Bachmann Bails

At left: Cover of The Madness of Michele Bachmann by Ken Avidor, Karl Bremer and Eva Young.


Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign is history. Those of us who planned elaborately-amusing blog posts making fun of her husband's pray-away-the-gay therapy are profoundly disappointed. I was looking forward to at least a few more weeks of the Michele-and-Marcus follies. Gone after the Iowa caucus? She can't even make it to New Hampshire? Lightweight!

Bachmann placed sixth in Iowa. How Michele Bachmann went bust is explained by Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post:

What happened in the 144 days between those two dates was a mix of bad luck, bad strategy and a candidate who opted for a national rather than Iowa-focused campaign, according to a series of conversations with former strategists and advisers to the Minnesota Republican. That series of factors created a potent concoction that left Bachmann out of money and options less than 24 hours after the first vote of the 2012 presidential primary.

“At the end of the day, voters liked her but didn’t see her as the party nominee or their president,” said Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s one-time campaign manager. “She didn’t make the sale.”

What's next for Michele Bachmann? asks Alex Pareene of Salon:

Michele Bachmann, a deeply deluded and irresponsible religious fanatic who until this week was apparently seriously running for president of the United States, has slunk back home to her oddly shaped Minnesota congressional district to brood on her future.

Politico declares her a “lock” for reelection, but that depends on whether or not she runs. She effectively promised not to, but that promise may have been predicated on her remaining a legitimate presidential candidate. (Minnesota law prohibits running for two federal offices at once.)

Bachmann is not a lock because she’s particularly beloved in her district — as longtime Bachmann critics have been at pains to point out to the national media, she never wins Stillwater, her district’s largest city, and she has tended to win tight races with help from third-party spoilers — but because she is hugely popular outside her district, with a nearly endless supply of Christian right cash.

It’s fun (“fun”) for political observers to imagine her going up against Sen. Amy Klobuchar, but that would be nuts even for Bachmann. If she couldn’t beat Ron Paul in Iowa among Republican voters, she’s not going to win a statewide election in more-liberal Minnesota against a popular incumbent.

What I wanna know is, how did we ever get stuck with this person on the national stage? People like this are usually consigned to the outback, aren't they? How could anyone take her seriously as a presidential candidate?

Pareene mentions that:

It has been honestly disturbing to watch as a woman who was a local joke when I left Minnesota years ago rose to become not just a larger joke but then suddenly a national figure of some influence and seriousness, and that her rise was abetted by precisely the qualities that made her a joke in the first place — her vicious small-mindedness and bigotry and self-evident idiocy — is what makes people deeply cynical about the intelligence and decency of Other Americans not like themselves, to the detriment of our politics. So to see her roundly rejected is cause for some small celebration, even as hateful troll Rick Santorum rides his resentment-fueled momentum into the next contests.

So, honestly, who cares what Bachmann will do next? The future Bachmann deserves is one of total obscurity. It would almost be appropriate if this avowed “non-politician” remained an uninfluential absentee House of Representatives backbencher. Though it’d be much more satisfying if, say, Minnesota legalized gay marriage and Marcus divorced her to marry Ted Haggard at a wedding officiated by Keith Ellison.

Bachmann may not be making any detailed plans for the future, considering that she believes she’ll be raptured away any day now, which both I and her apocalyptic death cult would likely agree would be a good thing for all involved.

We could never get that lucky... although I think she'd be great on a reality TV show: Praying Away The Gay with Michele and Marcus.

Oxygen network? Lifetime?

Michele Bachmann received $251,973 in public farm subsidies

It's right there on Wikipedia! Why is no one calling out hypocritical Miss Tea Party on her anti-government yammerings?:

Bachmann also has an ownership stake in a Waumandee, Wisconsin family farm. From 1995 through 2006, the Bachmann family farm has received $251,973 in federal subsidies, chiefly for dairy and corn price supports.[17] Since the death of her father-in-law, the farm and its buildings are rented to a neighboring farmer who maintains a dairy herd on the farm.

Pretty good welfare, Michele! I could use bucks like that, but after my only foray into AFDC back in the early 80s (thanks to your president), I try not to live off of other people, as you do.

Not only does she take big money from taxpayers, without apology (via her nice salary and her farm subsidies), she actually MADE HER CAREER by DEFENDING THE INFERNAL REVENUE against THE PEOPLE! Do you believe this? And she continually presents herself as the brave anti-tax heroine of the right?

Liar, liar, pants on fire:

From 1988 to 1993, Bachmann was a U.S. Treasury Department attorney in the US Federal Tax Court located in St. Paul. According to Bachmann, she represented the Internal Revenue Service "in hundreds of cases"[10] (both civil and criminal) prosecuting people who underpaid or failed to pay their taxes.

Why would someone who (supposedly) believes the federal government is a bandit, professionally defend the government against hardworking folks who can't pay off the bandits? Sounds like someone is just another common political opportunist!

And of course, by now, you have heard that she has re-written history?

Speaking at an Iowans For Tax Relief event, Bachmann (R-MN) also noted how slavery was a "scourge" on American history, but added that "we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."

"And," she continued, "I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly -- men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country."

It's true -- Adams became a vocal opponent of slavery, especially during his time in the House of Representatives. But Adams was not one of the founders, nor did he live to see the Emancipation Proclamation signed in 1863 (he died in 1848).

See, folks, this is why it's bad to attend a "college" like Oral Roberts "University"... yes, that's her alma mater, are you surprised?

I knew it had to be something like that.

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NOTE: Above graphic from HYPERVOCAL, who had more to say about Michele and her rather shaky grasp of American history.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Bring Them Home Now!

MARCH ON THE RNC! (Thanks to Raven for poster!)

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Listening to: The Beatles - She Said She Said
via FoxyTunes

See my friends!

Left: More azaleas! You can never have enough!

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Plugging a few of my friends' blogs today! GO READ IMMEDIATELY!

Vanessa hazards a guess about why her generation is so apathetic. She blames the 80s nuke scares and Scifi, which makes sense:

The American people of my generation, born in the late seventies, grew up at a time when outright nuclear destruction in the next decade or so was a virtual guarantee. Pop culture was saturated with this idea. Probably like 80 percent of the movies and TV shows I watched as a child (my dad, bless him, was probably a little lax on the whole "Rated R" concept) were either action movies set in the present where scary Soviets were trying to annihilate us, or dystopian science fiction where scary Soviets already had. Even Star Trek: The Next Generation, the one scifi universe where humanity apparently managed to get their shit together, talked about a post-World War III dystopia.

She believes the overall result of this doomsday-prognosticating is the pervasive belief that There's Nothing We Can Do.

So when this specific impending doom vaporized just when we were entering high school I think we suddenly had to figure out what the hell to do with our lives, I think we went all jaded and sarcastic and became Nirvana fans who could care less about the world because it could explode tomorrow...except it never got around to doing so.

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Why do women trash other women? A lifelong puzzle to me, as a feminist. Those of you who saw Heathers and its rather pallid update, Mean Girls, know exactly whereof I speak.

I've recently dealt with the situation of a grown woman who seems to have regressed to high-school-level clique-mentality. And this is the kind of person who should know better, as feminists should. Why do we do this? Maybe because so many feminists felt like persona non grata in high school, so they are making up for it now? I have no idea.

In any event, Renegade Evolution has had enough of it. Beware, video is Not Safe For Work and for that matter, not safe for anyone of delicate sensibilities who needs copious amounts of smelling salts to get through the day. (So, if you faint easily, stay away please.)

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Belledame generously hosts the feminist trainwreck thread of the month at her blog, Fetch Me My Axe! Yes, everyone gets in on the action. Don't miss the fun!

Queen Emily writes about ignorant people, while Zan changes her blog to MY FAVORITE COLOR! (love it, Zan!) Adrienne writes about how she learned to read and incidentally reminds us of the importance of feminist books for children, while the wonderful La Lubu gives us a whole reading list for kids!

Raven travels to Luverne, Minnesota, to say goodbye to a friend who has passed. She shows us the stunningly-beautiful prairie that sustained her spirit during the visit.

And Octogalore keeps on keeping it real, with her fabulous feminist posts about age and appearance:

[Women] are schooled to view other characteristics to supplement our view of what’s attractive. And given the ingrained myth of the man being the more active in the world, while the woman supports or receives, characteristics going along with this action are imbued with perception of attractiveness.

This is why an older woman of achievement is still judged in a radically different way than a man of the same age and achievement.

We all know, in many stories with a female protagonist, the conclusion is a proposal or wedding (name a “chick flick”). That’s the end goal. Stories with male protagonists often have to do with career tumult (Bright Lights Big City) or intrigue (Godfather) or action (Mad Max, Indiana Jones).

I come back to this from the previous post:

“I think if the roles of man = provider/actor and woman = decorative, passive receiver were more averaged out, we'd see more [situations in which women’s age and maturity are part of, or at the very least do not diminish from, her attractiveness].”

Many will toss out things like “biology” and “wiring” and back that up by talking about things like spreading of seed. To which I toss out things like “birth control” and “who has more orgasms per unit time?” and “child support” and “three months [last trimester, the only time most women experience significant impact from pregnancy]” and “breast pump.” I do not know many guys who have a desire to have large numbers of expensive dependents with multiple women. Nor do I know many women who were bedridden and/or unproductive during a large part of their pregnancies. I do know many men who experienced the same post-partum bond as their spouses. I am no biologist and I’m not claiming it plays no role, but I think the degree to which it does is greatly exaggerated.

GO READ THE WHOLE THING! (Although she is currently supporting Hillary, some of us can't wait until Octo runs for the office herself!)

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SEE MY FRIENDS - THE KINKS

[via FoxyTunes / The Kinks]