The worldview of Michele Bachmann

Ryan Lizza's superb scare-the-bejeezus-out-of-you profile of Michele Bachmann in The New Yorkeris sucking up most of the ink and keystrokes about just how batshit crazy this woman is. But a little tidbit in the article mentions the strong influence an evangelical theologian named Francis Schaeffer had on her.



That evangelist's son, Frank Schaeffer, is these days shouting from the rooftops about how dangerous his father's views, and those who follow them, really are. And this week he tells us over at Alternet exactly why:

When you hear words like “We want to take back America for God!” the 21st-century expression of such theocratic ideas can be traced back to some of my old friends: the Reconstructionists.



Most Americans have never heard of the Reconstructionists. But they have felt their impact through the Reconstructionists’ profound (if indirect) influence over the wider (and vast) evangelical community.



Take Michele Bachmann. She is a Reconstructionist schooled – literally – by some of that obscure movement’s leading thinkers, including my father.



The evangelicals have shaped the politics of a secular culture that barely understood the religious right, let alone the forces within that movement that gave it its edge. The Americans inhabiting the wider (and more secular) culture just saw the results of Reconstructionism without understanding where those results had come from—for instance, how the hell George W. Bush got elected and then reelected or why Michele Bachmann was into home schooling long before she was into trying to become president in order to turn America into a homophobic theocracy.



The Reconstructionists have been like a drop of radicalizing flavoring added to a bottle of water: They’ve subtly changed the water’s flavor. And even though most evangelicals, let alone the general public, don’t know the names of the leading Reconstructionist thinkers, the world we live in—where a radicalized, angry government-hating religious right has changed the face of American politics and spun off into movements such as the Tea Party—is a direct result of that “flavoring.”



Anyone who wants to understand American politics, not to mention North American religion, had better get acquainted with the Reconstructionists. For instance these folks just held America hostage in the debt crisis, an attempt to – literally – destroy the government’s ability to function at all a manufactured “crisis” in which Bachmann was a leading proponent of scorched-earth, destroy the system “politics.”

When one is living in the kind of times we are, it's understandable that people might want to throw up their hands and resort to prayer to a great while alpha male in the sky. But once you get outside of Christian Reconstruction circles, I wonder how many people look at their fresh-faced children and want to see them burnt in some holy fire just so they can prove to nonbelievers that they were right. What's scary is that Michele Bachmann DOES.

He is SO much a closet case

Who else but someone in the closet has the kind of obsession with curing Teh Gay that Michele Bachmann's husband has?

When trying to figure out where presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) gets her stringent, anti-gay views, you only have to look as far as her husband. Dr. Marcus Bachmann, who has described himself as his wife’s “strategist,” runs a Christian-based counseling center in Minnesota that has been rumored to offer reparative treatment for those looking to “ungay” themselves.

Just last summer, Dr. Bachmann explained his position on homosexuality while offering theoretical advice to parents concerned that one of their children was gay.

BACHMANN: We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps…

And let’s face it: what is our culture, what is our public education system doing today? They are giving full, wide-open doors to children, not only giving encouragement to think it but to encourage action steps. That’s why when we understand what truly is the percentage of homosexuals in this country, it is small. But by these open doors, I can see and we are experiencing, that it is starting to increase.

I'm sure "Dr." Bachmann would be happy to administer some of that =ahem= discipline all by himself.

Not sure why, but the ravings of the man to whom Michele Bachmann declares her to be subservient reminded me of Rory O'Malley singing "Turn It Off" in The Book of Mormon:

It's easy to laugh at the Bachmanns and their obsession with curing Teh Gay. It's easy to note the hypocrisy of this couple that has taken government-issued checks for decades while railing against them for others. But when you have someone who gives these kinds of cues that there's an fiercen struggle going on inside him, and whose response to it is first to try to turn it into a cash cow and then to amass national power in order to remove temptation, yes, we DO have to point it out.

If only we could be sure that her entire campaign will be like this

Count me not among those gleefully rubbing my hands together at the comedy potential of the Michale Bachmann presidential candidacy. You can laugh at Sarah Palin because she's a dim, willfully ignorant, aging high school mean girl who's addicted to attention. But Michele Bachmann is the Real Deal -- a confirmed theocrat who can put to relatively coherent sentences together. It's a mark of how serious a candidate she is that even Chris Wallace of Fox News joined the pileon over the weekend. Bachmann cannot be promoted by the media for entertainment potential, because as Matt Taibbi writes in a piece not to be missed:

She is at once the most entertaining and the most dangerous kind of liar, a turbocharged cross between a born bullshit artist and a religious fanatic, for whom lying to the infidel is a kind of holy duty.

This quite possibly schizophrenic woman could very well find her way into the White House, unless she keeps making mistakes like this one:

Michele Bachmann delivered her presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, Monday because she was born there, but she inadvertently ended up reminding residents of a dark chapter in their town’s history.

In an interview with Fox News Channel, Bachmann, the Minnesota conservative, pointed out that John Wayne, the actor, was from Waterloo. “That’s the kind of spirit I have, too,” Bachmann said.

Small problem: John Wayne didn’t hail from Waterloo. The former Marion Morrison was born in Winterset, Iowa, more than 100 miles to the south.

The most famous John Wayne from Waterloo is instead John Wayne Gacy, the infamous “killer clown” of Chicago, who was convicted of killing more than 30 young men in the 1970s and stashing their bodies in a crawlspace in his house.

Of course given the media love affair with All Things Republican, this will no doubt be spun as showing what a Regular American® she is. And perhaps she is -- a willfully ignorant Jesus freak who pulls stuff out of her ass and spouts it as truth.

No idiocy is too idiotic for these women to use to bash the Obamas

I've never had children, but I do know enough about the care and feeding of infants to know that at least in this country, when you have a baby, the choice is not between breastfeeding and a carton from Tuscan Farms, it's between breast milk and infant formula.

Infant formula is not cow's milk. It is not just like Ensure. It's designed to mimic breast milk in terms of nutrition and composition. To the extent that cow's milk is used in non-soy-based baby formula, it's the whey from the milk that's used. Now, I'm not here to debate the relative merits of breast milk and formula. My feeling is that if you have this free source of damn near perfect nutrition, why not use it, unless there's a compelling reason not to. But to each her own. Whatever works.

The National Institutes of Health recommendation for consumption of dairy products in infants under one year is:

# None for infants 0-3 months
# None for infants 4-5 months
# None for infants 6-8 months
# Small servings for infants 9-12 months

If you are giving a baby under eight months the contents of the Tuscan carton in a bottle instead of either breast milk or formula, you are not feeding that baby; instead you are spending too much time listening to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, whose hatred for Michelle Obama knows no bounds:

Rep. Michele Bachmann, a potential Republican presidential candidate, is taking issue with Michelle Obama over the first lady's recent promotion of breast-feeding.

Speaking to conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham Tuesday, the Minnesota Republican said Obama's efforts to promote breast-feeding and the IRS's announcement that nursing supplies that aide in the practice can be deducted from tax returns amounts to a "new definition [of] the nanny state."

"This is very consistent with where the hard left is coming from," Bachmann told Ingraham. "For them, government is the answer to every problem."

"I've given birth to five babies and I breast fed every single one of these babies," she added. "To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies? You wanna talk about the nanny state, I think you just got a new definition."

The comments come on the heels of Obama's recent contention that breast-feeding can play a key role in reducing childhood obesity.

"We also want to focus on the important touch points in a child's life. And what we're learning now is that early intervention is key. Breastfeeding. Kids who are breastfed longer have a lower tendency to be obese," Obama told a group of reporters last week, according to Politics Daily.

"Breastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman," Kristina Schake, a spokeswoman for Obama, later said. "We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it."

It's not the first time Obama has faced ire from the right when it comes to childhood nutrition. Sarah Palin told Ingraham last fall that "the first lady cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat."

What the fuck is this with these two dames, the Crazy Olympics? How is it a nanny state to allow a tax deduction for nursing supplies so that you can provide your child's caregiver with breast milk in bottles while you are at work? And as for Snowflake Snooki, here's what she said in her latest campaign (and don't kid yourself, it is a presidential campaign) on Long Island last week:

"It's no wonder Michelle Obama is telling everybody you need to breast feed your babies ... the price of milk is so high!"

This is the kind of off-the-cuff moronitude that reminds me of George H.W. Bush claiming that his dog Millie was smarter than these bozos. It's what you say when you have nothing intelligent to say -- and God knows Sarah Palin has nothing intelligent to say. Because in Sarah's World of Anger, Rage and Fear, it's a mother's God-given right to feed her infant cow's milk and chocolate chip cookies if she wants to, and that mean lady in the White House isn't going to stop her, nyah, nyah, nyah.

Except that before she began exhibiting a very bad case of Obama Derangement Syndrome, she was a promoter of breastfeeding:

WHEREAS, breastfeeding is recognized as an unequalled means of providing food for infants.

WHEREAS, throughout their lives, breastfeeding can offer children protection against serious health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Breastfeeding also saves lives by reducing the incidence of life-threatening cancers in women and preventing premature death in infants.

WHEREAS, breastfeeding forms the most basic bond between mother and baby and is a foundation for lifelong health and wellness.

WHEREAS, government and community organizations have a vested interest in protecting and promoting breastfeeding as a means of preventing infant malnutrition, morbidity, and mortality.

WHEREAS, during October, organizations throughout our state will promote the importance of breastfeeding. This year, in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week - October 1 through October 7 - the State of Alaska will support networks that encourage and promote breastfeeding in all communities.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the State of Alaska, do hereby proclaim October 2007 as:

Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Alaska, and encourage all residents to recognize and support the important contributions breastfeeding makes in improving the quality of life for all Alaskans.

Jesus H. Christ. The stoopid....it BURNS.

That Woman Is An Idiot.

I don't work for MSNBC, so I can say it and Comcast can't fire me:

Politico avoids looking like The Onion

Even Politico knows when the jokes would have written themselves:

Bachmann lands slot on Intel panel

Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the most outspoken conservatives in the House, has won an appointment to the secretive House Intelligence Committee.

The move by incoming Speaker John Boehner to put Bachmann on the panel surprised Republican insiders, who see her as a fiery grass-roots leader of the tea party movement but not necessarily a leader on national security among House Republicans.

Bachmann once suggested that Congress should investigate whether Democratic lawmakers were pro- or anti-America, and she's been a cable TV favorite because she's known for colorful sound bites.

Members of the Intelligence panel receive classified briefings in a secure conference room in the Capitol, and are sworn to secrecy about most of the committee's activities.

"If you're looking for media and controversy, that's not the committee to be on," said a Republican familiar with the discussions about Bachmann's appointment.

The problem is that this isn't funny. Bachmann is certifiably nuts and putting her on a committee like this really IS playing fast and loose with national security.

I guess now we know that the investigations aren't going to be limited to just the President.