Michele Bachmann's Latest: Linking Barack Obama To Ward Churchill
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is at it again. In an appearance today on Bill Bennett's radio show, she gave the now-standard Republican line that the GOP has to do everything they can to stop President Obama's agenda -- and managed to slip in a line that Obama is enacting the policies of Ward Churchill:
Said Bachmann: "But what I think we're seeing is an implementation of all of the radical ideas that Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill -- the radical ideas that we've seen on some college campuses, they're now being implemented in our government, and they're taking a nefarious route when it looks at the economic recovery."
Ward Churchill, you might recall, is the radical former college professor who wrote an essay saying the victims of 9/11 had it coming. And Michele Bachmann, a member of Congress, thinks the President of the United States subscribes to Churchill's ideas and is working to enact them into law.
(Via Think Progress.)
Josh
Matt
Eric
Minnesotans, please chime in: are her constituients really wingnutty enough to put up with her for another two years? What if she had a primary challenge from someone sane?
March 5, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
What was wrong with El Tinklenberg? I don't think it was his sanity, I think that until Bachmann made her ridiculous statements on Hardball he had no money and thus could not mount a viable campaign in time. Besides, Bachmann's district is very pro-GOP. Hard to imagine taking her out unless the district's demographics change or are gerrymandered post 2010.
March 5, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michele Bachmann voted against the $700 Billion Bank Bailout, and El Tinklenberg said he supported the Bank Bailout.
March 5, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
And what was wrong with supporting the bank bailout?
March 5, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The bailout was only part of it. Her core votes were the anti-abortion and Christian block. Tinklenberg also seemed to lose votes on rumors that he could have prevented the I35 collapse.
March 5, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
2010. We need to hold the Legislature. Minnesota may lose a seat in Congress after the next census, and I for one would love to see her district split up into several pieces, and Bachmann redistricted into running against Betty McCollum*.
I'm no McCollum fan after her attacks on Franken last cycle, but I might rethink my refusal to vote for her if this was the case.
* MN-4 might be the safest DFL seat in the state with a possibility of a "creative redistricting" connection.
March 5, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Argh. If it hadn't been for the spoiler independent candidate, the DFLer would've defeated the Wingnut.
http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20081104/ElecRslts.asp?M=CG&CD=06
Results from Congressional District 06
Independence BOB ANDERSON 40643 10.04
Republican MICHELE BACHMANN 187817 46.41
Democratic-Farmer-Labor EL TINKLENBERG 175786 43.43
March 5, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the kicker is that the Independence Party didn't endorse the Independence candidate. They endorsed Tinklenberg! So, not only was Anderson the spoiler, he was the spoiler that his own party didn't even want.
March 5, 2009 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh that's great. Brilliant move. We get another lunatic in congress because someone wanted their name on the ballot to get a handful of votes to put the lunatic in congress. Give me a break.
March 5, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
In Minnesota, at least 10% of people will vote for anyone with a good Scandanavian name like Anderson.
March 5, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not from Mn but they know what they are doing. If she is in DC she isn't in MN! I think she suffers terminal PMS.
March 5, 2009 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
She won't get a primary challenge. From who? A MODERATE Republican? Where are ya gonna find one of them?
Her district is wingnutty and heavily gerrymandered. It goes from the eastern St. Paul suburbs (think well-off white suburbia - we got ours)up to St. Cloud (think rural white working class neo-fascist).
March 5, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seven out of eight congressional districts think she's nuts.
Bachmann represents the most conservative district in the state.
Those two statements should explain it all.
March 5, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Her statement don't even make sense, regardless of the insanity of the statements. Time for another 72 hour hold on this psycho.
Isn't there anybody who is rational in the republican party? Anybody? I didn't realize that there were so many insane people in this country. There has to be someone in the republican party that's sane.
March 5, 2009 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are still plenty of rational Republicans. They're just barred from running for office.
March 5, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I get it. It's like the mullahs in iran controlling who gets on the ballot. That explains alot.
By the way, she always looks like she is on some kind of drugs. Maybe it's not insanity but drug induced delusions. They should do drug testing in the congress. That might solve the problem.
March 5, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I see people like Bachmann and others like her making speeches on the House floor I'm amazed that at this time in our History, with C-SPAN, the Internet, Television, so much information at the fingertips, people like Bachmann can still get elected.
March 5, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone except her most rabid followers must see that this woman is delusional and needs to be retired from public office ASAP.
March 5, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Allow me to explain, if I can. I work across the aisle from someone who lives in her district who I'm pretty sure voted for her. The reason I say he probably voted for her is that a)he tends to spew the typical right-wing talking points(i.e. "Taxes are too high," "Unions are bad," "Teachers are bad," "Teachers' unions are the devil's disciples," "It's cold out today so global warming is a myth") and b)knowing that I'm a Democrat, he brought up the subject of Bachmann and quoted one of her last minute campaign smear jobs against her opponent saying that he'd broken the law (she lied).
The explanation is that these people go home from work and immerse their heads in Fox News. Their brains are pickled in that shit. They never get exposure to any factual or non-biased reporting. You can tell what they heard the night before by hearing it repeated verbatim from their mouths the next day. When they hear "Acorn" on Fox News at night then it's "Acorn...Acorn...Acorn" the next day. If they ever come to realize how much they've been lied to and how much of it they've swallowed...but I'm not holding out hope. This is willful ignorance.
March 5, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
its not willfull ignorance.
its obvious hate.
probably fueled by racism and anything non white or gay or not the proper religion.
these people dont tune to fox to learn what to say.
they tune to fox to hear what they believe.
March 5, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are at least two ways to look at this that come to mind. One is that cognitive dissonance enters in when reality contradicts their "faith" so reality is ignored. In this case hitting them on the head with facts is useless.
On the other hand there is the observation that my brother, a MN resident since 1968, made that Minnesotans are so uptight and repressed because of their religion and culture (see Prairie Home Companion for a description) that when they get the chance to throw off the shackles in anonymity, so to speak, by voting for some weirdo in left field, they take it. Examples are Jesse, Michelle, Norman, Joe McCarthy, and probably some others.
March 5, 2009 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Joe McCarthy was from Wisconsin. Something very strange in that state - remember, they also gave us Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein.
March 5, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michele Bachmann: Vying for Queen of the GOP Freak Show against Sarah Palin.
But apparently they like them some freaks out there in Minnesota, which concerns me when I hear talk of a re-do of the senate vote.
March 5, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
But is she as crazy as Katherine Harris was? That's the question that Americans want to know.
March 5, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I find interesting is that Bachmann, like everyone else in Congress, has access to tons of data. They can get the straight story, straight from the source, on so many things. Why does she insist on being fed this right-wing pap and bullshit as her exclusive source of information? She has no business being anywhere near a seat in government, but she's so screwy she can't even fake it.
I've been told, and I don't know how reliable this is, that her husband is feeding her this propaganda. She passes it on like she's got inside information. It's bullshit, Michele! Get a fucking clue!
March 5, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're under the deluded view that she should
a) Get the data, then use it to
b) Make the right decision
She's a republican, so it's a little reversed...
a) Make the Right decision
b) Falsify the data to justify part a.
March 5, 2009 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even your usual variety of right-wing loons in Congress have something of an air of professionalism about them, however thin. When they spew their talking points, you can see the little sneer curling up on their lips, because they don't even believe half of the shit they're saying, though they say it anyway. Bachmann, on the other hand, is a true believer. She's completely convinced of this stuff. She's really too gullible to be in the position she's in.
March 5, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're known as useful idiots and they've been around for a long time.
March 5, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pshaw. This is just another urban myth perpetrated by radical, Godless, homosexual, socialist, pro-abortion, anti-American terrorists who want to take away our freedom to choose between incandescent and compact flourescent light bulbs.
March 5, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh crap, we've been exposed!
March 5, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since Bachman wants to demonstrate how down with it she is, it's time for a little Michelle to Michelle talk, with some of dat Chicago style finger waving and neck snappin!
March 5, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now, now. She has a point.
After all, didn't President Obama recently submit proposed legislation entitled "The Little Eichmanns' Relief Act"?
March 5, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live in Bachmann's district. It's thick with right wingers and single issue voters (abortion) ... she got elected largely due to her fundamentalist positions.
As noted above, she's a true believer and completely oblivious to the idiocy of her remarks. A "useful idiot", indeed ... she's a lock step right wing vote to be counted upon.
March 5, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's a total act. She's running to be the femi-nazi Rush. You might defeat her if you could convince her constitutents that she's making fools of them.
March 5, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, she really is that nutty. Go check out some of the videos of her on YouTube, going back to when she was in the Minnesota Senate. Or read her page in Wikipedia. It's highly entertaining.
March 5, 2009 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, Lordy. When Bachman started her last kerfuffle, my husband and I (former residents of Minnesota) rushed money to her opponent. We were soooo close to unseating this mental midget. Oh yes, I'm a professor on a college campus and that's exactly what we do, plot "nefarious routes". Sheesh--if she only had a brain.
March 5, 2009 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The thing to remember about Bachman and all her little friends in the House Republican Conference is that most of them are not demagogues or crazy they truly believe the stuff they spew is gospel. Bachman and company do not think they are right they know, with exact certainty, that they are right. They consider themselves God’s agents in place and anyone who does not tow their particular line has to be corrupt or agents of the Devil.
P.S. Is there anyone out there who can tell me what an “orderly revolution” is?
April 6, 2009 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink