Two reports on Michele Bachmann paint a not-so-pretty picture

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Those of us who hail from Minnesota already know Michele Bachmann as the "Minnesota Loon," but the rest of the nation just getting to know this wingnut needs to read up.

The New Yorker has a lengthy piece on Michele Bachmann by Ryan Lizza, Leap of Faith: The making of a Republican front-runner:

[Michele] Bachmann, a two-term member of Congress from Stillwater, Minnesota, is an ideologue of the Christian-conservative movement. Her appeal, along with her rapid ascent in the polls, is based on a collection of right-wing convictions, beliefs, and resentments that she has regularly broadcast from television studios and podiums since 2006, when she was first elected to Congress. Often, she will say something outrageous and follow it with a cheerful disclaimer. During the last Presidential campaign, she told Chris Matthews, on MSNBC, that Barack Obama held “anti-American views” and then admitted, “I made a misstatement.” (In 2010, she said that she had been right about Obama’s views all along: “Now I look like Nostradamus.”) In the spring of 2009, during what appeared to be the beginnings of a swine-flu epidemic, Bachmann said, “I find it interesting that it was back in the nineteen-seventies that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat President, Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama—I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.”

After the second Republican Presidential debate, in Manchester, New Hampshire, on June 13th, Bachmann surged in popularity. Her success there was mainly the result of her clear enunciation of Tea Party talking points. But Bachmann and her campaign staff know that––like Sarah Palin and like Mitt Romney—her image depends on a carefully groomed glamour. As Stewart was spelling out the rules of the plane, a flight attendant solemnly carried a full-length white garment bag from Nordstrom down the aisle, as if she were carrying the nuclear codes. Close behind followed two more aides––Bachmann’s personal assistant, Tera Dahl, and the makeup artist Tamara Robertson, who had been asked to join the team because Bachmann so admired her work at Fox News.

Continue reading The New Yorker.

Then there is Newsweek which has received more attention for its allegedly unflattering cover (right) rather than the substance of its reporting. Michele Bachmann: Tea Party Queen for America – The Daily Beast:

[I]n Iowa, Bachmann’s simple, black-and-white distillations of complex problems are cheered as refreshing and tough. It’s part of the reason she finds herself favored to finish near the top of the Ames Straw Poll on Aug. 13, the first political-strength test of the arduous 2012 presidential contest.

Petite and prim, the 55-year-old mother of five delivers her stump speech with the earnestness of a preacher. She pulls out a huge whiteboard and for dramatic effect scrawls just how many zeros can be found in a trillion.

The elderly, the unemployed, the exasperated, and even a few disillusioned Democrats crowd her rallies and cheer her not-going-to-take-it-anymore shtick, even as they recognize some of its inherent contradictions.

“You use the word ‘anger.’ It’s not anger,” Bachmann told NEWSWEEK. Americans aren’t expressing “unhinged anger,” she says. “People are saying the country is not working.”

Married in 1979, Bachmann raised five children in Stillwater, Minn., and eventually fostered 23 kids. She has said her husband directed her to study tax law, and she obliged because “the Lord says: be submissive, wives; you are to be submissive to your husbands.” Asked about her choice of words, she explains, “That means that I respect my husband, and he respects me.” But in a Bachmann White House, she adds, “I would be the decision maker.”

Just months ago, Bachmann was the butt of jokes on late-night TV for her flawed grasp of U.S. history.

* * *

In Iowa, where she was raised, Bachmann has become the living embodiment of the Tea Party. She and her allies have been called a maniacal gang of knife-wielding ideologues. That’s hyperbole, of course. But the principled rigidity of her position has created some challenges for her campaign.

Continue reading Michele Bachmann: Tea Party Queen for America.

Bachmann will be performing in front of a hometown crowd on Thursday night when FAUX News Fraudcasting hosts the next "Survivor – GOP Presidential Primary" debate.

It appears that Governor Goodhair, Rick Perry (R-TX) plans to rain on her parade during Saturday's Ames Straw Poll when he kinda sorta announces he also is running for president. Rick Perry to make 2012 intentions clear Saturday – POLITICO.com.