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Do Unto Others: Michele Bachmann’s brand of hateful McCarthyite Christianity

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Frank Bruni took a much-deserved swipe at Michele Bachmann in the New York Times op ed pages this morning.

From “The Divine Miss M”:

What I find most fascinating about Michele Bachmann — and there are many, many more where she came from — is that she presents herself as a godly woman, humbly devoted to her Christian faith. I’d like to meet that god, and I’d like to understand that Christianity.

Does it call for smearing people on the basis of flimsy conspiracy theories? That’s what Bachmann just did to Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by essentially suggesting she might be a mole for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Does it endorse scaring young women away from immunizations that could spare them serious illness? Bachmann did that during her memorable presidential campaign, when she blithely drew an unsubstantiated link between a vaccine for the human papillomavirus and mental retardation.

Does it encourage gratuitously divisive condemnations of Barack Obama as “anti-American,” one of many incendiary phrases in her attacks against him in 2008? And does it compel a war against homosexuality waged with the language and illogic she uses?

She has said that gay men and lesbians are dysfunctional products of abuse and agents of “sexual anarchy,” and when the singer and songwriter Melissa Etheridge was battling breast cancer years ago, Bachmann helpfully chimed in: “This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.”

Bachmann’s concept of Christian love brims with hate, and she has a deep satchel of stones to throw. From what kind of messiah did she learn that?

OUCH! Nicely put, Frank Bruni!

Bruni concludes by wondering if we should “start noting the difference between Christians of real compassion and those of exclusionary spite.”

Again: OUCH! There needs to be more like this. A flood of them to drown the stupid out.

And have you heard about the goofball Teabagger in Arizona, promising to launch a recall effort against Sen. John McCain for daring to defend Huma Abedin on the floor of the Senate? Even principled chivalry from a war hero gets no respect from these people?

From Huffington Post: “Wes Harris, Arizona Tea Party Leader, Seeks To Recall John McCain Over Huma Abedin Defense”:

Wes Harris, the founder and chairman of the Original North Phoenix Tea Party, now says McCain’s words have given him grounds to mount an effort to unseat the longtime senator.

In an interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, Harris called McCain an “embarrassment,” before laying out a variety of unapologetic anti-Islamic sentiments.

“Have you ever read the Quran? I suggest you do so, because anyone that is a Muslim is a threat to this country, and that’s a fact,” Harris told the Times. “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. If they are Muslim they have to follow the Quran. That’s their religion and that’s their doctrine.”

According to the Times, Harris believes Muslims are incapable of being loyal to the U.S., because he claims that their faith in Islam and the Quran trumps any other allegiance. He also apparently believes Muslims shouldn’t be able to serve in the State Department at all.

“Is [Abedin] a Muslim? Is she an active Muslim?” Harris asked the Times. “I rest my case. That’s all she needs to be.”

Did you feel your brain cells dying as you read that?

It smells like burning hair.

For good effect, Harris told Senator McCain:

“Go to hell, Senator, it’s time for you to take your final dirt nap.”

By now, even a life-long Republican like McCain is probably thinking “These people are fucking nuts” and his own sense of vanity (if nothing else) will probably see him distance himself more and more from his party’s most embarrassing and outspoken dimwits like Bachmann, Louie Gohmert and Steve King (King’s the asshole from Iowa gloating that he’s been able to monkey-wrench animal cruelty laws! HOORAY FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY. Wha???).

It’s obviously only a matter of time before McCain’s own daughter leaves the GOP.

And look at John Roberts. Does anyone really think he’s going to be more conservative after the insane hatred unleashed in his direction after the Obamacare ruling?

Forget Republican vs Democrat, or Liberal vs Conservative, what’s shaking out in America is more like Smart vs. Dumb.

This is what it’s coming down to, is it not?

The all-out total implosion of the Republican Party cult is something that is both nauseating on one level (it hurts to admit that we live in an Idiocracy cum oligarchy doesn’t it?) and hilariously funny on another. It’s getting really intense. The flailing form the right seems so much more frantic as the election year rolls on.

From where I’m sitting, in the liberal stronghold of Hollywood, California, I’m thinking, hey, it can’t happen to a nicer bunch of flaming fucking assholes. A Republican Civil War would make my day, every day. So far Bachmann has shown no signs that the numerous denunciations of her latest stunt from fellow Republicans have slowed her “crusade” down even a little bit. I hope she keeps it up, with her pedal to the metal.

As a non-believer, and an avowed Marxist, I believe that, in the scheme of things, Michele Bachmann has a VERY SPECIAL ROLE TO PLAY.

She’s the best!!!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.24.2012
03:26 pm
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