Looks like Bachmann finally might have gone too far for even the lunatics in the GOP:
Even La Grande Orange is chiming in:
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has joined a growing list of Republicans in condemning Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) unsubstantiated Islamophobic attacks against top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The flap started when Bachmann all but directly accused Clinton aide Huma Abedin of working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood in a letter with four colleagues to the State Department’s Inspector General demanding an investigation.
“I think accusations like this being thrown around are dangerous,” Boehner said during a press conference on Thursday
Who knew they had limits?
Princess Leia
Let’s not be fooled by their surprising outrage. They have “limits” because they are trying to bolster Romney’s chances. The limits will collapse after the election.
redshirt
Probably just a PR stunt – see how reasonable and moderate they are?
Dee Loralei
He doesn’t think she is dangerous enough to throw off the House Intel Committee though. So, this is a minor slap to her nutjobiness.
trollhattan
You know darn well they quick-polled it first before orange boy spoke up. I have to actually give Walnuts credit for smacking Bachmann down yesterday, for some reason I actually buy it.
Davis X. Machina
Even La Grande Orange is chiming in:
Rusty Staub?
Nutella
Don’t forget Bachmann’s partners in crime: Gomert, Franks, Rooney, and Westmoreland. They’re in the witch hunt too.
Antonius
Maybe she just annoys her colleagues a lot with this kind of thing in private and they’d like to convince her constituency to send them someone sane.
jl
True, it’s a minor demur after years of disgusting hate and fear mongering on their part, and probably disingenuous as commenters above note. Unless Bachmann is crazy or stupid enough to make a fuss, the flap will disappear within days.
But progress all the same. Their BS cannot stand any scrutiny at all. Think of the little Dutch boy with all his fingers and toes rammed into leaks in a dike (that was outsourced to some shady construction corporation), and he just has to take one out for a minute or two.
Their racket is falling apart and little scenes like this just bring that day closer.
trollhattan
Perhaps orange boy can legitimize his stance by having a word with the Tennesse Republicans.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/samar_ali_tennessee_tea_partiers.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
ericblair
Remember when the goopers at least pretended to believe that “politics stops at the water’s edge?” Good times. I’m guessing Bachmann is getting too unhinged even for Boehner. We throw around “crazy” with justification to explain current gooper behavior, but with all this crap on one hand and the Swiss citizenship thing on the other I think Bachmann’s really clinically bonzo and don’t think she’s controllable at this point.
Amir Khalid
I hope you’re not still mad at me.
I think that should be Le Grand Orange. (French has that rule about gendered definite articles and adjectives).
Not sure if domestic political considerations would make Republicans tell Bachmann to dial back the Islamophobia, which I gather is red meat to the party base. Could it be that some foreign friend has had a quiet word in someone’s ear?
Ash Can
She’s been like this for years and now she’s getting tsk-tsk’ed? I call bullshit.
anibundel
There’s a rumor on the twitters that I’m still trying to confirm that there was an assassination attempt on Hillary in Israel today.
So there might be more than one reason they’re telling Bachmann to can it.
Svensker
It’s only because she went after someone they all know and presumably like. And suggested that agencies they all have friends in were corrupted.
She’s messing with the Old Boy Network and the Boys don’t like it.
Other Islamophobia? A-OK!
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I’m surprised she gets re-elected; I would think that having brought so much embarrassment to her constituents, they’d vote her out already. Of course, this presupposes that her constituents (those who voted for her — not those who simply must suffer this fool) are semi-informed and self-aware. Don’t know who said it first, but “The stupid — it hurts!”
Maude
@Ash Can:
No move to censor her or the others. You’re right.
The Moar You Know
They don’t. Witness the utter lack of action to muzzle her. That’s not an accident. She’s promulgating/reinforcing the rightie meme that Obama’s packing the government with Sharia-law Muslims and she’s doing a goddamn fine job of it.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
Rachel Maddow’s show a few days ago linked Bachmann’s nonsense to the protestors who pelted Secretary of State Clinton’s motorcade with tomatoes and shoes during her recent trip to the Middle East. Some of them had signs claiming that the Obama Administration was supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. Some people who were interviewed claimed that they had seen this on right wing blogs which quoted Bachmann, among other crazies.
AliceBlue
@Nutella:
Westmoreland is being primaried by a teabagger; I suspect that’s the reason he signed on with this. (Not that it excuses him).
SatanicPanic
Peak wingnut has arrived! YMMV.
wiscomom
My wild guess? Boehner and McCain have heard high level reports about the safety risks for Mitt’s upcoming trip abroad. Remember Hillary’s motorcade getting pelted by a mob when she was in Egypt? There’s likely been a security alert sent out for Romney’s trip. So NOW they are scared of the monster they created.
Linda Featheringill
@anibundel:
http://www.economicvoice.com/hillary-clinton-convoy-assassination-attempt/50031273
Newspaper item but not proof of accuracy.
tam
OT: DC Abortion ban passes the House judiciary committee. Call your representatives, folks. I’m sure ABL will be on this soon, but wanted to give a heads up anyway.
Ash Can
@anibundel: Whoa. I wonder if that’s true.
Brendan in NC
@SatanicPanic: wingnuttia has no peak, only valleys or chasms.
MattR
@Linda Featheringill: State Departmenet schedule says Hillary Clinton is in DC today.
Lord Jesus Perm
It’s telling that the right’s idea of speaking out against Bachmann is saying something as vague and empty as, “I think accusations like this being thrown around are dangerous.”
Page me when this clown woman is censored, or when the right comes up with something a little more forceful.
Valdivia
@anibundel:
link? that wouldn’t surprise me given the level of insanity in some corners of the wingnutia Israel edition.
Face
@anibundel: say what?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@tam:
The folks in DC sure can’t, seeing as they have no representation in Congress. How delightfully Patrician.
How does “No Forced Procreation Without Representation” sound as a slogan?
pluege
shouldn’t that be: “L’Homme Orange”? “La Grande”…I don’t think so.
Lord Jesus Perm
RE: the assassination attempt.
I’m not seeing anything from an actual news site (Israeli or American) reporting it yet. In fact, the top three links I found were from the Economic Voice site that was linked above, David Icke’s Site, and a God-Like Productions meesage board. Not saying it isn’t true, but I’d hold off for a bit, personally.
FormerSwingVoter
@Linda Featheringill: That source is pretty clearly insane, since it states as fact that America and Israel are gearing up for war against Iran and possibly Syria. I’d like to see confirmation from a non-crazy source, and haven’t found a one.
Ash Can
I object to calling John Boehner “Le Grand Orange” (adjusted for spelling). It besmirched the good name of a fine baseball player.
SatanicPanic
@Brendan in NC: I know, I just wanted to be the first one to call it on the .0000001% chance of being right.
Maude
@Face:
He’s trying to get hits on his site, I bet.
Punchy
Hafta side with the Bachy here. Say this name slow enough, you get “Huma(n) Ah Be Dyin'”. Surely a Sharia Sleeper.
gbear
90% of the people who voted for her love her for doing this kind of stuff. It’ll be hit-and-miss as to whether enough people in her district are finally too embarassed by her to vote for her. She may never go away.
PeakVT
@Brendan in NC: Are you saying we have reached a permanently high plateau of wingnuttia?
hep kitty
She’s just not relevant to them anymore. Like Palin, who hasn’t been asked to the dance. :( How long before a Bachmann reality show?
MattF
Well, Frank Gaffney is, in fact, psychotic, and even Republicans are aware of this. It could well be that the ‘R’ establishment has drawn a line at outright mental illness. I approve.
The good news is that no one now needs to cal McCain a ‘maverick’.
Nutella
@hep kitty:
Which is why she’s making noise about this. She can’t stand being out of the headlines.
Southern Beale
On the flip side of the coin, Tennessee nutwagons attack our very Republican governor for being not sufficiently conservative because he’s hired a Muslim to head the international arm of our state economic development office. I mean, it’s fucking outrage central here: county GOP chairs all across the state have passed resolutions condemning this person and the governor for hiring her.
So this is an amazing story the Nashville alternative paper has done on the implosion of the Tennessee GOP. This is your state on Tea Party: looking for an ass to kick. Completely devoid of reason or thought, just filled with hate. Eating their own (good! Enjoy the meal! Want some whine with that cannibalism?)
This is why I say Tennessee is where the Republican Party has gone to die. This was so inevitable.
kindness
I know this is the ‘dog days of summer’ but why does that have to mean that because Michelle Bachmann claims the skid marks in Bachmann’s undies were created by Islamocommunifascists from the Obama Administration that ANYONE (outside of the WorldNetDaily folk) would listen to her? Why?
Same thing with Mittens and his daily Zinger. If the claims are insane, the people making those claims either think you are incredibly stupid or those people are insane. There isn’t another answer.
OK MSM, we’re going to try this without the fail, one more time from the top….
Southern Beale
@kindness:
She’s a member of Congress, she’s head of the Tea Party caucus and she tried to secure the GOP presidential nomination. That’s why.
She’s not some lone voice crying in the outer reaches of the AM dial. This crackpot has influence.
Sloegin
Just to add to the pile-on…
They don’t have limits. They have polling.
The Other Chuck
Their hand-wringing is a hollow gesture until she is censured and removed from the Intelligence Committee.
seanindc
actually bachmann didn’t even start this particular line of bullshit – it started with Frank Wolf trying to work the issue behind the scenes, then gave it to crazyeyes for her to play the role of bird-dogging this particular political football. There is a significant movement on the right to paint Obama as a puppet of the Muslim Brotherhood and a product of a decades long plan to implement Sharia Law. You think silly season is here – you ain’t seen nothin yet.
The Other Chuck
So Obama is trying to impose gay sharia socialism at the behest of Wall Street.
Remember when words actually had meanings?
pseudonymous in nc
So, are the five House nutjobs — most of the dumbest fuckers in the chamber, whose names are all too familiar — going to be put on the cablenews shitlist, never to be booked again? Or are they just too easy to use to fill up time?
WaterGirl
@Linda Featheringill: I’m not sure the story at that link passes for a newspaper article. Filled with cheap attacks and bullshit. They can’t possibly expect to be taken seriously when they report a story in that fashion.
Edit: The story may be true, but they certainly seem like a crappy source for “news”.
Edit 2: I see FormerSwingVoter got there first.
James E. Powell
Boehner’s audience is the Village; Bachman’s is the base. There is no real conflict between the two messages.
Propaganda: they are not trying to convince their base, they are only telling them what to repeat.
pseudonymous in nc
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
As has been noted here before, her district was carved out in the 2002 redistricting to include the nuttiest bits of Minnesota from the St Paul exurbs to the fundie belt. The most recent redistricting rejigged the 6th and moved her home into another district, but she’s still running.
daverave
@Southern Beale:
My former neighbor here in California, the one who listened to Limbaugh in his garage while chain-smoking and leaf-blowing his yard twice a day every day, picked up and dragged his family to Tennessee last year so that “he could get away from the liberals and be with people more like him.” Sweet FSM, I was happy to seem him depart and I’ll bet he’s pretty happy, too, in Central Wingnutistan.
JGabriel
__
__
John Cole @ Top:
I’m still not convinced that they do have limits. The reprimands so far seem almost tentative, as if Republican leaders are testing to see if they can get away with criticizing crazy Islamaphobic personal attacks on State Department aides or not.
The GOP has a vested interest here. After all, leveling personal attacks against the aides of high ranking gov’t peers hasn’t worked out too well for them in the past — c.f., Joe McCarthy and Joseph Welch.
.
oogabooga
Once again Cole you fucking moron because you don’t seem to understand how a democracy works or at least what is left of it in America.
It’s not these crackpot snake oil salesmen who are the problem. It’s the fuckheads who keep re-electing them.
Just declare Bachmann’s district the new location of American nuclear waste. Put it next to schools and churches and say we are doing it because god told us to. That is what the knuckle draggers that keep electing her deserve.
oogabooga
Oh and btw…nobody watches CNN anymore so who the fuck cares.
Heliopause
Dammit, Bachmann. I was really hoping you’d get a prime time speech at the convention. That would’ve gotten your message out to the widest possible audience. Trust me, I was rooting for that to happen.
gbear
Did something really stupid happen between comment 55 and 58? I think so, but I can’t be bothered find out.
honus
@Davis X. Machina: exactly what I was thinking. I don’t think the youngsters will understand that one, though.
kindness
@gbear: I don’t use the pie filter but sounds like you do. be thankful.
Comrade Dread
They don’t.
Giving a gentle tut-tut to a reporter in an election cycle where you’re trying very hard to hide the crazy doesn’t mean much.
Actions speak louder than words, my friend. When they kick her off of the Intelligence subcommittee for being a lunatic and consign her to the corner of the cafeteria, they’ll show they have some limits.
Ash Can
@gbear: Ferd or Derp or whatever he was has a new nym.
the Conster
We’re in the wingularity now where words have no meaning and everything is just part of the matrix – everyone’s got their role to play including crazy eyes Bachmann who as long as she keeps being re-elected will have to keep probing the perimeter of wingerdom and the media will have to follow her there, because reality as we used to know it has stripped a gear. Once upon a time she would be called out and shamed, but that was when TV was young, reporters believed in journalism and the news was a loss leader and source of pride for the networks.
NCSteve
Not about limits, its about score-settling. Michelle does not score well on the “plays nicely with others” and “respects other people’s property” part of leadership’s scorecards.
JPL
Oh, Please Michele give Romney a big kiss to show your support.
JGabriel
the Conster:
… In the time of legends and myths.
The truth is that McCarthy carried on with his witchhunts for years before anyone in the mainstream openly criticized or opposed him.
We tend to glorify the era based on the heroes it produced, like Murrow or Welch, but the truth is that it was an era of cowardice and conformity. That the mere actions of reporting on and calling out a fearmonger are considered acts of bravery, and they were for that time, is evidence of the era’s general cowardice, not its courage.
.
SFAW
@JGabriel:
And if he hadn’t gone after the Army, who knows how much longer he would have gone on?
Just Some Fuckhead
Did Michelle Bachmann reach peak wingnut?
SFAW
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Not even close. There’s so much more crazy to be had before they can even begin to see Peak Wingnut with a good telescope.
Patricia Kayden
If they had limits, they would ask Bachmann to step down. Her foolish comments led to violence against Ms. Clinton in Egypt.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/egyptians-who-jeered-clinton-cite-american-conservatives-to-argue-u-s-secretly-supports-islamists/