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MinnPOTUS

Rolling Stone goes gonzo on Michele Bachmann

By Joe Kimball | 06/23/11

Rolling Stone magazine takes an eye-rolling look at Michele Bachmann's presidential aspirations, calling her "almost certainly the funniest thing that has ever happened to American presidential politics.

With the headline: "Michele Bachmann's Holy War: The Tea Party contender may seem like a goofball, but be warned: Her presidential campaign is no laughing matter," the story meanders through an unflattering look at the Minnesota/Iowa politician (which will be quoted enthusiastically by her followers as an example of how she's attacked by the liberal media).

Some excerpts from the piece by By Matt Taibbi:

Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions. She believes that the Chinese are plotting to replace the dollar bill, that light bulbs are killing our dogs and cats, and that God personally chose her to become both an IRS attorney who would spend years hounding taxpayers and a raging anti-tax Tea Party crusader against big government. She kicked off her unofficial presidential campaign in New Hampshire, by mistakenly declaring it the birthplace of the American Revolution. "It's your state that fired the shot that was heard around the world!" she gushed. "You are the state of Lexington and Concord, you started the battle for liberty right here in your backyard."

And:

Young Michele found Jesus at age 16, not long before she went away to Winona State University and met a doltish, like-minded believer named Marcus Bachmann. After finishing college, the two committed young Christians moved to Oklahoma, where Michele entered one of the most ridiculous learning institutions in the Western Hemisphere, a sort of highway rest area with legal accreditation called the O.W. Coburn School of Law; Michele was a member of its inaugural class in 1979.

And:

In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance. And Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy — crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.

Comments (11)

Submitted by Ray Schoch on June 23, 2011 - 2:39pm.

Calling her husband "doltish" is a bit much, even if he is one (I have no idea, never having met either Michele or her spouse), simply because it's a gratuitous insult. Otherwise, and making some allowance for the usual Taibbi hyperbole, the descriptions seem pretty much on the mark to me. She would be an amusing sideshow based on her merits, but she has many supporters who don't care about facts or nuance. They like their demagoguery uncomplicated and straightforward. In that context, she delivers. Alas, they take her all too seriously.

Submitted by Tim Walker on June 23, 2011 - 2:46pm.

Rolling Stone nailed it.

I've been very impressed with Matt Tiabbi, and have been reading him since he was writing for The Exile in Russia.

Submitted by Dennis Tester on June 23, 2011 - 4:02pm.

When are liberals of conscience, should any still exist, say they've had enough of the mean and sexist commentary directed at religious women by allegedly journalists like Tiabbi?

Good grief, people. I realize that the leftwing press' readership is the young and the clueless, but the constant juvenile name-calling and ridicule directed at women of faith is shocking not only for its blatant misogyny, but for the lack of outrage and pushback by so-called feminists who've lost whatever credibility they may have had for their cause.

Submitted by will lynott on June 23, 2011 - 6:25pm.

Dennis, perhaps we'd push back if Tiabbi's facts were not so demonstrably correct. Oh my, there's another one--distorting poor Bachmann's record by citing facts and quoting her utterances verbatim! What's the world coming to?

BTW, I've apparently missed your pushback, as a conservative of conscience (you are one, arent' you?), against those who refer to our Governor as, say, "highly medicated." Where can I find your posts on this topic?

Submitted by Don Ward on June 23, 2011 - 6:42pm.

What a inane statement. No further comment is warranted!

Submitted by Don Ward on June 23, 2011 - 6:46pm.

I agree that any vulgar or libelous statements are not welcome, but I feel that your moderators may take it upon themselves to go past that and become censors based upon their own opinions, and that won't 'fly with me'.

Submitted by Ray Schoch on June 23, 2011 - 7:24pm.

Well DONE, Mr. Tester. Nothing like launching your own hyperbole as criticism of others’ use of hyperbole.

I didn’t see anything in Taibbi’s account that was “mean and sexist” and “directed at religious women.”

I saw quite a bit that was less-than-flattering about Michele Bachmann, who’s expected to declare her candidacy for the presidency next week. Candidates for the presidency are routinely bashed by their political opponents, and not always fairly. Mrs. Bachmann better get used to people looking closely at what she’s said, and often criticizing her as a result. Based on what I’ve seen quoted in print, and heard her say on TV, she has richly earned the criticism that’s come her way so far.

Thanks, nonetheless, for your support of women’s rights and gender equality.

Submitted by Ann Richards on June 23, 2011 - 7:39pm.

Dennis,
You haven't a clue what feminism is about or you wouldn't suggest they should come to MB's aid. She wouldn't want it even if it was offered. You are taking a more disingenuous path however- you think 'the little woman' needs rescuing. When conservatives refer to her as attractive MB, they undermine women more than the jabs- richly deserved- of the liberal press. By the way, when Republicans say she is way out of her league by running for President, are they too the liberal press? Like my mother used to say, 'you make your bed, you lay in it' and that is just what MB is getting a chance to do. She can dish 'it' out, let her take 'it' as well. If you expect that she be treated differently because she is a woman- with or without faith- is silly on your part. Am I to assume that you came to Hilary Clinton's aid when the Republicans went after her?

Submitted by Alan Davis on June 23, 2011 - 8:26pm.

Michelle Bachmann has been blessed by the Goddess. She doesn't need you or me. She has HIM and HE has blessed her. As a socialist who wants the government to regulate pork prices, since she doesn't trust the free market, she deserves the support of every Marxist in the nation.

Submitted by Rich Crose on June 24, 2011 - 11:32am.

So we can't vote for Michele because she's hot?

Submitted by John Clawson on June 28, 2011 - 10:33am.

Re: #3 above, I know we are all grateful that persons of conscience in the Republican and Libertarian Parties (whether one or the same)refrain, as a matter of policy and conscience, and as a reflection of their oft-trumpeted family- and faith-values, from gratutous insults, denigrations, or unsupported-by-fact snide insinuations, based on gender, sexual orientation, race, having a different opinion from the afore-mentioned Reps or Libs, status with regard to possessing money, or national origin. The tendencies to do what Dennis speaks of are shared by persons of ALL parties and persuasions. The people who represented the Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln as an ape and monkey were no different from the people who represent Democratic president Barak Obama as being an ape/Muslim/traitor or whatever. This is NOT a partisan issue; it's a people/soul/spirit/ethics issue.