Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Let’s finish the job.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Stealing Bachmann’s ‘Righteous’ Thunder

Stealing Bachmann’s ‘Righteous’ Thunder

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It looked like there might be a push among some of the more tire-swing-craving Media Villagers to brand Michele Bachmann as the mirror-world Obama — the charismactic ‘outsider’ bringing a long-ignored underclass (religious Dominionists) to the polls with her sincere energy & inspirational personal story. (True, this falls somewhere on the IRL scale between ‘silly‘ and ‘insanely wrong‘, but there’s 15 months worth of political sportscasting yet to fill the dead air, knowhutimean?) But “news” details over the last couple days may indicate that Bachmann moved too fast too furious for the Republican wing of the Permanent Party apparatus. Dave Weigel, at Slate, on the Politico ‘scoop’ that Rick Perry will announce his candidacy Saturday, the same day as the Iowa straw poll:

… After just a few hours [in Iowa] I’ve met numerous Republican voters who are leaning towards a candidate like Michele Bachmann but want to know more about Perry. There’s a write-in option on the Ames straw poll, which we’ll all now be watching to see how well he does. And the news of a possible, hard-won Bachmann victory is immediately blunted, so she has to establish her credibility again.

So, is Rick Perry’s Christianism-intensive maybe-might-be candidacy nothing more than a Texas jackalope intended to distract the godly Heartlanders(tm)? Some people say!

That still leaves the issue of yanking Bachmann off the GOP stage without resorting to a too-public violation of the Eleventh Commandment. Assuming she’s sincere in her professed convictions, she can’t just be written a large check (er, promised a secure sinecure within the Wingnut Welfare Wurlitzer), because her brand of Dominionist is supposed to be above such worldly distractions. Therefore, she must be seen to self-destruct. Extracts from Ryan Lizza’s New Yorker article, The Transformation of Michele Bachmann sketch the first potential outlines of such “self”-destruction:

… The only senior member of the team not making the trip was Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s campaign manager. Rollins is famous in Washington for two things: managing Ronald Reagan’s successful reëlection campaign against Walter Mondale in 1984, and developing poisonous relationships with most of his high-profile employers since then. They have included George H. W. Bush (“the worst campaigner to actually get elected President,” according to Rollins), Ross Perot (“a paranoid lunatic on an ego trip”), and Arianna Huffington (“the most ruthless, unscrupulous, and ambitious person I’d met in thirty years in national politics”). More recently, he has managed the campaign of Mike Huckabee, appeared frequently on CNN, and worked in corporate public relations.

Translation: Ed Rollins, of brief “paying off preachers” (1993) notoriety, is a short-tempered loudmouth who hasn’t been involved with a winning campaign since disco was relevant. How long till Rollins can be goaded into saying something… intemperate… while being recorded?

… Soon, however, the mood in the cabin darkened. O’Donnell, the speech coach, had the Drudge Report open on a laptop. There was an unobjectionable picture of Bachmann onstage, backed by an enormous American flag, but below the image was the headline “CONFUSES JOHN WAYNE WITH JOHN WAYNE GACY.” In her interview with Fox, Bachmann had said that she was from Waterloo, “just like John Wayne.” John Wayne, the star of so many John Ford movies, was actually born in Winterset, Iowa. John Wayne Gacy, who killed thirty-three young men, lived in Waterloo.
__
Why would Drudge, an ardent conservative, publicize that gaffe? O’Donnell thought he knew the answer. “Matt Rhoades and Drudge are best friends,” he said, speaking of Mitt Romney’s campaign manager. Bachmann concurred. “You never see anything about Romney on Drudge—ever,” she said.

OMG — Did she just suggest that Mitt Romney’s BFF Rhoades and Drudge are… like that? “Everybody knows” that Matt Drudge, uuuhmmmm, could maybe use a stint at Marcus Bachmann’s “reparative rehabilitation” clinic, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Quick, let’s ask Ed Rollins if his candidate is insinuating that Weird Willard Romney pals around with…

Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Sooo predictable. Someone wake me in November 2012 in time to vote. This horse race shit is so tired.

  2. 2.

    BGinCHI

    Lizza was on Fresh Air today. Can’t wait to read the article.

    Just the sheer factual errors she makes constantly (pathologically?) are going to catch up with her like they did with Palin. Bush knew when to say as little as possible. Bachmann has no governor on her mouth, though there appears to be one on her brain.

  3. 3.

    The Sheriff's A Ni-

    Meanwhile, USA Today/Gallup’s latest GOP field poll has Crazy Eyes fourth (13%) behind Mittens (24%), Goodhair (17%), and – would you believe it – Dr. No (14%).

    Somethin’s happenin’ here.

  4. 4.

    Nutella

    Speaking of Perry: His prayer meeting drew 20-30,000 people but it was not the biggest event in the neighborhood.

  5. 5.

    Hunter Gathers

    They can’t bring her down too harshly, they need her to bring out the fundies as VP. Unless it ends up being Perry, who will name Rubio as VP, and will answer every question directed to him about his, um, ‘experience’ with the not-quite-relevant ‘I hate Castro’ and ‘Tax cuts for Jeebus’. As we all know, an Anti-Castro Cuban on the ticket will cause the growing Hispanic population to conveniently forget all about the brown bashing that has occurred the past few decades and vote for The Secessionist.

  6. 6.

    Violet

    At least watching the Republican field will be somewhat entertaining. They couldn’t find a more comical collection of characters if they were at the circus. Unfortunately our media takes these people seriously and one of them could end up running the country.

  8. 8.

    jl

    My guess is that these are all just exaggerations that will ‘turn out’ to be inaccurate.

  9. 9.

    Jenny

    Meanwhile, GOP support has collapsed.

    The Democratic party, which held a favorable rating advantage of just a few points over the GOP last month, now enjoy a 14-point advantage over the Republican party (47-33), in the new CNN poll.

  11. 11.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Nutella:

    I was gonna say that any given Astros game probably outsells Perrypalooza, and the Astros are having a shitty year.

  12. 12.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    because her brand of Dominionist is supposed to be above such worldly distractions.

    Her brand of TeaBaghist is also supposed to be above Filthy Dirty Gubbermint Money. And yet the Bachmann family farm and Marcus’ Kw33r Krushing Klinic both take state and federal cash.

    “Matt Rhoades and Drudge are best friends,”

    Citizen Journalism at its finest!

  13. 13.

    jl

    @7 The Hispanics I know here on the left coast do not consider Cubans to be Hispanic. They consider Cubans to all be either well off, or pretend to be, who will not give one cheap damn about anyone but themselves. And they doubt people from Puerto Rico and Mexico or Central America will next on the list of things Cubans care about.

    I also have known some younger generation people from exiled Cuban families who do not fit that stereotype at all. But what people here say kind of indicates to me no love lost between most Hispanics and Cubans.

  16. 16.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Jenny: How can two parties that are the same have support levels differing by 14%?

    It’s almost as if they weren’t the same.

  18. 18.

    Lolis

    I googled Matt Drudge is gay and a lot of fun reads came up. He has a quote saying, “I do not love sex with men.”

  20. 20.

    jl

    @18 Lolis, well I have heard Drudge has seriously repression issues, about a lot of things.

  22. 22.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Lolis:

    I googled Matt Drudge is gay and a lot of fun reads came up. He has a quote saying, “I do not love sex with men.”

    It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

  28. 28.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    So, it appears that, despite what Jay B and others have continually said, Obama was smart to handle the debt negotiations the way he did. Thank goodness you people were’t the president. You would have f’ed it up.

  30. 30.

    lol

    The Republicans’ massive fail with Hispanics is really worse than you think.

    As everyone knows, it’s a group that’s fairly religious and conservative and thus theoretically receptive to Republican messaging… if the GOP could stop being massive raging racists for a moment.

    Eventually, the GOP will wake up and smell the demographics. So where will the Dems be then?

    This is where the GOP is truly fucked: the second generation. They’re less religious and less conservative than their parents, they were born here and their entire life, the Republican party has screamed they’re not real Americans.

  31. 31.

    Dennis SGMM

    @jl:
    Or as in:
    “A Cubano can say the same thing three times in the time that it takes a Mexicano to say it once.”

  32. 32.

    jl

    @Dennis SGMM:

    Actually, it should probably have been ‘comstasteh’, and I put the ‘e’ in there so people would get a clue as what it was supposed to mean.

  35. 35.

    Catsy

    @Hunter Gathers:

    As we all know, an Anti-Castro Cuban on the ticket will cause the growing Hispanic population to conveniently forget all about the brown bashing that has occurred the past few decades and vote for The Secessionist.

    Well, of course. Don’t you know that all brown people vote the same way?

  36. 36.

    Zifnab

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    So, it appears that, despite what Jay B and others have continually said, Obama was smart to handle the debt negotiations the way he did.

    Listen, if I was running for President next year, I’m sure I’d be thrilled there was a political pay off to this deal.

    However, my girl friend is in graduate school right now and her job prospects are looking increasingly grim. Obama’s budget slashed assistance to graduate student loans. So he kinda dicked me and mine over very directly. (Yes, I know Obama didn’t set out to slash grad school loans, but it’s hard to cheer politics while watching your girlfriend get slapped with interest payments on six figures of debt while she’s still in school).

    So from where I’m sitting, it was a shitty deal.

  38. 38.

    Suffern ACE

    @4tehlulz: Yep. People were still bashing it and mocking it in 1984 as if it were still a powerful, until it changed it’s name to something else and went underground. People were still trying to dance legitimately in the mid-80s, with formal steps and lessons and actual moves. But then the eclipse came and entire generations of children were robbed of their right to dance instead of flapping around to a beat.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    @Lolis:

    I googled Matt Drudge is gay and a lot of fun reads came up. He has a quote saying, “I do not love sex with men.”

    Followed with, “I LOOOOOOVE sex with men.”

  43. 43.

    zoot

    she can’t just be written a large check (er, promised a secure sinecure within the Wingnut Welfare Wurlitzer)

    surely you jest. If anyone can be bought, its triply true of republicans – the soulless, indecent,vacuous scavengers sucking the lifeblood out of anything and everything possessing a shred of decency.

  45. 45.

    Churchlady

    Hmmm – Dominionists are “persecuted” like billionaires are “misunderstood”. They believe, because they are ‘born again’ that they are entitled to preach their views of religion using the instruments of our government and military, so if you disabuse them of that notion, they feel “discriminated against”. They also can’t get it through their heads that teaching ABOUT religion in history or other areas is quite different from imposing it. Mainline and progressive Christians are engaged in advocacy for sure, but they come FROM their values to advocate for democratic principles, not impose their views on government. “This motivates my views” is 100% different from “These are my views and you have to adopt them.”

    So sure Michelle thinks she’s Queen Esther sent by God as a conduit to imposing God’s laws on us all. And if she doesn’t get elected, then Satan intervened, you accepted Satan into your life if you did not vote for her, and it’s NOT HER FAULT.

    Now – do you understand how the magazine cover is NOT sexist? This is her full tilt zealot look, and it’s hers and hers alone. She looks that way ALL the time, so it would be hard NOT to put that or a similar picture on the cover. She doesn’t need defending – she cultivates her image, her self pity, her pious self sacrifice. Leave her to it.

  46. 46.

    Chris

    @jwb:

    @lol: We’ll see the definition of white change within the next decade.

    I’ve heard this theory, and it’s probably even true in the long run – that Hispanics will eventually become “white,” or at least a lot of them will, just like the Irish and Italians and Jews back in the day.

    Thing is, the teabaggers are going to make that hard as hell, because they don’t make distinctions and they are not ready to accept Hispanics of any kind as part of their coalition. Judging from my conservative friend from South Florida, they can’t even stand Cubans. It’s going to be very difficult for Hispanics to “turn white” when the loudest voice for White America refuses to accept them (and it’s getting more, not less, intransigent).

    I actually find that kind of hopeful, for our side: the Republicans tying themselves to Angry White Conservatives is going to keep driving away an ever-larger majority of Americans while condemning them to stay on a sinking ship.

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BGinCHI: I was just about to mention that if no one else did. It was on local NPR station less than an hour ago. Fascinating conversation!

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Instead of dealing with FYWP’s idea of “edit,” I will just add this: the part of the Terry Gross interview with Ryan Lizza that most fascinated and appalled me was Bachmann’s recommended reading of some bio of Robert E. Lee written by some dude who is Totally Okay with slavery. Slaves and masters loved and respected each other because they had Christianity in common.

    Yeah, right.

  49. 49.

    Hbin

    Oh goody, Anne Laurie, let’s make fun of Matt Drudge for being gay! Because that’s so funny and mockworthy.

  50. 50.

    jimmiraybob

    And, the last sentence of Lizza’s article:

    The engine started to rev as we taxied. Bachmann stood up straight and punched the air. “Shoot, aim, score!”

    Shoot, aim, score? Really?

  51. 51.

    Paul in KY

    @Zifnab: I wonder if Gov. Perry would take the veep slot behind some ex-Gov of Taxachusetts. Perry has an ego & Perry/Romney might be the only way he would see that.

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