I didn't think anything in politics could shock me anymore, but I was really kind of stunned today when I heard Bachmann's answer to the question as to whether she was a 'submissive wife.'
I had thought of her as something like Sarah Palin, someone who has personality, charm, charisma, and good looks, but an empty head. Not stupid, but just relatively uneducated (compared to most politicians).
After all, what intelligent person could be sucked into the Birther vortex the way Bachmann was, pushing that theme long after it became obvious that Obama really was born in Hawaii? The Birthers seemed to me to fall into two main groups, a few spinmeisters who were trying to sucker the gullible and those poor souls who so trust what they hear from their favorite media that they take it all on faith, no matter how removed from reality. (The Hillary Clinton as raging lesbian McGuffin comes to mind)
Anyway, getting back to today, CNN played a clip from 2002 in which Bachmann answers the same question a bit differently that she did today. In the clip she says that her husband suggested that she take a post doctoral course in tax law, and she did just that.
Up to that point all I knew about Bachmann is the buggy eyed stare, the religion on her sleeve brand of politics, and the aforementioned Birther nonsense. All of which is consistent with the empty head. Now I find out that she is actually MORE educated than your average member of Congress, it puts her in a whole different light.
Now the question is, is Bachmann just a smart person who sometimes says dumb things, or is she one of the great spinmeisters who is duping the public? I would really like to know.
She's says a lot of stupid, inaccurate and/or just plain crazy stuff, but that's not what scares me. Her anti-science, anti-fact, anti-equality belief system scares the living shit out of me. Because she is a pretty and smart, though extreme, social conservative (100% pro-life, anti-gay rights) she may have a chance, despite being narrow-minded, intolerant and likely to work to disenfranchise all who hold views that are not as "righteous" as hers. Oh yeah, then there's the hypocrisy.
Reminder to MB: Separation of church and state, bitch!
Does it matter Gramps .. you will vote for a Democrat like you do every election .. more than likely Obama who is worse than the last boss whom you thought was as corrupt as a Chicago politician. If Bachmann was a democrat .. you'd vote for her.
I don't think anything in politics could shock me anymore .. but when democrats say that they really don't like Obama or his policies .. they will vote for him again .. go figure the dogma of it all.
America deserves the politicians that serve them (or the 1'ers they serve).
The wars continue and escalate, unemployment is high, more on food stamps and assistance than ever before, record government debt, Git-bay ... yup still there, more transparency in govt .. yeah right ... rich getting richer .. poor getting poorer .. the one consistent hing is that Obama still blames Bush for all the problem os the country .. with a new wrinkle .. that darn tea party. Never mind that the dems controlled congress from 2007 -> 2010 .. still control the senate and the WH .. and he has the gall to blame the tea party .. gish
The Cambridge police acted stupidly ...
No, no. I have been practicing...I bowled a 129. It's like -- it was like Special Olympics, or something ..
"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed." --on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people ...
UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It's the Post Office that's always having problems. ...
I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go
My favorite is him signing the signed the visitors book at Westminster Abbey 2008 ,, but it was really 2011.
The bowing to the Saudi king .. and then denies it .. and some people actually believe him.
Then he bowed to the Japanese emperor
I won't vote for Bachmann, but it is funny to see dems criticize her as if they want to validate their own candidates worthiness.
She is pretty wacky. I don't agree with half of what she stands for. Here is the biggest thing for you to keep in mind Gramps: she is unelectable. She is more polarizing than Hillary(who really is a raging lesbian McGuffin). She can make a run at the White House, but in reality the best she can hope for in the long run is host spot on Fox News.
By the way a McGuffin is a fake out, a red herring, something not true. Hillary is not a lesbian, if she was Carl Bernstein would have figured it out. That guy is relentless.
And I am not talking about Bachmann's religious or political views, I am talking about that aspect of her that keeps the fact checkers working overtime. Everyone does this from time to time, as Obama did with the famous 57 States comment. Bachmann seems to do this all the time. I just thought she was a foot in mouth type, like Dan Qualye or Joe Biden, but now that she seems to have all of this fancy education, maybe she is saying these things on purpose. I really don't know.
I don't think GW Bush is corrupt at all. I think he is deceitful, but that is true to some degree of most politicians. To explain this to you one more time, my problem with Bush is that he sold his policies to the public based on the information that he presented at the time, which was usually the opposite of the facts. The tax cut would create 5 million jobs, Iraq was a threat to the US and had WMD, the war wouldn't cost any money, there were Intelligence Failures to blame for all the wrong information, and so on.
I don't like a lot of what Obama has done, but I probably will vote for him, simply because (pay attention here, Big T) he is less wrongheaded than the GOP.
While Obama has followed Bush's bad economic policy far too closely for my taste, the current crop of GOP candidates want to go much farther in that wrong direction than even George W was comfortable with.
I gotta pick one, so will it be 'not-quite-right' or 'way-wrong?'
Every day I am surrounded by folks that have lots of fancy education. Most of them are dumb as stumps.
Yeah, I know quite a few people like that myself, which is partly why I ask the original question.
The extreme religious and extreme political views are something that I associate more with less educated folks, but maybe that is a misperception on my part.
America won't elect a woman president for sometime .. it took until 1920 for women to have the right to vote, black men could vote in 1869.. all men created equal .. well sorta kinda.
I voted for Elizabeth Dole back in 2000 in the California primary . I changed from Independent to Republican just to vote for her. She did not have the support or money to go very far at all.
There have been many that have tried.
There are many leaders around the world that have been and are women .. America is sexist however .. and you get such pictures as these for the woman politicians
Hotodog and the Queen of Rage
Hillary and he New Republic
at least Newsweek posted a better pic of Hillary .. they must be leaning left kind of magazine
Sarah Palin on Newsweek
Bachmann is too religious for me to vote for her but apparently she strikes a chord for the Iowa bible thumpers for this non-committing straw poll.
The funny part of it is that by her own beliefs she should not be able to run for office. Christianity prohibits women from ruling over men. It's only because of hypocrisy that Christians don't actually follow the "commandments of God" that we can have any social progress in this country at all. By the demands of the 'progressive' New Testament, or at least progressive when compared to the barbaric Old Testament, women are good for nothing else but childbearing. Only when people stop being fools and believing old bigoted books can we move on.
"I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing 14if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."
1 Timothy 2:9-15
Gramps .. you would have voted for Steven Douglas against Abraham Lincoln .... you know you would have. Who was the last presidential candidate you voted for that didn't have a (D) after his name.
You ranted and raved about the Iraq war and what a sham it was .. yet you sit idly by and Obama and his three day kinetic military action war in Libya and have no apparent qualms about it. We're still in Iraq, escalated the war in Afghanistan and our allies the Pakistanis are letting the Chinese look at our stealth technology in the abandoned Osama assassination helicopter since we've been drone bombing their country.
I could think of a few other better qualified candidates to lead this country other than Romney and Obama - which I think will be the chosen ones by the elite.
She's a baptist .. not orthodox christian or a mormon. The Mormon would be Romney.
"Did God tell you He wanted you to run for the Minnesota State Senate, or something like that?" Schieffer asked.
"I prayed about that, as well," Bachmann said. "And that's really what that means. It means that I have a sense of assurance about the direction I think that God is speaking into my heart that I should go."
If your really into some scriptures/quotations .. how about some from Reverend Wright - Obama's preacher for a couple of decades In this interview .. Obama calls his pastor a "great man" and talks about the church that inspires him. The press has really down played as much as possible Rev Wright .. you know they will not do the same with Ms Bachmann.
Pot and the kettle man, i dont know why you act like you do anything differently then the rest of us.
Hmm, not sure about Douglas, I didn't get my voter registration card until it was Carter vs Ford. I liked Jerry Ford, but didn't like that he pardoned Nixon and was on the Warren Report, so I went with Jimmy Carter.
Every time since then, I made an individual choice between the two guys. So far it has always come down to the guy with the (D) after his name, but I have voted for other Parties in local elections if I didn't like the candidate with the (D) after his name. It isn't a foregone conclusion.
In 2000 I might have gone for a hypothetical McCain/Giuliani ticket vs Gore/Liberman. Since I am socially liberal and the GOP has moved so drastically to the Right since 2000, it is more and more unlikely for me to vote GOP, which I think goes for a lot of liberal to middle of the road voters. With all the RINOs gone, there is nothing left but the zealots.
Her denomination does not matter. They're all bad because they purport to follow a backwards book. The book itself stands for slavery, sexism, war, bigotry against gays, rape, and many things that we all should find abhorrent. Like I said before, just because she's a hypocrite and refuses to follow sections of her book doesn't make her better than a fundamentalist, and in some ways makes her far worse because at least the fundamentalist sticks to his convictions.
And anyone that says that God told them to run is clearly insane or deceitful. And especially when God of the Bible only respects dictatorships. That said though she is sadly one of the better Republican candidates.
"I want people who are for the Constitution. That's my litmus test. I want judges who are committed to the fidelity of the Constitution."
And her stance on the Constitution sounds a bit odd too. Her tone sounds more like she treats the document as holy rather than as a living contract that can be changed and amended.
Pot and kettle what ... The quote from Bachmann was from CBS interview .. it was her reply as to why she is running for prez .. I didn't endorse her .. I just know that biased minded democrats who get their news from Huffpo, media matters and the raw story don't often get an objective interview.
As far as the Reverend Wright interview .. Obama gave it .. I didn't pull out some words from it, if f you don't agree with his admiration of the reverend, then sorry .. that is what he said. Obama was his pastor for some 20 years had his daughters baptized and got married by him. ABC article on Rev Wright ... just becasue you don't want to talk about it .. the prez doesn't want to talk about .. doesn't mean it is not a valid issue. Sorry to point out the elephant in the room to you .. even if it is pointed out .. it is ignored.
As I said twice in this thread .. I would not vote for her .. however - the failure of devout dems to even discuss and dismiss the Wright issue is frankly disturbing and hypocritical when they are slamming Bachmann.
When Libya is not even discussed .. frankly it is disturbing and hypocritical.
1976 - Carter - Carter Ford was my first prez election as well. I liked Ford - did not like the fact that he pardoned Nixon .. Carter went to the Naval Academy and served the country - that was good enough for me.
I voted for Anderson (I) in 1980 .. I couldn't see voting for Reagan and Carter had been a disaster - inflation like crazy .. bumbling in Iran.
1984 voted for Reagan as Mondale was a joke and Reagan seemed to have been doing some decent things with the economy.
1988 - Ron Paul - he's the man
1992 - Ross Perot - who got nearly 20% of the popular national votes - yet no electoral votes.
... Dukakis .. more of a joke than Mondale, George Bush - director of CIA .. say no more
1996 - Bob Dole and Kemp ... I think I liked Kemp more than Dole
2000 - GW Bush .. I really really dislike Gore .. in a moment of weakness I voted for the lesser of two evils - I wish I hadn't have voted that way in that election ... shoot I live in California and my vote really didn't matter with the preponderance of dems in this state. I did vote for Elizabeth Dole in the primary though.
2004 - Ralph Nader - my vote really didn't matter with the preponderance of dems in this state.
2008 - Ron Paul - he's the man
Don't Blame Me ... I voted for Ron Paul
2012 - Ron Paul - he's the man
Does it matter Gramps .. you will vote for a Democrat like you do every election .. more than likely Obama who is worse than the last boss whom you thought was as corrupt as a Chicago politician. If Bachmann was a democrat .. you'd vote for her.
Pot and kettle, it is just as easy to say T will always vote republican and stand up for Bush.
*edit to add* That list knda makes my point.
Anderson - Independent
Ross Perot - third party conservative
Ralph Nader - Dem - Thrid Party - liberal
Ron Paul - libertarian, and third party candidate and write in in 2008.
Are you dense, prejudiced and can't read too'!?!?!
These people in my mind were the best candidates .. not just who had a (D) or (R) after their name. You just might be part of the problem if you do that.
No wonder you vote for the same party year after year .. you can't think outside of the box and for yourself and have earned the right to be called a sheep.
I'm sorry I missed your rational on Obama's admiration and devotion for his pastor who preaches hate filled sermons ... an interesting interview posted above.
Hate filled sermons are a part of Christianity. As I said, anything less and they're not being honest with themselves.
I won't defend Obama. I voted for Ron Paul in the primary and I was given the choice between McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden, and I chose the better option. I didn't think Obama was for any great change, but there was no way I was going to vote for Palin.
Most religions are full of fire and brimstone - it creates enthusiasm and fear in the congregation.
I voted for Ron Paul as a write in - I was not going to vote for Obama or McCain ... you would get the same policies with either one you elected. Same as it has been for several elections.
Oh, I know. The Republican and Democrat parties are very close on many issues. They're both corporate shills for example, and the majority of them have no principals. But, the religious factions and anti-intellectual factions are much stronger in the Republican party and so I distrust them a great deal more.
I was just worried about McCain dying and leaving Palin in charge because she was definitely not qualified for the job. I may not agree with Obama on many things, but I do respect his intelligence though.
I just hate the party system. A system based on coalitions would be much more honest.
Maude_Lynne