"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Michelle Bachmann Is Not the Devil

Which only seems necessary to say because the elite media (or at least, the elitists employed by the decidely non-elite and bankrupt Newsweek) apparently thinks that she is Beelzebub Incarnate.  


It's boring to have to keep saying that if a conservative weekly -- say, published by Rupert Murdoch -- used a cover photo this unattractive for a story about, say, Hillary Clinton, that they would be pilloried for sexism.   Or, if they used an unappealing shot of Barack Obama, for racism.   You get the picture. 

But demonization like this is also simply lazy reporting by people who are too busy grinding ideological axes to see what's happening in front of them.   Here, for instance, is a look at what Bachmann is really like campaigning in Iowa:


Bachmann announced she would take one last question, and an aide passed the microphone to Don Hoover, a retired technician from Atlantic.

It turned out that Hoover, who had not decided whom to support in the GOP race, had not come to query Bachmann on the issues but to complain that he had received five automated calls from her campaign in the past week. He was on a no-call list, Hoover said, and he wondered whether Bachmann might be violating an Iowa law against junk calls. What was particularly irritating was that each call was the same, urging Hoover to vote for Bachmann at the straw poll, which will take place 115 miles away in Ames.

"I don't know if I have the time, I don't know if I have the money to go there," Hoover said to Bachmann. "Why all the five calls?"
The moment threatened to put a downbeat ending on what had been a decidedly upbeat gathering. Bachmann appeared a little taken aback, assuring Hoover that she obeyed Iowa law. An aide said the campaign would be happy to take his name off the call list.

Then Bachmann seemed to catch herself. She walked over to Hoover, leaned down, locked her eyes onto his, shook his hand and didn't let go for the longest time. "I thank you, and I would ask you to come to Ames on August 13, this Saturday, and I'll tell you why," she began.

"I want you to come, and I want you to give me your vote because we have got to turn the country around," Bachmann said. "You get to choose. There are people all across the United States who wish they were in your shoes. People wish they were an Iowan because you get to make that down payment on Saturday for taking the country back."

Bachmann was still holding Hoover's hand and looking straight into his eyes; at that moment, every ounce of her considerable energy was devoted to making this one particular sale. "I'm 100 percent pro-life, I'm 100 percent pro-marriage, pro-family, I'm 100 percent on the Second Amendment," she told Hoover. "Let's get 'er done right now, let's make a decision right now. What do I need to do to convince you?"

Hoover still wouldn't commit. But a few minutes later, after the rally ended and the blue bus pulled away, he was sold. He would "very likely" go to Ames, he said, and he would vote for Michele Bachmann.

"The things that she told me, personally standing there with her, that she was pro-life, and Second Amendment, and cutting spending -- all of this I believe," Hoover said. "She looked me in the eye, held my hand and told me, 'This is what I believe.' "
People like the fellow who picked Bachmann's cover shot don't understand politics, not really, because they've never had the guts to get into the arena.   So they look down from on high on people like Bachmann who've actually taken the risk, run the race, and prevailed, and they tsk-tsk about how dumb they are.   They've been doing it forever:  about Eisenhower, about Reagan, about George W. Bush.   Now they're doing it about Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann.   But none of them could convince a stranger in a small-town in Iowa to back their big-government, pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-affirmative action, anti-military agenda.   They wouldn't have the guts to try.

Just one of the reasons why no one reads Newsweek anymore.

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