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<div class="">March 22, 2013</div>
<h1>The G.O.P.’s Bachmann Problem</h1>
<h6 class="">By
<span><span>CHARLES M. BLOW</span></span></h6>
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<p>
The current intramural squabbling on the right is just too delicious for words. At least for nice words. </p>
<p>
Senator John McCain called the far-right darlings Senator Rand Paul, Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Justin Amash <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/john-mccain-retirement-maverick_n_2824231.html?utm_hp_ref=tw">“wacko birds”</a> earlier this month. (McCain later apologized for that burst of honesty and candor.) </p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/donald-trump-trashes-michelle-malkin-on-twitter-youre-a-dummy-and-were-born-stupid/">Donald Trump took to Twitter</a>
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. </p>
<p>
But all this name-calling, as fun as it is to watch, is just a sideshow. The main show is the underlying agitation. </p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
Andrew Kohut, the founding director of the Pew Research Center, <a href="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">pointed out in The Washington Post</a>
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.” </p>
<p>
And too many of those hard-liners have a near-allergic reaction to the truth. </p>
<p>
A prime example is Michele Bachmann, the person who convened the Tea
Party Caucus in Congress and a Republican candidate for president last
year. </p>
<p>
She burst back on the scene with a string of lies and half-truths that could have drawn a tsk tsk from Tom Sawyer. </p>
<p>
PolitiFact rated two of her claims during her CPAC speech last Saturday as “pants on fire” false. <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/mar/19/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-says-70-percent-food-stamp-fundin/">The first</a> was that 70 cents of every dollar that’s supposed to go to the poor actually goes to salaries and pensions of bureaucrats. <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/mar/20/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-said-alzheimers-disease-could-be-/">The second</a>
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.” </p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
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.”
</p>
<p>
And in a speech Thursday on the House floor, she said of the federal health care law: </p>
<p>
“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.”
</p>
<p>
<a target="_" href="http://Factcheck.org">Factcheck.org</a> pointed out that her “facts” didn’t match her hyperbole. </p>
<p>
Last year The Washington Post <a href="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">quoted Jim Drinkard</a>,
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.”
</p>
<p>
It’s sad when you are so fact-challenged that you burn out the fact-checkers. </p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
And as long as the party has Bachmanns, it has a problem. </p>
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<p style="text-align:center">•</p>
<p>I invite you to join me on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow">Facebook</a> and follow me on <a href="http://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow">Twitter</a>, or e-mail me at <a href="mailto:chblow@nytimes.com">chblow@nytimes.com</a>. </p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br>
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