Tag Archives: Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann: She’s b-a-a-a-c-k!

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It’s hard to believe that for a time during the 2012 Republican Party presidential primary — brief as it was — this individual was a leading contender for the party’s presidential nomination.

I refer, of course, to Michele Bachmann, a former member of Congress from Minnesota.

Here is what she told Minnesota Public Radio: “He also recognizes there is a threat around the world, not just here in Minnesota, of radical Islam. I wish our President Obama also understood the threat of radical Islam and took it seriously.”

Bachmann is referring to her new pupil, Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, who she is now advising on foreign policy.

For the umpteenth time, I feel the need to remind the president’s critics — even a particular congressional has-been — of something regarding the nation’s fight against international terrorists.

Barack Obama is as dedicated as any of those critics are in seeking out and killing terrorists, and, yes, that includes the radical Islamists.

While I, too, wish that the president would refer to the Islamists by name as he talks to the nation about the threat, I do not for a single, solitary instant believe he is doesn’t take them “seriously.”

I feel the need to restate something I’ve declared already: We’re killing terrorists daily in the field. Our air strikes are decimating them in Syria, Iraq and in other Middle East hideouts; our special operations forces are hunting them down on the ground and are coordinating with local armed forces and militia in killing them. Our intelligence apparatus is working with international allies every hour of every day to stop terrorist conspiracies.

These ill-informed critics keep harping on the attacks that do occur. They never acknowledge — not surprisingly — that we’re stopping many more attacks from occurring because of our highly capable intelligence operatives.

Still, none of this stops demagogues such as Michele Bachmann from repeating the tired canard about Barack Obama’s alleged lack of commitment to fighting the terrorists.

Earth to Bachmann: The president is fighting them and killing them.

Most entertaining campaign in history is on tap

So help me, I didn’t think it was possible for any campaign to be more entertaining than the 2012 campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

Thank you, Donald Trump, for smashing my expectations for the 2016 campaign.

The Donald has managed to do what I thought was impossible: He’s managed to make the likes of Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain look and sound almost reasonable, rational and mainstream.

He’s shot off his mouth about Mexican immigrants who come here illegally, stereotyping them as murderers, rapists, drug dealers — along with “some good people.” He’s called Mitt Romney a “loser” because he got beat in a campaign that he should have won; he’s challenged whether Ted Cruz of Texas is a legitimate candidate for the presidency, given that he was born in Canada.

And now he’s said John McCain isn’t really a war hero, even though he was held prisoner by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, while saying in the next breath that he likes “those who weren’t captured.”

Other Republicans have condemned Trump’s buffoonery. So have Democratic candidates.

It’s been an amazing campaign to date and we’re still months away from those Iowa caucuses and the lead-off New Hampshire primary.

Trump has managed to suck all the air out of every room he enters. The other candidates? They can’t be heard above all the ruckus created by Trump’s amazing ability to call attention to himself.

Four years ago, Bachmann and Cain — along with Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and even Rick Santorum — tried to raise a stink about this and/or that. They all were “frontrunners” for a time. Then came Romney, with all of his money and political connections, to win the GOP nomination.

Now we have Trump, who reportedly has much more wealth than Romney — and who brags about his portfolio incessantly — making a lot of racket.

But here’s the deal. He won’t be nominated. He’s going out with his guns blazing (figuratively, of course). Someone else will be nominated. If I had to bet on the next GOP nominee, I’d put my money today on either former Florida Gov. John Ellis (Jeb) Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. But they’re so boring.

Trump has turned this campaign into a circus.

Way to go, Donald. You’ve made the preceding cast of GOP contenders/pretenders look like statespersons.

GOP plans fewer debates in 2016

Even though I generally like to see candidates for high office mix it up in public, I have to applaud the Republican National Committee’s decision to scale back the number of debates its presidential candidates will wage in 2016.

It’s down to just nine of them, about half the number of debates that took place prior to the 2012 GOP convention.

The 2012 GOP primary campaign was an exercise in ridiculousness as the field kept showing up weekly prior to elections in states. The field was winnowed down as candidates dropped out from the previous primary voting.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/01/16/rnc_announces_nine_presidential_debates_125285.html

Even stranger was the stagecraft associated with many of these joint appearances. The candidates would stride onto the stage to applause from the audience, and to shrieks and shouts from their particular fans in the crowd.

They’d wave and point to people they recognize — which always is an odd sort of gesture that politicians do to “connect” with voters.

The GOP is expecting a large field of candidates. RealClearPolitics indicates as many as two dozen Republicans currently are considering a run for the White House. Holy cow! What if all of them declare their candidacies?

The field will narrow quickly, although I’m quite certain it’s going to be a stronger field of contenders than the gaggle of goofballs that ran for the presidency in 2012. Yes, there were serious candidates among the field, but Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann? C’mon.

I’m happy to see the RNC coming to its senses on the number of debates. Now it has to figure out how to lend seriousness and decorum to each of them.

Let’s start by eliminating the show-biz entrance.