As much as Kossacks would like to believe that Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are peas in a right-wing pod, deep down they realize that their usual knee-jerk insults for Palin -- ditz, quitter, greedy egomaniac -- wouldn't stick to Bachmann. Therefore, they have to come up with more elaborate attacks on the Minnesota congresswoman, and this past week they did just that, perhaps motivated by a Monday prediction from Kos himself that Bachmann will be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym. Happy Independence Day!
Kos: The GOP will nominate Bachmann...
...Republican primary voters don't give a damn about electability, but about casting a vote for the purest candidate...
...[W]ith Bachmann we have perhaps the best-funded candidate, with an early map that favors her brand of culture-war conservatism, and genuine street credibility with the teabagger types that will enable her to quickly build a national grassroots network...
FliteDocNM: ...who is a demagogic snake-oil saleswoman...
...People don't care if the Tea Party is the carefully orchestrated voice of corporate America. Nobody gives a damn that the solutions proposed by Bachmann and her ilk are exactly what got us into this mess.
During the time of the Black Death, people would spend their last dime on snake oil.
And when there are no jobs, people will flock to an attractive candidate who channels fear and points to the heavens and the flag, and says, "We can take our country back!"...
Ray Pensador: ...and a potential puppet of neo-fascists...
...The Neo-fascist ruling class...ha[s] taken over the entire government...and very importantly, the media...
And since the millions and millions of religious fundamentalists...are easy to manipulate as long as you validate their most fundamental beliefs, all the smart Neo-fascist ruling elite has to do is pretend to align themselves with their values...and you have yourself...an entire army of so-called "useful idiots."
Enter Michele Bachmann...There is no more perfect convergence of these two factions than her...
Seneca Doane: ...and a profoundly dangerous 'Zombie Reagan'
...Bachmann...is the "Zombie Reagan" that Republicans are looking for -- not because she's as good of an actor, but because she speaks with the same sort of assured fervor -- and she doesn't care when she makes what others term a mistake.
Given that she's running on a campaign of magical fantasy wish-fulfillment at a time when that is likely to be pretty damn popular, we have to take her seriously...
...[S]o many of the things she has to say are -- not crazy, exactly, but loopy. Paranoid, irresponsible, irrational -- embarrassing to anyone who thinks that accuracy and responsibility is important. Yet she doesn't seem like she is bullshitting, as Bush did, or trying to evade the teacher's questions with generalities and huffpuffery, as Palin does. Every time she speaks, she seems like she believes it...
We have to do the almost impossible with Bachmann: get the people of the country -- who care less and less about politics and luxuriate in the continually running waters of false equivalency, thinking that "oh, they're all just as bad as the others" -- to understand that this woman is completely dangerous, as in end of the world dangerous...
Kwik: Clarence Thomas is a racist tool of the neocons
...Thomas is the embodiment of black self-hatred to the point of exacting that hatred on black people in many of his Supreme Court decisions. It's kind of like we're part of a bad blaxploitation film called, "Clarence's Revenge."
In his own warped mind, he probably thinks he's administering tough love. But what he's really doing is interpreting law like his neocon masters want him to. It's like he buys into all of the negative stereotypes about us and goes out of his way to go against anything that can be seen as helpful to blacks in particular, but to the poor and disfranchised of all races in general...
Jim P: Liberal vs. conservative = human decency vs. propaganda
...You look at polls, and time and again, the "liberal" issues -- which really just boils down to basic human decency -- wins by anywhere from bare majorities to landslide majorities. Yet, through the science and magic of propaganda, and false narratives, the majority of opinion is defined, not only as a minority, but a bit screwy as well...
