy, over-the-top quality that makes it hard to tell her apart from a tranny cabaret act. She described the gay lifestyle as "bondage" and "personal enslavement," even claiming that suicide among gay teens is due not to discrimination but to "the fact of what they're doing."
Bachmann's obsession with gay culture led her to bizarre behavioral extremes. In April 2005, after the State Senate refused to even vote on her constitutional amendment, she hid in the bushes outside the State Capitol during a gay-rights rally. A photo shows Bachmann, only the top of her Stepford head visible, crouched alone in an extreme catcher's squat behind the Capitol shrubbery. She later insisted she wasn't hiding at all, but resting because her heels hurt. |
But do not underestimate the power of spite when it comes to the American voter.
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| Snickering readers in New York or Los Angeles might be tempted by all of this to conclude that Bachmann is uniquely crazy. But in fact, such tales by Bachmann work precisely because there are a great many people in America just like Bachmann, people who believe that God tells them what condiments to put on their hamburgers, who can't tell the difference between Soviet Communism and a Stafford loan, but can certainly tell the difference between being mocked and being taken seriously. When you laugh at Michele Bachmann for going on MSNBC and blurting out that the moon is made of red communist cheese, these people don't learn that she is wrong. What they learn is that you're a dick, that they hate you more than ever, and that they're even more determined now to support anyone who promises not to laugh at their own visions and fantasies. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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She was a tax man, yeeeaaaah, the tax man . . .
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Marvin Manypenny, a Native American activist in Minnesota who failed to pay taxes on three years of wages totaling $30,650. Bachmann took him to federal court in 1992.
Manypenny worked at the Youth Project, described in court records as "a public foundation with a 17-year history of building citizen participation organizations around the country committed to social justice and peace.'' The resident of the White Earth Indian Reservation contended he was exempt from income taxes because of the April 8, 1867 land treaty between his Chippewa Indian ancestors and the U.S. government. He met Bachmann briefly in the federal court building in St. Paul.
"She was very -- how do I put this? -- haughty and curt,'' the 64-year-old Manypenny told National Journal in a telephone interview. "I tried to state my contentions to her and it was like talking to a brick wall.''
The court didn't accept Manypenny's argument, either. While the treaty exempted Indian-owned land from taxes, it did not exempt individuals. "We give no credence to petitioner's contention that he and the land are one,'' the court ruled.
Years later, Manypenny doesn't recall how much money he ended up paying in back taxes. But he questions how someone who hounded a minor-league tax delinquent like himself could support the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans enacted by former President George W. Bush. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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Pawlenty: Bachmann Has Accomplished Very Little
| Friedersdorf wrote: |
| In fact, the GOP argued four years ago that Barack Obama was too inexperienced for the Oval Office. By their lights, they've been vindicated: his performance is almost universally panned within the party. Is the partisan mind so powerful that they're now prepared to elevate someone based on the strength of her TV interviews and floor speeches? |
Yes, the partisan mind is powerful. Powerful deluded. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 1:42 am Post subject: |
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| Granted she has some all-too-human failings, but aside from them, I think she represents movement conservatism quite well. She would make a fine VeeP sidekick for Rick Perry. |
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Koreadays
Joined: 20 May 2008
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| it doesn't matter who is president. the president doesn't really run the country anyway. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Koreadays wrote: |
| it doesn't matter who is president. the president doesn't really run the country anyway. |
A Bachmann Presidency would surely refute this rather asinine theory.
Now run along and watch a football match. The adults will discuss politics. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Granted she has some all-too-human failings, but aside from them, I think she represents movement conservatism quite well. She would make a fine VeeP sidekick for Rick Perry. |
Rick Perry is a complete ignoramus (I'll allow you start the thread on that, though), so I'll grant you that Bachmann could play Palin to his crazy.
But Bachmann is extreme even for a social con. Witness the depth of her fear of gays:
| Bachmann the Bigot wrote: |
"...Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle--we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It's anything but gay."
"...Because if you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. Personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous."
"...If you'll recall television maybe 15, 20 years ago, if you'd see something about gays it would be an outlandish kind of an outfit, it would be a kind of tittering, making fun. But that's different now. Now gays are made to look good." |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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Lawrence O'Donnell, with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink approach, hinted that Marcus Bachmann is a closeted gay. I thought he was over the line with that.
Michelle is extreme, but not particularly extreme for a religious conservative, I don't think.
With politics on the right as crazy as they are right now, I don't discount her chances of winning the nomination outright, but I think the more likely outcome would be her as veep nominee. That alone would be more than frightening enough.
With the lingering poor economy here, the debt ceiling crisis, and half of Europe about to default, now is the time it gets dangerous. Some loony is going to show up with a quick and easy solution and all of Western Civilization is going to be challenged. I just hope she doesn't have a grating voice. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 8:26 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Koreadays wrote: |
| it doesn't matter who is president. the president doesn't really run the country anyway. |
A Bachmann Presidency would surely refute this rather asinine theory.
Now run along and watch a football match. The adults will discuss politics. |
I agree with the sentiment, although not the specific words. I would have said, "Now run along. If you don't have more than a 3rd grade elementary school understanding of politics, you don't have anything to say worth listening to." (Historical support: Gore vs Bush 2000) |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
Michelle is extreme, but not particularly extreme for a religious conservative, I don't think. |
She is extreme because she is completely sincere. Most social con politicians are insincere.
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| [U]rging the GOP top adopt a tolerance platform WITHOUT figuring out how to declamp itself from the social conservative hook � that�s not terribly realistic. That�s why so many Republican strategists, even as they�re sympathetic to gay rights (and virtually ALL of them are), don�t advise their clients to so much as acknowledge the dignity of gay people. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:30 am Post subject: |
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| I know that there are many Republicans who support gay rights, and that most members of the Republican elite are pro-gay, and that the business wing of the party could care less about the issue. |
Not only am I leary of just taking Ambinder's word for it just because he says it, I am forced to ask what other policies conservative politicians play the hypocrit card to get votes. This is not a very flattering picture of a principled conservative stand.
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| I believe conservatives, more than liberals, insist that rights come with responsibilities...If you are not willing to accept and faithfully discharge those responsibilities. |
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| He makes a pretty sound argument based on the conservative belief in responsibility. Marriage is in the end about being responsible |
Given the GOP performance on the debt ceiling debacle, I wonder how these two writers feel about their comments about 'responsibility' now. |
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lithium
Joined: 18 Jun 2008
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| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:35 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Granted she has some all-too-human failings, but aside from them, I think she represents movement conservatism quite well. She would make a fine VeeP sidekick for Rick Perry. |
Excellent reply. I have always thought of you as the far-left liberal type. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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| lithium wrote: |
| Excellent reply. I have always thought of you as the far-left liberal type. |
I suppose it's pointless to point out that liberal means you want to reform the system from within and pay some attention to human needs, whereas far-left means you want an uprising of the working class to overthrow the system. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 4:07 am Post subject: |
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^
Yes, it is pretty pointless to point that out.
There is hope, however. The public seems to be slowly awakening to the fact that the right is bat-guano crazy and not at all interested in solving problems, but very much interested in imposing a very unpopular ideology. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 4:54 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
^
Yes, it is pretty pointless to point that out.
There is hope, however. The public seems to be slowly awakening to the fact that the right is bat-guano crazy and not at all interested in solving problems, but very much interested in imposing a very unpopular ideology. |
The public also seems to be fairly quickly awakening to the fact that the left is a pack of fraudulent, ruthless, hypocritical, smooth-talking, race-pimping, mendacious criminal scoundrels who wrap their tyranny in phony liberal sensibilities while robbing the nation blind, and who terrorize the public with political correctness to squash any real debate.
What little credibility the left had has been flushed down the toilet after 3 years of broken promises from the disastrous Obama administration. |
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