Crazy-eyed Bachmann apparently is afraid of answering questions:
“That’s when things got interesting. Ross dashed after Bachmann, repeatedly asking whether she had ever missed a House vote due to a migraine. She ignored him. Ross pursued her into a parking area behind the stage. Her aides grew alarmed. When Ross made a beeline for the white SUV waiting to carry Bachmann away, two Bachmann men pounced on him, grabbing and pushing him multiple times with what looked to me like unusual force. In fact, I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event, especially not a presidential one. Ross was finally able to break away and lob his question at Bachmann one more time, but she ignored him again.
Afterward, I asked Ross-a hard-nosed pro who nevertheless seemed slightly shaken-whether he’d ever been treated so roughly. “A few times,” he told me. “Mostly by mafia people.”
I think the migraine story is kind of stupid, myself- she’s such a wretched person with no record of accomplishment, little grasp of history, and a whole host of horrid ideas, that the fact she suffers from migraines seems immaterial to me. Having said that, and I in no way approve of violence directed at reporters, maybe this is what it will take for the media to wake up and realize there is something fundamentally different about the teahadists. Maybe after a couple reporters are roughed up, they will recognize these folks for who and what they are. They apparently didn’t clue in when Rand Paul’s goons were convicted for stomping on a MoveOn supporter, but maybe if they have a couple of their a-list beltway boys beaten up by these clowns they will get a clue.
More than likely, though, they’ll just claim both sides do it. After all, who can forget the abusive treatment reporters suffered on the Obama campaign? When you think about it, there is very little difference between unpleasant smells and being beaten.
General Stuck
Fascism comes dressed in all sorts of funny costumes. But the tell tale thuggery cannot be contained for long, nor can the hatred for that that is different.
Physical Force, it is their way to get their way when all is said and done.
MikeJ
The migrane story is beyond stupid. The most common drug she would take for them would be imitrex, not something Rush would be trying to score.
slag
Oh please. They love it when anyone from the Daddy party smacks them around a bit. Or do you not recall the Bush years?
Comrade Javamanphil
Oh, Magic 8 Ball, will these be the event that causes our media to realize they are a battered spouse of one political party and are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? [shake][/shake] All signs point to “Don’t make me Laugh”
Silver
So, you can be a reactionary evil fuck on every issue and the press will love you for it, but having migrane headaches turns them into grizzled investigative reporter?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I still think she is likely to self destruct, whether by proxy through her aides belting the beltway press or on her own by saying something so completely beyond the pale that it cannot be ignored.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Agree the migraine story is beyond stupid.
A reporter following up on the electronic version of scribblings on a bathroom wall is beyond moronic.
Body guards for an elected member who don’t know how to deal with the press are beyond ridiculous.
As for One L. Bachmann, she is beyond contemptible but her alleged health status don’t enter into it.
I’d like to kick everyone involved in this mess in the ass until my legs got tired.
MattF
It’s a teensy bit surprising that all these supposedly literate and sophisticated observers don’t know how to deal with the thugs. Or, maybe not so surprising, that they’re just cowards.
Nutella
Running away again? Like she did from the scary lesbians in the ladies room? She’s not going to last in a real campaign. Good.
maya
Yes, it is a stupid line of questioning because, as we know, many congressional males miss important votes because of migroins.
Chris
Heh.
I remember a water utilities company in France that had a thing for using thugs to intimidate people who criticized its methods (and this was in the nineties, not the thirties or Vichy). After things came to life, some journalist or other wrote an article comparing their methods to those of the Mafia. The water company sued for slander, and had their claim tossed out by the judge, who defended his ruling by essentially saying “you do act like the Mafia.”
OT, but an amusing anecdote that came to mind. Of course, nothing like that could happen here.
catclub
I disagree. If the people had known how sick John Kennedy was that would have made a difference to their votes. If Bachmann
is incapacitated for hours at a time that is news.
Actually I thought the news in the story was that she and her bodyguards were so defensive about that particular question – but not others. So pick at that scab!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I suspect even the righties who embrace James O’Keefe as a useful gadfly idiot are vaguely embarrassed by having Tucker Carlson on their side. Tucker is his own unique brand of pathetic. I originally wrote that he was another example of “failing up”, but it isn’t so much “up” as a very slow fall.
martha
Actually, the medicine(s) she might take daily as a preventive measure might raise more questions than the Imitrex. I ought to know. I hate having something in common with her. Ugh.
Joey Maloney
I’m not sure the issue of migraine is negligible. An ex suffered from the kind of debilitating attacks being attributed to Bachmann. The thing about migraine is pain isn’t the only symptom. She could be in an altered state for hours before realizing she was having an attack, and during that period her judgement was definitely impaired – and another symptom was explosive, irrational anger if you questioned her judgement.
Once she got the drug regime right attacks became very rare, but the drugs came with their own cognitive side effects. And even though attacks became rare, when she had one she was still incapable of making important decisions for days.
FlipYrWhig
Tea Partier Joe Miller had a goon squad too.
Mattminus
Half of the professional media establishment would applaud her choot-spa for giving the very rude reporter exactly what he deserved. It would have to happen to a Sunday show panelist to have any chance of penetrating their bubble of sociopathy.
Immanentize
MikeJ
I have to disagree with your idea about what the most common druf would be. I think what the reporters and the sources were trying to convey is that Michelle is a drug addict who uses migraines as an excuse for pain medication. Just exactly what Rush would do.
I sadly have a little too much up close and personall experience with this one. A dear woman who I lived iwth for a while had migraines and was perscibed bith migraine medicines and fiorinal w/ codeine for her headaches. She became addicted and needed some expensive interventions. So, when I read that someone is not only taking drugs to stop imminent migraines (what I do) but is aso on a daily regimen of several drugs to prevent them, I read pain killer addict.
But then again, maybe not. Or, who cares if the president is an addict? I am sure she would not be the first (well, we know the Supreme Court Chief ran for years on placidyl).
Villago Delenda Est
catclub is correct. If Bachmann has a medical condition that incapacitates her chronically, it’s an issue in her fitness to serve as President, above and beyond the utter idiocy of her politics. It’s objectively an issue.
The reaction of her thugs further exacerbates her unfitness to serve, regardless of any policy position she may embrace.
joes527
I haven’t seen the tape that ABC claims that they have, so my understanding of the situation may be way off, but I’m having a hard time getting all worked up over the poor little reporter.
Reporter:
Reportee: No more comments I’ll be leaving now.
Reporter: No problem, I’ll run after you with a camera and microphone, all the way to your car, shouting questions.
If a crazy person acted toward me the way reporters routinely act toward their prey, I would feel seriously threatened. And if it happened day after day after day after day, then yeah, tempers might flare.
So Crazy Eyes’ security detail crossed the line. That is a Bad Thing(TM) and they should be brought to task for it.
Reporters cross the line from reporting to harassment so routinely we don’t even notice it any more. It is water to a fish.
Danny
OT, but maybe not. Wpost headline at the moment:
False equivalency runs head first into the Teaparty overstaying it’s welcome.
martha
Also, if she says she wouldn’t be incapacitated for periods of time, she’s lying. Of course she would be, unless she and her doctors could guarantee she would suddenly become migraine-free. Not gonna happen.
Speaking from very direct experience (and under the care of a great doctor who specializes in migraines): I take “preventive” medications every day (one prescription, 2 vitamins), I avoid “migraine triggers” as much as possible, but I still get them. I just get them less frequently than I have in the past, thanks to the preventive meds. That’s just the reality of a migraine patient. And once you get one, forget about it. You’re down for the count for 2-24 hours.
hamletta
Greg Sargent has been bombarded with e-mails from right-wingers saying beating up reporters is A-OK with them. Sick.
I think the migraine issue is important, because she’s incapacitated for days. That’s OK for a congressperson, but for the president, not so much.
Not that there aren’t 100 other reasons not to want her in the Oval Office.
J
Agree with John on all counts, and have sympathy for the reporter. Still, it’s a revealing story. A reporter who would courageously risk injury to put a question about migraines to a candidate, but who, like his brethren, would never dream of posing a substantive question about Bachmann’s record, her policies, such as they are, and the likely consequences of the measures that she favors. That’s the American press for you.
Tom Q
Can I take the super-cynical view: that ABC (following The Daily Caller’s lead) is doing its best to see that a very likely unelectable candidate is destroyed, in order that the GOP have its best shot at winning next year? If all the same elements of this story were applied to Romney, I doubt the same aggressive reporting would have taken place, because Romney is the sort of opponent they want to face Obama.
But I’m not sure any of this costs Bachman a single vote. Her supporters just write it all off to Evil Liberal Media.
uila
Here’s the story of crazy eyes running from the
spanish inquisitionnun…https://balloon-juice.com/2011/06/15/open-thread-this-sounds-like-one-of-my-stories/
shortstop
Of course it’s an issue. McCain’s having been treated for cancer several times was certainly of interest, even to what mattminus correctly characterizes as the sociopathic MSM. And cancer doesn’t take you down instantly and without warning. If Bachmann is completely MIA for a number of hours on a regular basis, with no way to predict these episodes, that is absolutely something voters need to know.
Phyllis
This bothers me less than the fact she’s been here in SC traipsing about; staying with Gov. Nikki Sunday night and appearing* about 50 miles west of me yesterday afternoon. I mean, isn’t there some important work going on at her job now?
*I was amused at all the tight shots the local news media did in an attempt to make the 15-person ‘crowd’ at her rally look bigger.
Southern Beale
What I find really tragic is that Ross was following up on a story about … Michele Bachmann’s migraines.
Jesus fuck.
If only our media had shown such cojones following up on stories about … well crap, pretty much every tragedy of the past decade: the stolen 2000 election, the missing WMD’s in Iraq, Dick Cheney’s energy task force, the Tea Bag astroturf phenomenon, Clarence Thomas’ ethics violations … and on … and on … and on …
But Michele Bachmann has migraine headaches and it’s OMFG THIS STORY’S SO HOT I GOTTA WEAR GLOVES!
I’m not saying people don’t need to know this, but I am saying there are infinitely more important stories that they’ve ignored.
Gin & Tonic
Leaving aside the despicable Tucker Carlson and the non-sourcing of his story, “debilitating migraines” are dog-whistle for “but she’s a girl!”
Southern Beale
@Tom Q:
It’s possible though I doubt she ever stood much of a chance anyway. But yeah, as my husband observed the other day, once the Teatards select “their” candidate watch the Establishment sharpen their arrows to take the poor sucker down. And then the Teanuts will fall in line behind whatever “mainstream” GOPer, be it Romney or someone else. Because they always do.
And this is how it tends to play out on the left too, I may add…
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Bachman has the critical Imperial Stormtrooper endorsement.
albatrossity
She probably doesn’t get headaches, but she is a carrier.
shortstop
How so? Do women get them more often than men?
If not, I’m not hearin’ the whistle.
Gin & Tonic
@shortstop: From Wiki
Villago Delenda Est
Don’t disagree with this in the least. The classic examples of MSM incompetence on purpose in the service of the parasite overclass are OMG Bill Clinton lied about a blow job, but there’s nothing at all to see when the deserting coward and the Dark Lord lie about WMD in Iraq.
shortstop
G&T: I did not know that. Thanks for the info and you may have a point there.
Of course, unlike women being totally unfit for combat because they might start icky bleeding in foxholes (my favorite Newtism evar), people of either gender having migraines that put them out of business for hours and days is a defensible concern when said people are running for president. So we may have a combination of dog whistle + legitimate issue here.
bemused
I read something about the brain freeze you get from eating ice cream or anything cold really fast stopping a migraine headache. Does this really work?
Silver
Migranes and the ugly bleeding thing that God cursed women with can go together.
At this point, I assume everything that issues from Tucker Carlson has a racist or sexist dogwhistle attached to it.
myiq2xu
Where’s the video?
ABC said they had one, so where is it?
piratedan
Migraines? Why yes, I subscribe to 2nd Amendment remedies for all of my headache woes… I simply employ them and whatever was bothering me, simply goes away!
danimal
@shortstop: I believe the whole migraine issue is a sexist dogwhistle. I heard it, at least. Maybe that says something bad about me, who knows? There are better lines of attack from a liberal perspective, but Michele! is running in a GOP primary, and the whole “girls can’t run countries because they get headaches and PMS and blahblahblah” may still work with GOP primary voters.
AxelFoley
@bemused:
If anything, that’s what I’d imagine a migraine feeling like (never had one, knock on wood). I remember the first time I had a brain freeze when I was a kid, I thought I was dying.
danimal
@myiq2xu: @myiq2xu: I may have found the video. Repression in its purest form.
gex
A great parallel would be Percy Harvin of the MN Vikings. Fantastic receiver, did great things for them. But… He suffers migraines and the team didn’t know if he would be available on any given play or for any given game. It had a serious impact on the team, and he’s one of 4 or 5 receivers. There’s only one POTUS.
Gin & Tonic
I’ll buy a six-pack of your favorite brew for anyone who can source a similar quote about any male presidential candidate or potential candidate in the last century.
datarat
@ Gin & Tonic
Can I have a six-pack for pointing out that nearly everyone compared Palin to “one 80-year-old’s heartbeat away from the presidency”?
shortstop
G&T: I don’t drink, but 30 seconds of googling will help you locate tons of quotes worrying about McCain’s recurrent cancer, Eisenhower’s heart attack and ileitis, Roosevelt’s failing health in his third term, Dubya’s multiple addictions and, yeah, for those few who knew about it, Kennedy’s Addison’s disease.
Now that I know that migraines occurring much more often among women than men, I’m freely conceding that there’s a sexist note in the Bachmann migraine issue (assuming that most other people know that migraine sufferers are primarily female). Is it your contention that migraines that incapacitate their sufferers for days and weeks are then not a concern when it comes to fitness for the presidency? Or that she doesn’t get migraines (something even she isn’t denying)?
danimal: But migraines aren’t PMS, and while they may be trying to get people to conflate the two — almost certainly are, in fact — that doesn’t mean we should treat them equally. One is a negligible issue for most of its sufferers and is the stuff of rank sexism; the other is a seriously debilitating condition that, while affecting more women than men, is not strictly a women’s issue and would be a giant concern for a male candidate as well.
In other words, you can have both a dogwhistle and a legitimate concern. This one is both.
datarat
Having had some time as an Army LPN, I have witnessed incapacitating migraines. Seen some of the toughest the Army can produce curled up in the fetal position begging for any relief they can get. The light from a distant star is enough to cause pain, and they can literally hear snails crawl when the worst of the migraine is on them.
This is a real concern…no matter who the candidate is or what party they’re running for. In the Army, it was often a career-ending condition.
Pangloss
We should have known this might happen when she picked Elvis Costello’s “Goon Squad” as her campaign song.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
One L.’s health history will become an important issue in the extremely unlikely event she gets the nomination. And if that does happen, I hope any reporters who follow up will do so on the prompting of something more than a story that is a frothy mix of innuendo and unsupported speculation.
SB @ 29. This.
There are even a number of interesting questions one could ask One L. that have nothing to do with her health history:
How do you reconcile your frequent attacks on government spending, particularly publicly funded social assistance programs with the fact that both your family farm and your husband’s clinic receive federal funds?
I know a number of gay and lesbian couples. Do you really believe they are going to the same place as Hitler when they die? If so, please describe in detail the torments you believe they’ll experience once there. In addition, explain how you reconcile that position with your alleged belief in Jesus, who preached forgiveness of all sins and hated judgement and hypocrites, with that position.
About that pledge published by the FAMiLY Leader. The one in which the first bullet at the top of page one stated an African-American child born in slavery was better off than an African-American child born today. I know you have since released a statement to the effect you didn’t read that part. Please tell the American people why they should believe that you, an attorney and a legislator, didn’t at least read the first page, or the top half of the first page of a document you signed. Furthermore, could you tell the American people if your policy as the President of the United States would be to sign documents without at least reading the first page?
Shit, if you’re going to run after the woman, have something more than a Joker and two deuces in your hand when you catch up.
Bob
Brian Ross was manhandled? Oh my, oh my. First, the guy can be really aggravating. Second, you can depend on him to get maximum mileage out of the incident. I’m not ready for the fascism fainting spell quite yet.
Brandon
It is interesting to me that there is sufficient material here for conservatives to defend Bachmann by painting this reporter as an overly aggressive dick in the thrall of the librul media. It seems to be though that the right wing response is nothing but crickets. Telling.
Gin & Tonic
shortstop: I have a lot of familiarity with debilitating headache — there are types which fit the classical migraine definition and those which do not (no preceding “aura”, light-senstivity without nausea, etc.) This isn’t the place for a detailed medical discussion of etiology or therapy. My point is that in much of the population, “migraine” is not that far removed from “hysteria”, unfortunately. Sufferers, mostly female, often still struggle to be take seriously, since the symptoms aren’t really testable, and their severity is really only “measurable” by the sufferer. It’s not cancer, it’s not heart disease, you can’t see it on an MRI, only the patient can tell you how severe it is. And, in the end, it is most often just a girl with a headache.
Frankly, the closest parallel I can see to this in the politicla discourse is Tom Eagleton, and he was a VP candidate. That’s the sort of thing I was looking for.
Oh, and if you can find any public, contemporaneous account of JFK’s Addison’s, that’ll be two six-packs.
Howlin Wolfe
MikeJ: It’s not a question of which drugs she takes, it’s a question of whether it incapacitates her enough to impair her job performance as POTUS.
Bubblegum Tate
@FlipYrWhig:
He sure did. And the most common right-wing defense of that was “The reporter was irrational, erratic, aggressive, and possibly attempting to assault Miller, so his bodyguards were doing what they were paid to do.” Expect to see that one dusted off for this as well.
shortstop
Doubling the offer of something I already clearly told you I don’t want. Interesting.
That’s interesting, too. You’re pretty much equating people’s views of migraines in 2011 with people’s views of mental health issues in 1972. My own perception, which may just be me projecting my own views, is that people today see them as being more similar to the illnesses I mentioned: cancer, heart disease, GI disease. Really, Bush’s addictions (which you declined to address) are the only outlier on my list, since even today those are viewed as a moral issue by many people who are otherwise pretty informed about health. You might have found a loose parallel there if general lack of understanding about “invisible” diseases and negative judgment on/dismissiveness toward the people who have them are the markers you’re looking for.
I get that your experience has been different than mine and those of my friends who are migraine sufferers. I’m not discounting the sexist thread in this or downplaying it. Given all that, I still want to know if you think that someone who suffers migraines that take him/her out for hours or days — if that is in fact what happens to Bachmann — is a good candidate for the presidency.
Brandon
@Bubblegum Tate: there are any number of possible defenses that I have been expecting. It is telling though that no one seems to be coming to her defense at all. Added to the fact that this was leaked by a fellow wing nut and exposed by that excreable Tucker Carlson tells me that the knives are out for Bachmann and the conservative establishment sees her as a real threat. I expect there to be a lot more whispered campaigns against her in the coming weeks. Before they need to publicly knee cap her.
Hairless in Gaza
With all this talk of migraines, has no-one thought of the migraine-plagued Cody Jarrett in White Heat? And his spectacular demise? “Top of the world, Ma!!”:
Gin & Tonic
@shortstop: Was ABC aggressively questioning W in 1998 or 1999, asking whether his alcoholism was a potentially disqualifying factor in his quest for the Presidency? I don’t recall that at all.
While some aspects of a Presidential candidate’s medical history may be a legitimate question, anybody could be incapacitated by any number of things. As others have said, though, this one is so vague and so thinly sourced that it is clear (to me, anyway) that this is a sexist hit job. Before asking her questions, I’d review, say, her House attendance record, see how may (if any) votes she missed because of this; I’d talk to staffers to see if anyone could confirm or deny any visible issues of job performance. One of many reasons I don’t work for ABC, I guess.
Look, I think she would make an awful President for many reasons. But questioning her on *this* “issue” based on one rumor floated to or by Tucker Fucking Carlson? Calling it a “legitimate concern”? Sorry, I’m not boarding that bus.
Maude
@Gin & Tonic:
Are you saying that it is a type of, sorry, I have a headache? You have a good point. Only women were said to have used that as an excuse.
I don’t watch tv, but Carlson is a dimwit.
I do think that Ross was right to keep after her and ask that question. He is an excellent reporter and wasn’t pulling the she’s a girl bit.
Hillary Clinton never released any medical information, while Obama did.
Edit: Wasn’t Poppy Bush on Haldol (sp) for a time?
shortstop
(Panting in today’s heat as I scramble to get to the freshly moved goalposts): Look, G&T, you’re now conflating (purposely or not, I can’t tell) the way the reporter went about getting the story with the inherent worth of the story. I’m not too impressed with Ross’s style and legwork, either. But that has nothing to do with what I have consistently said all along:
A person who suffers from migraines that take him or her out for hours or days at a time is not a good candidate for the U.S. presidency. If Bachmann is actually in this situation, she is not physically fit for the presidency.
All the other things you keep bringing in are side issues to that point. I get that you think this was crappy reporting. I get that you think this is sexism. I agree with both, and also with the observation that right now we don’t know enough about this to determine whether she really does get incapacitated for long periods by the migraines she concedes she has — that’s why I keep saying “if.” Here’s where we part: I’m noting that even with sexism and obnoxious reporting, having a president with a condition that renders him or her non-functional for substantial periods on a semi-frequent basis is unacceptable. After several invitations to share your own thinking on that specific point, all you can come up with is this:
Seriously? That’s some weak sauce.
Gin & Tonic
@shortstop: I do not yet see the “inherent worth of the story.” *That* is my point.
And I submit that whether or not a hypothetical unnamed Presidential candidate of indeterminate gender suffers from a treatable medical condition which may or may not incapacitate him/her for several hours at a time occasionally is something the “acceptability” of which will to a large extent be determined on how closely we agree with that candidate’s politics.
Having a President who is incapable from time to time of answering a question or responding to an issue is of course a concern. But I, for one, would rather have a migraine-suffering Barack Obama than a migraine-less Michele Bachmann as President, and I think we kid ourselves if we think otherwise. Presidents, in my view, do not have to be “on” every single second. There is a vast support system around them, a person Constitutionally designated to step up, hundreds of staff members to help, etc.
In other words, to answer your specific question, I think it’s a legitimate concern only for the Presidential candidates I don’t like, and something I am willing to overlook for Presidnetial candidates I do like.
Just Some Fuckhead
I can empathize with Michelle Bachmann. Periodically, I get a raging hard-on, practically debilitating in that it affects my ability to urinate, walk in a dignified manner or socialize with others in a non-procreative way.
Similarly, I am compelled to lay down in an effort to combat it.
I do not wish this hell on anyone but it’s my cross to bear and I could certainly handle the job of President if there was perhaps a small secluded room adjacent to the Oval Office.
Ruckus
As a 40 yr migraine sufferer I feel this is a big deal. A full on migraine attack can leave one decimated after the pain is gone. I don’t get them regularly any more but at one time I was getting them about once a week. The medication would help with the pain but the side effects would leave me at less than my normal level of delightfulness. The recovery for some meds was 36-72 hours.
So even if she didn’t have all the other things she has going against her, for me this would be a game over for president/vp. Weekly migraines and some of the medications are just too debilitating.
The Other Chuck
Perhaps the question should that should be posed to Michelle is whether her being nuttier than squirrel shit is a disqualifier to office. Migranes, I don’t give a shit about. Hell, unless she picked Palin or Cain, her VP would almost certainly be better than her.
Ruckus
Gin & Tonic
Leaving aside the despicable Tucker Carlson and the non-sourcing of his story, “debilitating migraines” are dog-whistle for “but she’s a girl!”
I don’t doubt that you see it that way but there are plenty of men who have debilitating migraines, myself included. It’s only anecdotal of course but of the 4 people I personally know who are life long sufferers 2 are women and 2 are men. That doesn’t jive with the medical literature percentages but a substantial number of men get migraines.