Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote a rather apoplectic column about presidential candidate Michele Bachmann this week, lamenting the fact that other GOP candidates aren’t calling her out for being completely ill-prepared for the job:
Bachmann does not deserve to be in the presidential race. Legislatively, she has done little, she knows next to nothing and what she thinks she knows is wrong.
He also called her “an ignoramus” and “a bigot when it comes to gays.”
Straight news coverage obviously isn’t going to put things like that. But what’s remarkable is how reporters seem to give Bachmann credit for being sort of, kind of, well-informed—at least relative to another political figure.
Here’s Time magazine’s recent take:
It is easy to dismiss Bachmann as a shorter Sarah Palin with a Minnesota accent. But there are important differences. Whereas Palin can stumble over simple questions, Bachmann is far surer on her feet. When Fox News host Chris Wallace recently recounted some of Bachmann’s most outrageous statements and asked point-blank whether she is a “flake,” the congresswoman didn’t blink and delivered a firm recitation of her credentials. During a 2010 interview on MSNBC‘s Hardball, Bachmann stuck so resolutely to her talking points that the exasperated host, Chris Matthews, asked whether she was “hypnotized.” She smiled and repeated them again.
“They’ll throw nothing but heat at her, and she stays in the batter’s box and doesn’t flinch,” marvels an adviser to a rival Republican candidate. Her fans say that’s because Bachmann, who has two law degrees, offers more substance than Palin and can speak intelligently—and without Palin’s mangled syntax—about policy issues. “She’s smart. She’s well informed,” says Ralph Reed. It’s true that Bachmann has a scant House record and a penchant for factual misstatements, including her bizarre claim that NATO air strikes killed up to 30,000 Libyans. But few other politicians so effectively combine policy, ideology—and pure star power.
Talk about exasperating.
The ability to recite talking points instead of answering questions can be called a lot of things—being “sure on your feet” isn’t one of them.
Bachmann has a “penchant for factual misstatements”—one example is given, sandwiched between tributes to her intelligence. Compare that to this assessment from early this year, courtesy of a PolitiFact editor:
“We have checked her 13 times, and [found] seven of her claims to be false and six have been found to be ridiculously false,” PolitiFact editor Bill Adair told Minnesota Public Radio.
He added that no other politician had been factchecked as often as Bachmann without saying something that was found to be true.
“I don’t know anyone else that we have checked more than a couple times that has never earned anything above a false,” Adair said. “She is unusual in that regard that she has never gotten a rating higher than false.”
That’s pretty astounding—and doesn’t really come through in the coverage of her campaign.
On top of all of this, of course, is the notion—rampant in the coverage of her campaign—that Bachmann should be compared to Sarah Palin. There’s something strange—and deeply sexist—about this. But without a doubt, being compared to the most famously inarticulate national political figure of our era does a tremendous favor to Bachmann.
Richard Cohen is wondering when other Republican presidential candidate will criticize her record; the same question should be asked of the press corps.
the problem here is that time is using ralph reed [!!!] as an iq authority…
far as i can tell the bar has been set at: “well, at least she can occasionally speak in complete sentences.”
I don’t expect the media to hold her to anything. They are a bunch of lazy sensationalists. They like something to yap about all day. I have turned them off completely.
Bachmann is Sarah Palin with a Minnesota accent? They didn’t even get that part right. Sarah Palin also has a Minnesota accent, because during the Dust Bowl era of the 30’s, a large number of people from the upper Midwest (which share the same accent) moved to Alaska.
W. proved that there is no more bar. Complete sentences, facts, and IQ are no longer required for the office.
Unfournatley, with heavy corporate backing she will be able to put out a slick media campain that a lot of the country will fall for. It worked for Reagan, and it worked for Bush. Hopefully enough people will see through it.Not only does she give women a bad name, she also give politics an even worse name than it already has.
Don’t worry, Paul–Bachmann has no chance whatsoever of becoming President. This has less to do with the fact that she’s a dope and a liar than with the fact that outside of the yahoos in Ohio and Minnesota, she will never get support in the wider spectrum. More importantly, the money power, though utterly depraved and determined to destroy our democracy, likes to imagine it has some class, and so will never get behind Bachmann, or Palin for that matter (remember the dust-up between Barbara Bush and the Snow Queen?). Bush and Reagan, whatever their faults, were established, establishment polititians who enjoyed wide support among the people who really count in this country. Sure, they were liars, stupid, prone to criminality, had little or no use for democracy, and started illegal wars at the drop of a hat, but that stuff doesn’t matter, as we have seen.
“”During a 2010 interview on MSNBC’s Hardball, Bachmann stuck so resolutely to her talking points that the exasperated host, Chris Matthews, asked whether she was “hypnotized.” She smiled and repeated them again.””
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa ..
“She smiled and repeated them again.”
I mean, c’mon ..
I find the analysis of her fact check record, as compared to other teapartyish politicians, to be a bit surprising, because when I listen to them on c-span, just to find out what they’re up to, or bump into them locally, I almost never hear any true thing arise from their lungs and drift past there vocal chords.
And, if I do hear something that’s sort of true, the moment is disrupted by a complete non-sequitur which is meant to be taken as a logical inference by the party faithful.
BOYCOT USA 2012 : Elections in the USA are a joke. Living in Australia and seeing Ragan, actor with monkey, become one of the planet’s most powerful leaders I realize the USA have AUDITIONS not ELECTIONS! That is what corporatocracy including mainstream media (storybook writers holding close to the Rupert Murdock bar) has come to. Actors, cowboys and now a debonair figure who should have once upon a time been more suited as the face for a cigarette poster. THE USA DOES NOT HAVE A PRESIDENT, THE USA DOES NOT HAVE A MASS MEDIA REPORTING UTILITY, THE USA DOES NOT HAVE DEMOCRACY, A CONSTITUTION OF LAW, NOR A PEOPLE’S REPRESENTATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
UNTIL AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO THE 2000 “appointment” of George W. Bush over Gore is done, until an independent investigation into 9/11 in support of demands by firefighters is done the USA is as propagandized and real as Nazism. In times of CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION this is made worse and of concern to every human and bio-life form on Earth.
Tell your Government it is not too big too fail. It has failed and TRUTH is universally bigger and absolutely indestrutible in the face of bully nuclear superpowers that come and go. The answer NOW is simple, put your enemy on notice: “I AM BOYCOTTING USA 2012”
I love this article.Classic liberal tricks of the trade.Let me paraphrase.All conservatives are stupid.And female conservatives is stupider.My favorite line is regarding Sarah Palin being inarticulate.How is it that she is seen by the left as a wee bit slow and Obama so brilliant yet she has been right about every failure of Obamas and he has been constantly wrong?I will explain.Because a lib says it…it is true.Let me demonstrate .Sarah and Michelle are closet self hating lesbians who flunked out of every school they attended and both think Russia can be seen from their windows.Now lets see how long that take sto whisper around the room.My God have you never heard of rocks and glass houses?Obama….Bidon…Pelosi….Need i say more?
So we move forward transcending your culture of personal attack.
If you really want to support the Tea Party (or the Republican Party), keep mocking their candidates’ intelligence. Bachmann, Palin, DeMint–it doesn’t matter.
I have many conservative friends (it’s an occupational hazard), and the thing they despise the most is having their views dismissed as intellectually inferior. It’s why they dig in.
So if you really want to combat their ideology, then respectfully challenge their arguments and facts. Be persistent. What’s the mechanism between taxes and job creation? Why should oil royalties be treated as taxes paid? Why did S&P companies hire three overseas workers for every two Americans last year?
Or you can just keep dismissing them as stupid. Make sure to correct their grammar, punctuation and spelling every chance you get. They love that. The Koch brothers may even give you a medal.
John very well said.I have no trouble with people of differing views to mine(tea party)espousing a different viewpoint that they feel can do the job better.I look forward to spirited debate.But it does drive me nuts that some of my liberal friends and family members(let alone the liberal world at large) act exactly like the Senate in debating Cut cap and tax. Which translates into no debate at all.Hopefully hopefully they will see the days of shunning opposing ideas and calling passionate groups like the tea party astro turf or slurs -are long past.There are other folks at the table now.
One thing I’ve learnt over the years is that if you want to anger a rightwinger (and the further to the right they are the easier it becomes), then don’t waste your time with name calling. They’re used to that. If you REALLY want to make them mad then just talk commom sense to them. Common sense is an anathema to right wingers. They can’t handle it and thats when they REALLY get mad. Try it sometime, it works every time.
Paul…..Sense is not common at all.Today our country went 239 billion in debt in one day!That is 5x more than all the real cuts just passed….spread over 10 years!That is insanity.Tea party people like myself are determined to show these figures to America.We know that anyone with an once of “common sense” will demand this spending and borrowing stop.The only thing I here from the left is tax the rich a couple more percentage points.What they never tell you is you could take ALL their money and it would not make a dent.
70% of this economy is from small business. That number alone should lead you to a certain truth. Anything you do to hurt SB is fiscal suicide.We should cut the corp tax rate from 36% to 15%. Raising taxes just removes money from the economy and places it in government hands.We need to take off all chains from the economy.The Obama job killing presidency must realize that everything they have tried in accordance with their ideology has failed.
Today it was reported Obama gave his top 20 staffers 48% raises.Vogal got an 83% raise.Talk about a ruling class.So you say we on the right get angry when you talk sense.Go on paul Im waiting .So far i have not heard much from the left.
“our country went 239 billion in debt in one day!That is 5x more than all the real cuts just passedâ┚¬Ã‚¦.spread over 10 years!”
Uh, no….The framework for the current debt deal will immediately cap domestic and defense spending, resulting in cuts of $917 billion over 10 years.
The framework then calls for more deficit reduction — between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion worth — to be determined by the end of this year and imposed over 10 years, resulting in at least $2.1 trillion in spending cuts over that timeframe.
Obviously $239 billion is not 5 times $2.1 trillion. “Math is hard”