Michele Bachmann, dumbest member of Congress?

To be deemed the stupidest member of Congress in these times would be quite a distinction. For years Michele Bachmann has been campaigning for the honor. Her bizarre misunderstandings about basic financial matters, for example, are legendary. Now I wonder whether she’s finally taken clear possession of that title. Speaking in New Hampshire on Friday about one of her favorite topics, the American Revolution, she showed that she has no understanding of the war’s most famous incident:

“It’s your state that fired the shot that was heard around the world, you are the state of Lexington and Concord (sic), you started the battle for liberty right here in your backyard,” Bachmann told a group of Republican activists at a fundraiser here on New Hampshire’s sea coast. “And the question to my fellow members of the House, and there are some, when will we start the battle for liberty in Washington D.C.?

This ignoramus then apparently repeated the same mistake to at least one other audience in NH on Saturday morning…and indeed more than once in the speech.

"What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty," the potential GOP presidential candidate said. "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord. And you put a marker in the ground and paid with the blood of your ancestors the very first price that had to be paid to make this the most magnificent nation that has ever arisen in the annals of man in 5,000 years of recorded history."

Politico’s story seems to refer to the same blundering speech on Saturday.

It’s bad enough to be ignorant of this seminal moment in American history. Worse still, Bachmann can’t be bothered to get basic facts straight even as she’s revving up a presidential bid. And she repeats her mistake without any apparent concern for accuracy, nor even an awareness that she’s blathering away in front of an audience that is surely far better informed than she is.

She must find that it pays to be ignorant.

crossposted at unbossed.com

Newt Gingrich, Loving America One Woman at a Time

Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, a serial adulterer, has helpfully explained to TV evangelist Pat Robertson’s network that some "not appropriate" things "happened in [his] life" partly due to his patriotism and his superb work ethic.

Newt Gingrich: “There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there’s a forgiving God.

There’s more blather along those lines at the CBN link. It’s clear that Newt, having sought and (apparently) obtained God’s forgiveness, is now seeking the presidency. These are the lines along which he hopes to defend his repulsive personal life.

The first tactic will be to describe his vile behavior using passive/semi-passive circumlocutions (‘mistakes were made’). The second is to be photographed with God at his side as often as possible, preferably doing His work castigating non-Christians and the non-forgiving.

And thirdly, Newt plans to trumpet his squalid record as further evidence he’s a super duper patriot. I can already envisage his campaign motto for 2012:

Loving America One Woman at a Time!

crossposted at unbossed.com

When senators won’t take your call

This nauseating NYT profile of David Koch does have one perhaps unintentionally revealing passage. The very rich personage in this puff piece is quoted here referring to a prank call made last month by a Koch impersonator to the governor of Wisconsin, a conversation in which Scott Walker earnestly reassured the fake-billionaire that he could be counted on to crush the public unions.

Mr. Koch joked that the call could cause him problems. “I was thinking to myself, ‘My God, if I called up a senator or a congressman to discuss something with them, and they heard ‘David Koch is on the line,’ they’d immediately say, ‘That’s that fraud again — tell him to get lost!’ ” he said with a laugh.

I wonder how many non-rich Americans presume that, in the natural course of things, they can simply ring up a senator in Washington to “discuss something with them”? This is the explanation for the Supreme Court’s rather curious insistence that giving money to political causes has to be viewed as a form of free speech. For without it, how can you be sure that your phone call to a senator will even be taken?

Update The new danger that his calls might be ignored seems to be an obsession now for David Koch. He said something very similar in a Boston Globe interview: the other day:

"Right now, if I make a call to some important person and say my name is David Koch, they’re probably going to reject the call, thinking I’m another fraudster."

I wonder which people qualify as unimportant?

crossposted at unbossed.com