A Daily Caller
hit piece on Michelle Bachmann looks devastating to me. Here's the takeaway:
In late July 2010, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s then-communications director, Dave Dziok, told his boss that he planned to take a new job with the public relations firm Edelman.
Dziok had worked for Bachmann for two and a half years, a relatively long period by the standards of her office, and was leaving on good terms.
Staff turnover can frustrate any employer, but Bachmann responded more dramatically. Dziok’s departure triggered a debilitating medical episode that landed the congresswoman in urgent care.
“Within 24 hours she was in the hospital,” a former aide says.
Bachmann was admitted to a Washington, D.C. hospital on Friday, July 30, and released that same day. She flew home to Minnesota to recuperate, missing a scheduled campaign event with Sen. Roy Blunt...
It was, according to three people who have worked closely with Bachmann, not an isolated event...
The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result...
“When she gets ‘em, frankly, she can’t function at all. It’s not like a little thing with a couple Advils. It’s bad,” the adviser says...
On October 19, 2010, Bachmann fell apart at a Greenwich, Conn., fundraiser at the home of Craig Stevenson, CEO of Diamond S Shipping. She was put in a bed at Stevenson’s home and later checked into an urgent care facility near LaGuardia Airport...
Of particular concern to some around her is the significant amount of medication Bachmann takes to address her condition.
The former aide says Bachmann’s congressional staff is “constantly” in contact with her doctors to tweak the types and amounts of medicine she is taking.
I don't think she survives this. The episodes appear too frequent and too severe. She is not Thomas Eagleton, who hid the fact from George McGovern that he was on on Thorazine and was treated with shock therapy. But one thing the masses are not going to go for is a President who freezes up under stress. The evangelicals may stick with her, but she is toast beyond them.
Still, the public seems to accept all forms of mental derangement. Remember when a single tear in Muskie's eye cost him the election in '72. I would bet half of Congress is heavily medicated.
ReplyDeleteMaybe God is trying to tell her something.
ReplyDelete@Brian
ReplyDeleteI asked God and he said he was telling Bachmann to drop out and back Ron Paul.
~Texas Chris
Well, I'm behind her 1,000% !!! ;)
ReplyDeleteMichelle needs to call Dr. Ron Paul, and learn about real health Truths.
ReplyDeleteShe'd also do well to read the Lew Rockwell page & Blog, Dr Joseph Mercola, et al.
Michelle, Skip the meds.
If you really believe the Bible like we've been told, why not skip the Big Pharma routine & start on God's health plan - natural, not chemical.
It all starts in Genesis ! If God didn't make it, don't put it in your body, for starters.
No joke - maybe if you do that, and sharpen up, Dr. Paul could find a place for you in his 2012 administration....
Encouraged by the unConstitutional coup, which is desperately trying to prevent the conversion of Americans to the idea of liberty, one of their chosen candidates now finds herself in a position beyond her capacity. The unConstitutional coup is now even more desperate than before!
ReplyDeleteAh, go easy on her, Robert. This is just one step beyond speaking in tongues. They just take her to the hospital because they can't understand a REALLY GOOD holy-roller.
ReplyDeleteI don't plan on voting for her because I disagree with a number of her policies. But for her own sake, would love for her to see my natural health practitioner so she can get off all the reported drugs
ReplyDeletePerhaps she should check into the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety, and talk to Lucinda Basketcase.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Michelle should stop backing the war on drugs and relax with some fine weed. And i heard masturbation relaxes as well, so i recommend some of Jenna Jameson's work. If she's going to use the internet for some porn though, i recommend she stops supporting the Nazi-like PATRIOT Act that the government uses to spy on people, so she won't be arrested for violating some obscenity law that she herself in her current mentality would no doubt like to see enforced.
ReplyDeleteMaybe then she'll finally understand just how relaxing REAL freedom is, rather than the statist-theocon fraudulent version she's trying to perpetrate on the gullible bible-thumping section of the Tea Party.
Well, I think you guys are pretty cruel to jeer at someone's illness.
ReplyDeleteHope she gets better soon and decides to spend her time on something more useful than either being tax-collector in chief or a tax lawyer.
@Lila Maybe that was God's intention in telling her to run. I'm just carrying out God's will.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteSorry, you're out of luck.
Per my King James, Matthew 18:7 says:
"Woe to the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!"
So you can't evade culpability, say, for a crime, by saying it was God's will that you do in some varmint.
Even in lower church dogma, I believe your "revelation" couldn't be in violation of Biblical morality, if it were to be considered valid.
On the other hand, I don't think running for the presidency would be a moral offense, even among Baptists.
@Lila
ReplyDeleteWhen a presidential candidate implies she's "God's Candidate" by telling people "God told me to run," I think it's entirely possible Baptists could find that as a moral offense.
Having been raised a Baptist, however, I can say first hand that hypocrisy is a staple of Baptist orthodoxy, so maybe they wouldn't have any problem with Bachman after all.
@Anonymous 7:12
ReplyDeleteHypocrisy is a staple of the human condition. Do all the Democrats demanding we do this or that for the poor, give a lot of money to charity? I doubt it. Should we make them all show us everything they gave ever, and tax them with hypocrisy, like we do Republicans who endorse smaller government?
It's a waste of time and an invasion of privacy. People aren't hypocrites because they don't live up to what they profess. That's a misunderstanding of the word. It's only hypocrisy if they really don't believe what they profess.
And I don't think nosing into people's beliefs or family affairs makes us any wiser about them. It's lurid, cheap and unfair.
The day our public discourse learns proper rules of engagement and civility is the day our lust for war will also subside.
@ Lila
ReplyDelete"Well, I think you guys are pretty cruel to jeer at someone's illness."
Now multiply that cruelty with a factor of 100 and maybe you'll understand the effect her political beliefs have on innocent people. You know how many lives are completely destroyed because they are thrown in prison for victimless crimes?
I have no sympathy - NONE - for someone who supports the rape of the 4th amendment while simultaneously claiming to be a "constitutional" Republican.
@Lila
ReplyDeleteMy digital dictionary disagrees with you:
hypocrisy |hiˈpäkrisē|
noun ( pl. -sies)
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.
I agree Democrats, Republicans, and a lot of others practice hypocrisy. I will continue to make fun of them as well.
"The day our public discourse learns proper rules of engagement and civility is the day our lust for war will also subside."
I'm sorry, but that's just wishful thinking. The day our lust for -- or at least capability to wage -- wars will subside is the day an individual can successfully defend himself from a nation-state.
@Tony
ReplyDeleteOne sort of cruelty is not an improvement on another.
In her case, there is no intentional cruelty.
She endorses a system that inflicts pain because she endorses an ideology that gives a certain acceptable meaning to that pain.
It is not the same morally as being personally cruel to someone.
In some people's ideology, Wenzel making money in the US and owning luxury goods is an endorsement of a system that allows children to die in their millions for lack of access to basic requirements.
How would we feel then if those people chose to grind their heels in Wenzel's face were he to fall sick, just to show their moral repugnance to his beliefs?
We may one day find out that eating meat is widely considered murder...imagine the moral repugnance to all of us, then, when all we thought we were doing was having a nice steak.
Let me get this straight: Michelle Bachmann's career as a prosecutor for the IRS is not an impediment to winning the Republican vote, but her alleged chronic headaches are?
ReplyDeleteThe more I study politics, the less I understand.
Lila- "And I don't think nosing into people's beliefs or family affairs makes us any wiser about them. It's lurid, cheap and unfair."
ReplyDeleteI disagree 1,000,000% in the case of someone who has stated emphatically that she wants to nose into our beliefs and family affairs, and make us criminals if they don't meet her standards.
I don't think that John Travolta should be outed- he is an actor, not a politician- but Bachmann's faggot husband should be exposed for his hypocrisy and damaging actions, just as Anderson Cooper should be exposed for his CIA connections and the disinformation he spews on CNN. I wonder how Cooper's partner Ben feels about being relegated to invisibility and second class status since Coop won't come out as gay? Lindsay Graham should be outed as well for his anti-gay positions. When a closeted gay Republican (or Democrat) supports legislation that treats gays as second class citizens then they should be exposed for their hypocrisy!
Dale Fitz
All but the very worst migraines can be controlled with the drugs we have today. Maybe she cannot take those drugs because she has heart problems (a common contra-indication). Maybe she does not wish to take the available meds. Maybe, as I believe, she really suffers from severe depression or bipolar illness. None of our business if she were not running for President. Her husband is also our business BECAUSE she is running for President. He APPEARS to be gay. Our business ONLY if it affects her policy decisions. For example, her husband might feel the need to act like a macho war monger because he APPEARS to be gay. Barney Frank, for example, has no need to be a war monger because he is openly gay and represents a liberal state.
ReplyDeleteFull disclosure: I support Ron Paul, whose worst "scandal" is what his ghost writers said about black crime fifteen years ago.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteSo you think gay people shouldn't have the choice to remain in the closet but you have a right to force them to come out?
OK. Let's try that on another example.
What is a straight person thinks gays are actually perverted straights and tries to force gays into coming out straights?
Oh, I forgot. That's just what Marcus Bachmann does and you think he's horrible for doing it....
I think I'm getting one of those migraines...
@Anonymous at 7:57
ReplyDelete1. You're digital dictionary is quite wrong.
2. Violent language does indeed drive mob psychology, and it is mob psychology to which tyrants routinely and successfully appeal.
The Greeks knew that a long ago.
It is one thing to vent in private...just as one picks one's nose or burps in private.
In public, some level of civility is essential.
Once that goes, so goes everything else.
The man who cannot rule himself is fit to be ruled by others.
Sorry, Lila. I don't buy into your pop psychology any more than I buy into your fictitious dictionary definitions.
ReplyDeleteThe inability to vent and the feelings of helplessness are more likely to drive mob psychology than "public venting." People who vent in public are far less likely to turn to actual violence. The truly dangerous man won't give you any warnings in advance.
So, the "devastating" attack discovered that Michelle Bachmann has...migraine. A disease that maybe 5% or 10% of people have, and it is more likely to affect women. My wife has an even worse form of migraine but is considered healthy, although every once in a while has to delay some activities is the headache is strong.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering how insulted would be you, the fans of the beloved "dr Paul", if somebody wrote a similar hit peace against "dr Paul" declaring him "unfit to lead" because of migraine?
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteWhat pop psychology?
Mob feeling is in fact driven by violent changes, from panic to anger, from flight to fight. That's hoary physiology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response
That is why slogans work. That is why creating some figure to hate works so well with mobs..
Anger vented certainly CAN act as a safety valve
(how much more "pop psychology" can you get than THAT!)...although it's not always the case..and something tells me that the problem in American public culture is surely not an excess of restraint.
By all means cuss out Ms Bachmann in private. Call her anything you want to.
We are talking about PUBLIC discourse.
A different thing.
Consider this.
It's also salutary to go to the bathroom every day.
You just do it privately, not publicly, don't you?....
Your online dictionary is indeed wrong.
The fact that word usage gets corrupted simply attests to public culture and education today.
QUOTE:
"Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches. Samuel Johnson made this point when he wrote about the misuse of the charge of "hypocrisy" in Rambler No. 14:
Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.[2]
END OF QUOTE
I'll take Johnson over some online wiki-diki any day.
By your standards EVERYTHING about every human being is fair game, because everyone who opens their mouth in public affects public discourse and everyone is guilty of not living up to some standard they profess -
So hey, show me your medical records so I can know I'm not dealing with an insane kook, right off the bat.
And meanwhile, tell me all about that first girl friend of yours, the one who tattooed her right arm with neo-nazi symbols, and that drunken fight you had with the cops in the alley that night when you were suspended from high school - what was that all about? Surely you're too unstable to comment on public matters...
You see? It can go on and on.
Besides which, it's quite easy to refute Bachmann's positions on the merits. So piling on the ad hominem is quite unnecessary and counterproductive, both morally, and tactically.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteJust to make clear..my example weren't directed personally against you..apologies, if they sounded like that.
Here's Rockwell making the best argument against Bachmann, with no ad hominem:
"5,000 adherents of the Hagee war religion are in DC to claim that his kingdom is of this world, and it's in the Middle East. But who, in DC, dissents from that position? Three guys?"
@Lila
ReplyDeleteI wasn't offended even if your comments were personal. I do find your definition of hypocrisy that requires inner knowledge of a person's thoughts to be bizarre, and your straw-man of calling my dictionary a "wiki diki" (it's not a wiki of any form) telling.
I checked another large, and fairly expensive (by iPhone/iPad standards) digital dictionary I have on my iPad. It's definition conflicts with yours as well. Whether a 225 year-dead lexicographer agrees or not. And, like it or not, language evolves. It is useful to study a long-dead lexicographer relative to studying documents written by other long-dead authors of the same period. It is not particularly useful to use that same lexicographer to analyze a modern document.
I, for one, never called for Bachmann to release her medical records, nor did I say her condition disqualified her. As a matter of fact, if she were debilitated 100% of the time, that might make her the best presidential candidate.
I do find it humorous that one of the candidates "called by God" (Rick Perry is as well -- I guess God has difficulty making decisions) has a medical condition that might make it very difficult for her to win a presidential election. I also think Bachmann, or anyone else, who professes to believe in Jesus' teachings except when it pertains to killing Muslims is a hypocrite (I'm sticking to my dictionaries' definition). Maybe she was "called by God" -- He has a great sense of humor.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI wasn't making fun of your dictionary...I just like coining phrases...
Re - it's not a question of the definition. It is ultimately usage that decides. If the public is now defining hypocrisy as any variance between public acts and private acts (why not private thoughts?) they are setting themselves up for an infinite encroachment into privacy. Serve them right when it bites them in the b***.
I for one advocate/admire many things I have often failed to exemplify. That is simply human weakness.
It would be hypocrisy if I secretly DIDN'T REALLY BELIEVE in those tenets but just promoted them for political reasons.
But even in the case of hypocrisy, I fail to see why it is any worse than any OTHER moral failing.
Then again, what about sins of omission? Shall we test our candidates for such qualities as bravery (Bachmann surely wins on that), hard work, aspiration, compassion?
How do we test? Whose test? And why?
Are they running to be God's right hand on earth or to be the president?
Since when did we confuse those two?
CEO's manage to be good CEO's without any noticeable moral superiority to anyone. Why demand that a public official somehow be some kind of moral exemplar? It is a kind of church-state conflation.
Re - Bachmann's illness.
Actually, while I don't see any need to publicize her medical records, I think it is of public interest if she has some condition that seriously affects her professional work.
Can't have the president go and lie in the dark for 3-4 days when he has a critical task at hand..if that allegation is true.
Even so, I think she would be great in some other less pivotal office as a spokesman for conservative causes...
Lila, re-read my "outing" comment at 826PM again. I pointed to John Travolta, a man I know to be homosexual due to numerous people that have told me stories of their encounters. I do not advocate his being outed, however, since he is a private citizen and doesn't make decisions or advocate positions (Well, the $cientology thing is kinda creepy) that are harmful.
ReplyDeleteLindsay Graham, Michelle and Marcus Bachmann, and Anderson Cooper are different- they use their positions to advocate violence towards many people- and as a result their private lives are fair game. "What is good for me is not good for thee" is the essence of hypocrisy.
It's not that MB has "migraines", it is that her medical condition is apparently debilitating on a regular basis, and it is therefore germane to the discussion of whether she is fit to be president.
~~Dale Fitz
@Dale Fitz
ReplyDeleteI don't get it.
Marcus Bachmann is telling people not to be gay, but he IS GAY? This is news to me. If he is a man with effeminate characteristics that is different from being gay. And if he is gay but in the closet, how do we know that. And if he is "really" gay but suppressing it, then that is precisely what he is advocating other people be. IN which case, where's the hypocrisy?
And why only hypocrisy?
That's YOUR idea of the critical failing. Suppose someone else's idea of it is cowardice. So I'll check for cowardice, you test for hypocrisy, Bob can test with acquaintance with Mises, and when we're all done with our prescriptions, there will be exactly no one left to run for president.
Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good libertarian outcome.