[Vision2020] The G.O.P.’s Bachmann Problem

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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March 22, 2013
The G.O.P.’s Bachmann Problem By CHARLES M. BLOW

The current intramural squabbling on the right is just too delicious for
words. At least for nice words.

Senator John McCain called the far-right darlings Senator Rand Paul,
Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Justin Amash “wacko
birds”<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/john-mccain-retirement-maverick_n_2824231.html?utm_hp_ref=tw>earlier
this month. (McCain later apologized for that burst of honesty and
candor.)

Ann Coulter used her Conservative Political Action Conference speech to
take a shot at New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie, who was not invited
to speak this year. Coulter quipped: “Even CPAC had to cut back on its
speakers this year, by about 300 pounds.” What a lovely woman.

Also at CPAC, the half-term ex-governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, took a
whack at Karl Rove, challenging him to run for office himself. “Buck up or
stay in the truck,” she said with her usual Shakespearean eloquence. Rove
shot back that if he were to run and win, he’d at least finish his term.
Ouch.

Donald Trump took to
Twitter<http://www.mediaite.com/online/donald-trump-trashes-michelle-malkin-on-twitter-youre-a-dummy-and-were-born-stupid/>recently
to call the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin a “dummy” who was
“born stupid.” It’s hard to know whom to side with when two bullies battle.

But all this name-calling, as fun as it is to watch, is just a sideshow.
The main show is the underlying agitation.

The Republican Party is experiencing an existential crisis, born of its own
misguided incongruity with modern American culture and its insistence on
choosing intransigence in a dynamic age of fundamental change. Instead of
turning away from obsolescence, it is charging headlong into it, becoming
more strident and pushing away more voters whom it could otherwise win.

Andrew Kohut, the founding director of the Pew Research Center, pointed out
in The Washington
Post<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-numbers-prove-it-the-republican-party-is-estranged-from-america/2013/03/22/3050734c-900a-11e2-9abd-e4c5c9dc5e90_story.html>on
Friday that the party’s ratings “now stand at a 20-year low,” and that
is in part because “the outsize influence of hard-line elements in the
party base is doing to the G.O.P. what supporters of Gene McCarthy and
George McGovern did to the Democratic Party in the late 1960s and early
1970s — radicalizing its image and standing in the way of its
revitalization.”

And too many of those hard-liners have a near-allergic reaction to the
truth.

A prime example is Michele Bachmann, the person who convened the Tea Party
Caucus in Congress and a Republican candidate for president last year.

She burst back on the scene with a string of lies and half-truths that
could have drawn a tsk tsk from Tom Sawyer.

PolitiFact rated two of her claims during her CPAC speech last Saturday as
“pants on fire” false. The
first<http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/mar/19/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-says-70-percent-food-stamp-fundin/>was
that 70 cents of every dollar that’s supposed to go to the poor
actually goes to salaries and pensions of bureaucrats. The
second<http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/mar/20/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-said-alzheimers-disease-could-be-/>was
that scientists could have a cure for Alzheimer’s in 10 years if it
were not for “a cadre of overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and
greedy litigators.”

She also said during that speech that President Obama was living “a
lifestyle that is one of excess” in the White House, detailing how many
chefs he had, and so on.

The Washington Post gave that claim four Pinocchios, and pointed out that
“during last year’s G.O.P. presidential race, Bachmann racked up the
highest ratio of Four-Pinocchio comments, so just about everything she says
needs to be checked and double-checked before it is reported.”

And in a speech Thursday on the House floor, she said of the federal health
care law:

“The American people, especially vulnerable women, vulnerable children,
vulnerable senior citizens, now get to pay more and they get less. That’s
why we’re here, because we’re saying let’s repeal this failure before it
literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens.”

Factcheck.org pointed out that her “facts” didn’t match her hyperbole.

Last year The Washington Post quoted Jim
Drinkard<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/ap-editor-cites-bachmann-fact-checking-quota/2012/09/26/ac04901e-07ec-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html>,
who oversees fact-checking at The Associated Press, as saying, “We had to
have a self-imposed Michele Bachmann quota in some of those debates.”

It’s sad when you are so fact-challenged that you burn out the
fact-checkers.

People like Bachmann represent everything that is wrong with the Republican
Party. She and her colleagues are hyperbolic, reactionary, ill-informed and
ill-intentioned, and they have become synonymous with the Republican brand.
We don’t need all politicians to be Mensa-worthy, but we do expect them to
be cogent and competent.

When all the dust settles from the current dustup within the party over who
holds the mantle and which direction to take, Republicans will still be
left with the problem of what to do with people like Bachmann.

And as long as the party has Bachmanns, it has a problem.

•

I invite you to join me on Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow>and follow me on
Twitter <http://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow>, or e-mail me at
chblow at nytimes.com.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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