ON THE WRONG ROAD IN POLITICS

SLIPPERY SLOPES

As an American and especially as a long-time moderate Republican, it's been truly painful to see how far so many of our political leaders have gone off course to try and win in this historically difficult election season.  These comments by Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota are yet another case in point via the Chicago Sun Times:

In a matter of minutes, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) in an interview with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" has gone where no other Republican has --mentioning Barack Obama and Tony Rezko, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rev. Michael Pfleger, Bill Ayers and Saul Alinsky. Bachmann called for the media to probe members of Congress to determine who held "anti-American" views..."

"REP. BACHMANN: What I would say -- what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that."

The entire transcript of the interview is worth reading.  Note how Chris Matthews got Rep. Bachmann to say what she wanted to really wanted to say, much in the style of the Tom Cruise character getting Nicholson's Colonel character to admit how he'd ordered the Code Red* in "A Few Good Men". 

Here's an excerpt of the Matthews/Bachmann interview from YouTube:

These McCarthyesque trends, especially espoused by members of Congress, need to be addressed head on by all Americans as unacceptable, as early as possible, regardless of which party or House they emanate from.

Update:  CBS reports that Rep. Bachmann's Democratic opponent, El Tinklenberg has received almost half a million dollars in donations from around the country, from both Democrats and Republicans, since the interview above aired.

* In case you can't recall the scene I'm referring to, here's a clip courtesy of YouTube (Spoiler alert in case you haven't seen the movie):

Powerful stuff still 16 years later.

Comments

[Alex Tolley]

Ann Coulter has been saying a lot worse for a long time, although she is just a talking head and not an elected representative. I think this McCarthy-like witch-hunting is more than a just the result of populist politics but something deepedr and more ugly in the psyches of a subset of Americans, some of whom have reached the halls of power. Not so different from Nazis, IMO, and just as dangerous.

[Paul Kedrosky]

Thanks for the heads-up Michael. And that I have seen it, I despair. Truly.