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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Fleeing the Interview (Open Thread)

Fleeing the Interview (Open Thread)

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Pinwheel-eyed crazyperson Michele Bachmann gave a speech at CPAC that was so larded with laughably obvious falsehoods that even WaPo and CNN Villagers noticed. When Dana Bash attempted to confront Bachmann about her incredible whoppers (such as that the president and his family blow $1.4 billion a year on “perks and excesses”), Bachmann literally ran away.

Channeling her inner Marge Gunderson, Bash doggedly pursued Bachmann through the Congressional corridors. When cornered, Bachmann coughed up the usual wingnut hairball: Benghazi!

Holy Christ. What the fuck, Minnesota’s Sixth District? What. The. Fuck?

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  2. 2.

    Gus

    The Sixth is full of God botherers and Tea Party nut balls. She’ll keep winning as long as she wants the seat.

  5. 5.

    srv

    Can we just sell Texas and Arizona to Mexico and Minnesota to Canada? We’ll throw in all that shale in North Dakota to sweeten it.

  6. 6.

    aimai

    How dare you bring up dog handlers when 4 americans died in Benghaziiiiiiii?

    What the fuckity fuck.

  8. 8.

    Hal

    Wonderful article in the NY Times about young conservative opponents to same sex marriage. Very heartwarming to know that the younger generations can be as stupid, homophobic and discriminatory as their older counterparts.

    The great thing is these folks are on the wrong side of history and as much as they may hope to change public opinion, that ship has sailed. Too bad, so sad.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/us/politics/young-opponents-of-gay-marriage-remain-undaunted.html?hp&_r=0

    Fave quotes:

    “In redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, what you’re doing is you’re excluding the norm of sexual complementarity,” Mr. Anderson, the Heritage Foundation fellow, said. “Once you exclude that norm, the three other norms — which are monogamy, sexual exclusivity and permanency — become optional as well.”

    Because of course all straights are totally monogamous and stay together forever.

    “Proponents of same-sex marriage have done a fantastic job of telling the story of same-sex marriage through music and television and film, ” said Eric Teetsel, 29, the executive director of the Manhattan Declaration, which describes itself as a movement of Christians for life, marriage and religious freedom.

    See folks, it’s all hollywood. Gays aren’t real people who desire real relationships. It’s all special effects!

  12. 12.

    David Koch

    Speaking of kooky:

    Fixxed NEws has begun to brain wash their viewers and promote Rafael Cruz for president, saying IOKIYR that he wasn’t born in the US and anyone who points it out is …… wait for it…. a “birther”. Hannity actually said people who say the foreign born Rafael isn’t eligible for president are “Birthers”.

    Too late, though, they waited tooooo long to close the barn door. The Paultards are crazed over notion of the foreign born Rafael challenging Ayn Rand Paul.

  13. 13.

    aimai

    @beltane:
    Its a code word for patriachal family relations that tries to convert male “leadership” into something less hierarchical.

  14. 14.

    Jay C

    @beltane:

    I shouldn’t ask this, but what is “sexual complimentarity”?

    “Oh wow, that was fantastic! Was it good for you?”

    “Oh yeah, you’re the greatest!!”

    You know, compliments…..

  15. 15.

    MAJeff

    Holy Christ. What the fuck, Minnesota’s Sixth District? What. The. Fuck?

    Stearns County Syndrome.

  17. 17.

    SatanicPanic

    Is it too glib of me to suggest that 4 Americans dying 6 months ago is not a real excuse for not answering questions? That’s just too low a threshold. I propose 1000 humans in the last two weeks as a minimum.

  18. 18.

    Suffern ACE

    @MAJeff: Future historians will uncover the white house tapes in the national archive that demonstrate conclusively that indeed the President was putting something in the water.

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tweety is advocating his viewers call their ‘critters on background checks. Will Hannity or O’Reilly throw the bigger tantrum? This could get ugly in a non-funny way, too.

  22. 22.

    Zam

    @Hal: A friend from high school is one of those. He put up an article on facebook that appears to bashing the arts and creativity, I assume because they promote the homosexual lifestyle or some other such nonsense.

  23. 23.

    quannlace

    Because of course all straights are totally monogamous and stay together forever.

    I believe you’re thinking of Canadian geese. Humans? Not so much.

  24. 24.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Even Dana Bash can’t bring herself to calling it “lying.” She calls it “muddying.” WTF CNN?

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @David Koch:

    The Paultards bought up McCain’s birthplace (a US military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone) in 2008 in a pathetic attempt to claim he was not a natural born American citizen, never mind his parents were both citizens and his father a Naval officer…

    Paultards are cretins. Period.

  26. 26.

    srv

    Cruz is not “Natural Born” per all the wingnutia I have read, and I’m happy to agree with their interpretation.

    This needs to go to the Supreme Court, just for the LoLs.

  28. 28.

    dewzke

    I’ll read the earlier comments later… i just have to say what a crazy pandering to the low level of knuckle draggers this piece of shit of a ‘person’ she is! Lawmaker? Some one help her help herself!

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    How does that doofus think “monogamy” differs from “sexual exclusivity”?

    It’s an excuse to exclude polygamy. See, you can be sexually exclusive within a group of three or more people, so if they want to exclude polygamy they have to introduce monogamy on top of sexual exclusivity. Though how anyone who’s actually read the Old Testament can make any kind of claim about monogamy as being part of traditional, Biblical marriage is beyond me.

  30. 30.

    Citizen Alan

    I used to get so angry about Michele Bachmann, but now whenever I hear about her, I just sigh and shake my head. More than anything else, I find it truly saddening that she is so obviously suffering from mental illness and there is no one, absolutely no one in her life who loves her enough to see that she gets help. Not her closet case husband who makes money off of homophobia, not her staffers who get paid six figures to make sure she can make it from one speech to the next without smearing feces on her face, not one of her co-workers in the GOP who are both embarrassed by her madness yet willing to court her because she represents a solid vote for whatever damn fool thing the GOP proposes.

  31. 31.

    TooManyJens

    @Hal:

    “In redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, what you’re doing is you’re excluding the norm of sexual complementarity,” Mr. Anderson, the Heritage Foundation fellow, said. “Once you exclude that norm, the three other norms — which are monogamy, sexual exclusivity and permanency — become optional as well.”

    Does he know that neither sexual exclusivity nor permanence is a legal requirement for marriage now?

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Interesting how far down the food chain Benghazi has fallen. I wonder who in McCain’s office had to tell him how silly he looked accusing Obama of a cover up without being able to even hint at what might be being covered up. I’m sure Pittypat is still running ads about it in SC though.

    I actually get the same vibe from Rand Paul and Crazy-Eyes, that same not-quite-definable combination of stupid and crazy.

  34. 34.

    Jay C

    @efgoldman:

    Give it time, dude: same-sex marriage has only been legal in MA since 2003: you can’t expect ALL longstanding institutions to crumble overnight: despite what the wingnuts like to think….

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Technically, though, when John McCain was born (1936), the law regarding “natural-born” citizenship did NOT actually cover circumstances such as his (the law was amended a couple of years later, IIRC): but no one, neither at the time nor later, would have seriously believed his “status” was anything but “American citizen” – unqualified.

    So yeah, Paultards are cretins: so what else is new…?

  35. 35.

    ricky

    So, are we paying for illegal aliens to do the White House lawn while the official “Gardener” takes pups for stills?

  41. 41.

    Hungry Joe

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I actually get the same vibe from Rand Paul and Crazy-Eyes, that same not-quite-definable combination of stupid and crazy.

    I break it down into 60/40 crazy/stupid for Bachmann and 60/40 stupid/crazy for Rand Paul. With a 5.2% MOE, as long as I’m making numbers up.

  42. 42.

    gogol's wife

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    And the whole thrust of their report was that she was distracting from the very important points she was making about Benghazi — i.e., the President didn’t care that four Americans were killed! They just let that lie stand as if it were true. I was disgusted by the CNN report. He kept apologizing for their calling out a Republican. Do they do this when it’s a Democrat?

  43. 43.

    Seanly

    Finally, the congresswoman stopped, squared her shoulders to Bash, and unleashed a tirade. How dare you “talk about dog handlers when we have four Americans killed in Benghazi,” she demands. Bash replies by noting that it was Bachmann, not her, who brought up the dog handlers in her CPAC speech. Bachmann takes off again, leaving Bash holding her microphone in thin air, saying, “but you’re the one who brought it up.”

    That might be the best Monty Python skit ever.

  44. 44.

    jeffreyw

    @efgoldman: It was a corned beef until I rubbed it with juniper berries and pepper and smoked it overnight. I’m calling it hot pepper pastrami on account of the secret spices I used in addition. The pickles are Claussen kosher dills.

  45. 45.

    scav

    @jeffreyw: If you’re experimenting, I saw someting last night about a Normandy mustard made with cidar vinegar. Is the really crunchy one the Guinness one?

  47. 47.

    pseudonymous in nc

    I like re-coining the old Roman Hruska line: aren’t crazy people entitled to a bit of representation too?

    (I have friends who live in the 6th. They just about survive it.)

  48. 48.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hal:

    “Once you exclude that norm, the three other norms — which are monogamy, sexual exclusivity and permanency — become optional as well.”

    Uh, what’s the difference between monogamy and sexual exclusivity that makes them two separate “norms”? Does anyone here speak gobbledegook?

    ETA: Ah, I see Roger answered the question as best as it could be answered.

  53. 53.

    Gex

    @Hal: They nicely demonstrate their zero-sum mentality. Obviously including gays EXCLUDES straights? Why? How? It just does that’s why. Just know straight people will no longer be allowed to be monogamous or get married if gays are given marriage equality.

    This is how they think. This is why Michelle Shocked thinks overturning Prop 8 will lead the government to using Chinese water torture on straight people. It makes no fucking sense. They just know that if we are allowed to live as they we see fit, it totally ruins their right to have us live as they see fit.

  54. 54.

    Schlemizel

    @srv:

    I’d gladly become part of Canada! Better healthcare, fairer government and hockey!

    We really have 3 horrible Congressmen. Bachmann is just the loudest most open wingnut in the drawer. John Kline is actually a bit worse of a human & Congressman but he is smart enough to pretend to be normal. His major qualification when he first ran was that he served as a bellhop for St. Reagan. Erik Paulson is a corporate owned whore who makes nice sounds about social issues because he represents those sort of Republicans.

    I also have to send a big wet kiss honorable mention to Blew Dog Collin Peterson. He is a “Dem” who represents a heavily R district so he gets something of a pass, particularly since he does not show up on TV regularly supporting goopers.

  55. 55.

    scav

    And, statistically, norms can still be norms even if standard deviations are allowed by law. Norms that have to be enforced by strict and exclusive statutes rather fail the test of proving their normality.

    ETA GOLLY did that last post come out in poddish. H isn’t that near f.

  56. 56.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Hal:

    Mr. Anderson, the Heritage Foundation fellow, said. “Once you exclude that norm, the three other norms … become optional as well.”

    Shorter Mr. Anderson: If we can’t make pink triangles special anymore, then all of Geometry just goes to hell in a handcart, and the next thing you know the local WalMart parking lot will spontaneously fold up into an N-dimensional brane. Ohhhh the humanity!

  59. 59.

    EconWatcher

    Back in the day, when I was practicing criminal defense in the Twin Cities, I had to represent some defendants in Anoka County, which is in the heart of Bachmann’s district. They’re just mean, nasty, horrible people there.

    As jurors, they’re ready to convict before you make your opening statement, especially if your client is insufficiently Anglo. The judges and prosecutors are equally out for blood.

    Bad memories. You might as well be in Texas.

  61. 61.

    gelfling545

    monogamy, sexual exclusivity and permanency

    You’d think the man didn’t know any Republicans.

  62. 62.

    Hal

    @beltane:

    I shouldn’t ask this, but what is “sexual complimentarity”?

    It’s a word people use to make it sound like they have really researched this issue and are not just issuing their biased opinion. Sounds better than yuck! gross! two men/women kissing!

    EDIT: I also love the guy who honestly thinks he and the others will turn the tide, even if it takes a 100 years. How delusional are you if you think a century from now society is just going to go; “You know what, maybe gay marriage should be illegal?” It’s like a Klansman hoping for the re-institution of segregation.

  63. 63.

    Gex

    @gelfling545: What I want to know is what a PI would see if he investigated this guy’s sex life. I’m willing to bet what he wouldn’t see are the kinds of relationships this guy is putting forth as the only standard.

  64. 64.

    Schlemizel

    @EconWatcher:

    In their defense they are very frightened. They have seen the few non-farm jobs they had go to lower and lower paid people, usually immigrants, often non-anglo/European in origin. It scares them that they are just getting poorer and people of color scare them. The goopers have tapped that rich vein of fear and Batshit Bachmann is the perfect tool for the job.

    That this has intensified their paranoia and racism is predictable. Sad and disgusting but predictable.

  66. 66.

    EconWatcher

    @Schlemizel:

    I hear you. But things were also pretty desperate up in the Range at the time, and the attitudes didn’t seem as bad in my few professional encounters up there.

  67. 67.

    PurpleGirl

    @Roger Moore: Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has been highlighting “Biblical” marriages for a while now; he’s been pointing out the polygamy, sibling unions, relative rapings to force a marriage, all sorts of bad behavior. All of it Biblical because it IS in the Bible.

  68. 68.

    GregB

    Now that all of the old hacks and dreamboats are crashing and burning…Bachmann…Ryan…Fred Thompson….Rush..it’s time to roll out the new batch of dreamy shitheels for deifying.

    Rubio..Rand…Calgary Ted.

    I swear to Christ it is the old tv network formula for the fall season rollout only with political hacks.

  69. 69.

    McJulie

    @Hal:

    sexual complimentarity

    It might have another, more dog-whistley meaning as well (says the ex evangelical). “Complementarianism” theology is common in the more patriarchal branches of the evangelical church, and it basically holds to a kind of separate-but-equal-but-not-really-equal style of gender essentialism.

    If you decode a lot of religious right rhetoric against gay marriage, it comes down to “a same-sex marriage is by definition sexually egalitarian, therefore it can never be a proper marriage.”

    Of course, my different-sex egalitarian marriage isn’t proper by their definition either, but a lot of the time what that type of right winger really wants is to be able to maintain the illusion that things are arranged “properly” even when they’re not.

  70. 70.

    1badbaba3

    Poor One ‘l’. She’s up agin’ a whole buttload ‘o crazy. It’s got to be hard to keep up with big gulp fellatin’, don’t cha know. Bring back the corndog.

  71. 71.

    debit

    @EconWatcher:

    Back in the day, when I was practicing criminal defense in the Twin Cities, I had to represent some defendants in Anoka County, which is in the heart of Bachmann’s district. They’re just mean, nasty, horrible people there.

    …I grew up in Anoka County.

  72. 72.

    Schlemizel

    @EconWatcher:

    A lot of the people on the range were some of the last accepted as ‘white’, Fins, Italians, Poles. Plus they had a long history of strong unionism. The iron companies, in order to avoid paying taxes, paid for a lot of communal stuff like city pools – hell they paid for paper and pencils in the public schools! All those things gave them a bigger buffer against the darkness that has overtaken the Teutonic/Aryan, farm based areas of the state.

  76. 76.

    shortstop

    @PurpleGirl: And if y’all hie yourselves over to the NOM Facebook page right now (or anytime, really), you can check out the crazy-as-Bachmann folk posting, ad nauseam, “Marriage has ALWAYS been about ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN! PERIOD! So says GOD!” Then y’all can bring up the wide selection of marriage formats on the biblical menu and watch said crazies immediately pivot to insisting that it’s okay because all those things involved pen.ises going into vag.inas.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @McJulie:

    If you decode a lot of religious right rhetoric against gay marriage, it comes down to “a same-sex marriage is by definition sexually egalitarian, therefore it can never be a proper marriage.”

    This. This is one of the reasons for the stupid “who’s the man and who’s the woman?” question that gay people get — people raised in that particular religious tradition can’t conceive of an egalitarian relationship. It has to be that one person dominates the other, or it’s not a “real” relationship.

  78. 78.

    West of the Rockies

    @Citizen Alan: Are there any newspapers in Minnesota that cover her nonsensical verbal spewings in any meaningful way? I’d think a good-sized newspaper might want to spend a little page-space addressing her many, many short-comings. (Yeah, I know, only 68 people actually read newspapers in America now, but still….)

  79. 79.

    bemused

    @Schlemizel:

    Yes, and they kicked out Chip Cravaack and voted a Dem, Nolan, back in.

    I have no doubt that some northern regions of the 8th district would vote, at least once, for Bachmann if she ran here. Orr, Crane Lake and a lot of transplanted residents on Lake Vermilion are very Republican.

  80. 80.

    Bill Arnold

    @Roger Moore:

    …if they want to exclude polygamy they have to introduce monogamy…

    There might be practical considerations as well, like tax law. If there were tax advantages for being involved in a (e.g.) 10000 spouse marriage, then right wingnuts might be conflicted between natural inclinations for tax avoidance, and belief in the wrongness of anything but man-woman 2-person marriages.

  82. 82.

    Schlemizel

    @bemused:

    They tend to fall hard for the libertarian BS which sort of circles edges of both the right and the left.

    We travel up there regularly & the hard times are really taking a toll on the good people up there. I really was afraid that Chipper was the leading edge of the darkness and am still not 100% sure his loss was something of a fluke. The fact that he didn’t actually live in Minnesota hurt him more than he thought. They desperately need jobs but I don’t see a lot of hope any time soon.

  83. 83.

    bemused

    @West of the Rockies:

    There is a blog called dumpbachmann that has her whole history. Other MN blogs document her atrocities.
    Newspapers? You know what has happened to the papers. Must not point out uncomfortable truths. On rare occasion when Bachmann has been spectacularly outrageous, it will be acknowledged mildly. Otherwise, the fact that she is batshit is ignored as if mentioning it is impolite.

  85. 85.

    ChrisNYC

    In the CNN video, Michele soooo looks like the Reese Witherspoon character in election! Standing there in front of that school-ish looking painted brick wall and just yammering aggressively.

  86. 86.

    West of the Rockies

    @bemused: There’s an independent paper where I live (The Chico News & Review) that really takes local/regional/state politicians to task. It runs pretty progressive, of course. Is there no such publication in Minnesota? I’d have thought The Star or The Tribune or some such might have the grit to point out an idiot when one appears. Journalism in America… how the mighty have fallen.

  87. 87.

    bemused

    @West of the Rockies:

    We do have a wonderful weekly paper that covers Ely, Cook, Orr and Tower news. The editor does write on issues other than local. He just did a good piece on Steven Brill’s long article on health in Time. Love that paper, timberjay.com. What is fascinating is how some wingnuts are drawn to it to comment like a moth to flames.

    The Mpls Tribune has been bought out like so many papers so it is hit and miss now though we do subscribe to it. They run some regular columnists like a righwing radio host and a woman who rants on marriage, gays and the liberal destruction of society in general. The Duluth News Tribune is pretty much worthless.

    There are a couple of other small local papers who have rightwing editors. Some really crazy stuff in their editorials.

  88. 88.

    MaryRC

    From Michele’s CPAC speech:

    There are two projectionists who operate the White House movie theater. They regularly sleep at the White House in order to be readily available in case the first family wants a really, really late show. And I don’t mean to be petty here, but can’t they just push the play button?

    She doesn’t “mean to be petty”. She’s telling a whopping lie but it’s not like she means to be petty about it.

  90. 90.

    TS

    And the interviewer still kept agreeing with her about Benghazi

    When will someone in the media scream at McCain and Bachman – 4 people died – FOUR – that takes about 3 minutes each and every day in the gun world of one town/city/state in USA. 20 children died in under 5 minutes at Sandy Hook – and the GOP screams Banghazi

  91. 91.

    Unsympathetic

    @TS:

    I’d like to see Bachman’s face if someone replied “And 241 Americans died in Beirut during Reagan’s presidency. Does that mean Reagan cared 60 times less about the USA than Obama?”

  92. 92.

    cmorenc

    Here in North Carolina’s Fifth Congressional District, Virginia Foxx is every bit as bat-shit insane, nasty, and reality-challenged as Michelle Bachmann, the main difference being that she’s not had nearly the amount of infamous national exposure Bachmann has. It astounds me how even this predominately red-rural / small town district can tolerate an ugly jackass of a human being such as Foxx, who’s like the witch in some nightmarish fairy tale.

  94. 94.

    Tinare

    If I weren’t an atheist, I’d hold Michelle Bachman up as proof that the devil exists.

  95. 95.

    Gus

    @srv: Yes, please! Minnesota is too liberal to stay American. Nixon was the last Republican to win our electoral votes. I want me some of that socialized medicine.

  96. 96.

    Todd Dugdale

    What the fuck, Minnesota’s Sixth District? What. The. Fuck?

    As a Minnesotan, I get irritated when people blame the entire State for Bachmann, so thanks for breaking it down to the 6th.

    The 6th is a Cook-rated R+7 District, which means that a Republican should win seven points in a normal election year. Bachmann has never had that large of a margin. She is not that popular, and she is an extremely expensive candidate to hold what should be an easy seat for the GOP.

    What you have to realise is that Bachmann was elected almost entirely to piss off the “urban libs” in the adjoining Twin Cities. MN Republicans endlessly repeated that “the libs are scared of Bachmann”, which made her some kind of heroine to them, regardless of the crazy things that she said.

    Now, however, even the right-wing loons in the 6th have come to understand that the “urban libs” (and the entire nation) see Bachmann instead as a punchline. She barely won re-election (1.2% margin) in her strongly-Republican district.

    Her days are numbered in MN politics. The Tea Party here sees her as an evangelical, and the evangelicals see her as a Tea Party icon. Neither claims her as their own, and the evangelical faction of the MNGOP has been collapsing steadily since the 2010 elections. She is unpopular State-wide, unpopular on the national level, and only barely tolerated in her district. Rumour is that she will face a primary challenge in 2014.

    On the bright side, the $11M+ that was mostly donated from out-of-state for her campaign was money that did not go other right-wing candidates. She has become too expensive for the GOP, and for the evangelicals.

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