Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post’s conservative columnist, has an “exclusive” interview with Michele Bachmann. How is an interview “exclusive” if the person is giving interviews to lots of other people too? I suppose she hasn’t done this exact interview before, but that would make every interview an exclusive and that kind of defeats the purpose of having exclusive interviews, doesn’t it?
Anyway, after speaking with Bachmann, Rubin declares her to be “serious and focused and lots of other good things:
Again and again, she emphasized the seriousness of the challenges facing the country. “One thing we see more and more is that voters are starting to realize dealing with national security is the number one job of the president. This is not about entertainment. This is not a game show.” And in fact, considering the policy gaffes and shortcomings of her opponents, she comes across, in contrast to the pre-race conventional wisdom, as one of the candidates at the grown-ups’ table: knowledgable, articulate, focused and sober-minded.
Has Rubin been watching the same campaign the rest of us have? Because in the real world Bachmann has come across as exactly what she is, a deeply ignorant and ill-educated person who makes outlandish claims and seems to have a near-allergic reaction to reality. Her typical statements range from false to batshit insane.
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Modusoperandi
November 30, 2011 at 9:16 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
She is “serious and focused”. She’s also running on bad data, and most of that is in the wrong order.
eric
November 30, 2011 at 9:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Mentioning that we have problems does not make a candidate serious and focused. A five-year-old can repeat “we have real problems” over and over again.
Having a solution, being able to describe the real impact it will have on us, and being willing to talk about the pros and cons of all proposed solutions (including te cons of your own) – that’s what helps make a candidate serious.
Phillip IV
November 30, 2011 at 9:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…to stand trial? That’s just about the only thing I could imagine, and even there I’d like a second opinion.
Well, she wasn’t giving any other interview at the exact same time. Possibly she didn’t even give another one the whole rest of that afternoon.
Ellie
November 30, 2011 at 9:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So, just her aides were present? No seven-foot tall doctor?
Modusoperandi
November 30, 2011 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
eric “A five-year-old can repeat ‘we have real problems’ over and over again.”
And if that 5yr old was Obama, the Right would erupt in “American Exceptionalism”-slash-chest puffery and faux outrage.
Dr X
November 30, 2011 at 10:01 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I had an exclusive cup of coffee this morning. Yep… I drank the whole thing, all by myself. No one else had any of my coffee. Just thought I should tell the world, because it was exclusively mine.
johnbrockman
November 30, 2011 at 10:05 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Someone standing on the street screaming as a meteor hurtles down from space obviously recognizes that there’s a problem.
Wait, bad metaphor.
A person standing on the street screaming as a steam roller comes at them at one mile per hour can recognize there’s a problem even if they don’t know what to do about it. What’s worse is that Bachmann’s solution is “Keep standing here and it’ll go away!”
Along with the rest of the Republican Party.
Aliasalpha
November 30, 2011 at 10:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Isnt declaring bachmann competent sort of like putting a sticker on a dangerously defective childs toy that says “Not presently on fire!”?
MikeMa
November 30, 2011 at 10:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed says:
Conservative reality must be significantly different from the one I live in for Rubin to believe what she says.
d cwilson
November 30, 2011 at 10:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No, it’s like trying to put that sticker on a toy that is already on fire.
John Hinkle
November 30, 2011 at 10:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, that’s a real bummer. Bachmann can’t blame her crazy on drugs or alcohol.
D. C. Sessions
November 30, 2011 at 11:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Which, in today’s POG, definitely entitles her to a chair at the grown-ups’ table.
reverendrodney
November 30, 2011 at 11:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I swear, the media is playing the GOP the way Idi Amin staged cage fights, just for the entertainment. Why else encourage people like Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Perry, but to watch them fall?
I predict that when it’s over the nominee will be either Jeb Bush or Huntsman.
p.s. sorry I don’t have a citation for the Idi remark.
d cwilson
November 30, 2011 at 11:30 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@reverandrodney:
The media has long regarded elections as mere horse races. It’s all about who is up and who is down. That’s much easier and more fun than trying to analyze the merits of each candidate’s policy positions. That sounds too much like work for them.
Huntsman is not going to be the nominee. He has the same magic underwear problem Romney has plus the added stigma of having worked for the Evilkenyansocialistatheistmuslim ™.
martinc
November 30, 2011 at 11:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I suspect ‘exclusive interview’ is just media-speak for ‘not one of those press conferences where every man and his dog points their microphone at someone, and they take turns to ask questions but all go away with the same set of questions and answers’.
Aquaria
November 30, 2011 at 1:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Again and again, she emphasized the seriousness of the challenges facing the country. “One thing we see more and more is that voters are starting to realize dealing with national security is the number one job of the president. This is not about entertainment. This is not a game show.”
I think Michele’s been huffing the Aqua Net again. Anyone ever notice that she has Anita Bryant hair–and the same dumb, hateful brain?
Nemo
November 30, 2011 at 2:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
When liberals speak of a candidate as “serious”, they mean that she’s thoughtful, and educated on the issues.
When conservatives say it, they mean that she’s tough, aggressive, and (frankly) hard-hearted and cruel. That’s what “serious” is to them.
imthegenieicandoanything
November 30, 2011 at 5:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I swear it’s the truth: I read the title as “incompetent” and waited for another of Ed’s “conservatives worthy of a grain of respect” (something I no longer have for any American “conservative” I’ve come across in over ten years now.) articles.
MB is as bad as any person could be, as are ALL the “Republican” “candidates” (the “” really get worked over in dealing with the shits running for nomination for puppet-dictatorship of the 1% ‘Mer’kin Peopl’s Republic), with as many variations on “bad” as Howard Johnson’s had flavors of ice cream.
If you’re even considering voting “Republican”, you’re stupid, ignorant, insane, or evil.
Midnight Rambler
November 30, 2011 at 8:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So, just her aides were present? No seven-foot tall doctor?
If she has a doctor around, I would expect it to be Dr. Herbert West.
Craig Pennington
November 30, 2011 at 9:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Loki moves in mysterious ways — Michele told a crowd in Iowa today that if she were President, she’d close the U.S. Embassy in Iran.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/us-embassy-in-iran-michele-bachmanns-oops-moment/
John Phillips, FCD
December 1, 2011 at 2:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So perhaps it was Rubin’s mother who told Bachmann a while back about the HPV vaccine making her daughter mentally retarded.