Is Bachmann Silly So You Won’t Notice The Crazy?
It seems that America has caught Bachmannia. After the New Hampshire debate, Michele Bachmann has surged in polls. In fact, at least one poll has her tied for first place in Iowa with Mitt Romney. Markos at Daily Kos is already saying that Bachmann will be the nominee. I guess I have my doubts – is she another flash-in-the-pan like Donald Trump? Her history of saying dumb things will probably not help her win the nomination, not with many Republicans spooked by the idea of a Sarah Palin candidacy. Bachmann proved her deep silliness this week with her John Wayne/John Wayne Gacy mix-up and then yesterday she did an interview with George Stephanopolous:
Host George Stephanopoulos began by noting, “In your announcement you said ‘my voice is part of a movement to take back our country.’ From whom?” Bachmann replied, “Well, from the people all across the nation.”
Hahaha. She’s saving America from people all across the nation. Even sillier, she turned John Quincy Adams (born in 1767) into a Founding Father to cover an earlier gaffe when she said the founders worked tirelessly to end slavery.
Bachmann: Well if you look at one of our Founding Fathers, John Quincy Adams, that’s absolutely true. He was a very young boy when he was with his father serving essentially as his father’s secretary. He tirelessly worked throughout his life to make sure that we did in fact one day eradicate slavery.
Stephanopoulos: He wasn’t one of the Founding Fathers – he was a president, he was a Secretary of State, he was a member of Congress, you’re right he did work to end slavery decades later. But so you are standing by this comment that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery?
Bachmann: Well, John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy but he was actively involved.
I guess Bachmann comes from the Sarah Palin school of media management – when you make a mistake double down.
Jonathan Berstein is mad at the media tendency to dissect gaffes but to ignore the substantive stuff like her dismissal of the debt ceiling. Stephanopolous, to his credit, did try to get Bachmann to talk about her past statements about removing the minimum wage and how it will end unemployment but she avoided the question.
You know what’s not getting nearly the same treatment? Bachmann has been going around for some time now, including on her Sunday TV appearances, spouting absolute nonsense about the debt ceiling. She’s claiming that somehow it would be no big deal if the limit wasn’t raised.
And yet, while her “gaffes” are getting pilloried by reporters, that assertion is just getting he-said-she-said type “balanced” reporting (see, for example, this AP story).
We’re not talking here about a peripheral issue, or trivia: this is perhaps the central current issue in American government, and she’s simply dead wrong about it.
I get Berstein’s point. While we point and laugh, are we ignoring the really radical ideas coming from Bachmann like setting corporate and inheritance taxes to zero, letting America default on its debts and removing worker protections? Bachmann’s ideas, whether she fizzles or not, will probably get incorporated into the GOP platform and move them further to the right.
Tags: 2012 GOP Primary, Michele Bachmann
Remember when GWB first started making national campaign appearances, and he started saying stuff that clearly marked him as an idiot – the press laundered it all and convinced America it made him an authentic regular guy, tapping into our native anti-intellectualism.
Now they are preparing to turn that corner on Bachmann. They tried to do it with Palin but that was too much of a stretch. Palin didn’t play along; she kept ratcheting up the stupid instead of laying low and letting the media do the work.
Never underestimate the appeal of stupid. Once stupid becomes a virtue, it is impossible to defeat, because you can’t even fight it with facts.
I don’t think that they are *preparing* — I think they are already doing it. In 24 hours I heard news types on NPR, WDEL and CNN talk about Bachmann being poised and polished and focused. Because the discussion of policy or even an obvious lack of knowledge of the history of the country that she aspires to govern is somehow not important. This is the same Bachmann who accuses the left of indoctrinating kids into a warped view of American history — especially rich since she’s just making it up as she goes along.
If the media is just going to do horserace coverage here, they should be reminded that real horserace coverage also includes discussion of past performance as well and the work of said horse’s trainer. Which in this case, is Ed Rollins.
Watched her on the Sundays Shows be careful she is slick she also would wipe the floor with Sarah in a debate no winking or gotchas
I can easily see her winning the primary. The press will launch her because they love covering the easy and the crazy and they really dislike covering policy. They really, really wanted Sarah Palin with her FB and tweets, but they’ll settle for the next best thing.
how much of Obama’s vote do you think were people swept up in the hubub. You need only to look at some of the stupid crap people wear to see this is a nation of trend followers. If she wins the nomination, keep in mind there are a lot of people who are into the whole “no gumment insiders” thing, even though they have no idea what they are talking about.
Sarah Palin got too close to the presidency, if we keep letting these people get that close, eventually one of them will win because that kind of crazy will be accepted. Also, if Obama beats a teabagger the spin will be “well he beat a weak candidate so the people didn’t really want to make him president again” and since in our media truth is measured by how many times it is repeated, that will be the common “wisdom”
He needs to defeat Mitt Romney. I’d love an easy win, but unfortunately we can no longer rest on what actually happens. we have to think about how it might be spun by the other side because they are able to sell whatever pops into their roobios soaked heads as fact…. to a large part of the public.
Silly???? 9% unemployment, record national debt, two and one half wars and no chance of getting better now that is silly.
Bachman is way smarter than the bamster.
The bamster never said he was anyhere in the spirit of a serial killer
Bachmann did
the bamster seems to know his American history
Bachman – not so much
the bamster knows who actually fought to rid the nation of slavery
Bachman, again nope
when Clinton left office, unemployement was down, we had a surplus and the economy was in good shape
8 years of Bush and Republican politics took us to the cleaners
none of what you mention was Obamas doing – he inherited all of it
but then again – you seem to be about as smart as Bachman
Bachman is also opposed to:
– Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs
– Class action lawsuits
– Global Warming
Is in favor of:
– Drilling in ANWAR and off the continental shelf.
– The Auto bailouts (yay socialism)
– Using music at her campaign rallies without getting permission/paying royalties.
Bachmann isn’t opposed to Medicaid payments to her husband’s Christian counseling service (Christian counseling service? How the heck are they getting Federal money??)