The Zeitgeist
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 11:26AM Bachmann for President?
On Sunday, three-term Rep. Michele Bachmann declared her candidacy for President of the United States. She is now second in nationwide polls among likely Republican primary voters and tied with Mitt Romney in Iowa. I think she's going to have a very tough time of it, first, because she's a woman and women often have to be twice as smart and twice as good to get just half the respect as men; Second because of some unfavorable comparisons with Sarah Palin in that Bachmann does sometimes have silly slips of the tongue that come from either flat-out mistakes or misinformation; Third, she may not be able to raise enough money to beat Obama and fourth, she may not have positions enough towards the center to attract Independent voters who will certainly swing the general election one way or the other.
But, I give her a lot of respect for tossing her hat into the ring. It makes the race more interesting and is an advancement for women in politics and government, which is in and of itself a good thing. Problem is that much of the mainstream media derides and attacks most women who are not liberal Democrats, so often GOP women are operating with even bigger hurdles to overcome.
On the issue of Israel, Bachmann is 100 percent rock solid. See her brief Israel video below. With friends like this in Congress, Israelis can sleep a bit more securely at night and that is also a very good thing.
Reader Comments (1)
I really see things quite differently. I think chestnuts like "women often have to be twice as smart and twice as good to get just half the respect as men" are increasingly nonsense in the upper half of American society. That just sounds like male-guilt and insecurity. Michelle Bachmann is anathema to people who view character, wisdom, decency, and judgment as important qualities for public office. She is a reactionary, John-Birch style bigot who, like Sarah Palin, claims that her Dr. Frankenstein history creations are correct no matter what the truth might be. She's gotten far further as a woman that she ever would as a man. This fawning over her with "respect" because she threw her hat in the ring? C'mon. This Tea Bagger is all about close-minded hatefulness.
Do you really believe in 2011 that blind adherence to everything Israel's government wants is a good thing? How's that been going for the last few decades? Would you like an objective, unbiased metric? Israel's been around for 60+ years. In the first 30+ years how many Americans moved to Israel versus the other direction? In the most recent 30+ years, which way do you think the flow has been? "With friends like this [Bachmann] in Congress, Israelis can sleep a bit more securely at night and that is also a very good thing" Are you kidding me? If her name doesn't give her away, this woman, in another time and place, would have turned you over to the Gestapo before you could say "Republican." When Jews start supporting ill-educated evangelical right-wing extremists because they think they are "good" for Israel, we can all see how far Israel and her supporters have slipped from their original ideals.
My hard working Minnesotan friends universally cringe at the shrill small-mindedness of this representative from their midst. Finally, if you truly still believe the casuistry that the "mainstream media" in America is liberal -- I don't know what to say -- that is such bathos, try to open your mind. Fox, the WSJ, Trinity Broadcasting Network, virtually every business publication or broadcast, Drudge, Will, Coulter, the list goes on and on.
"I admit it -- the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." Conservative William Kristol, as reported by the New Yorker, 5/22/95.
The great thing about most Jews in America is that, even with all their sacrifices and success, they haven't bought into the selfish, self-serving, mean-spirited true face of the historically anti-ethnic, anti-pluralistic, antisemitic right-wing.