THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING…. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) probably has reason to feel a little sensitive. She’s called for her supporters to be “armed and dangerous.” She’s also talked publicly about the need for conservatives to “rise up” as part of a “revolution” against the elected leadership of the United States. Indeed, she’s even rationalized this kind of talk by suggesting that the president intends to create a Marxist dictatorship, do away with American currency, and send children to re-education camps.
So, when the Department of Homeland Security reports to law-enforcement officials about potentially-violent radicals on the fringes of American society, Rep. Bachmann might be inclined to think, “Wait, they’re talking about me!”
With this in mind, I found it rather … what’s the word … amusing when Bachmann took to the floor of the House this week to ask whether Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has gone “absolutely stark raving mad.”
Seriously, sometimes these clowns make it a little too easy.
Bachmann then jumped into the paranoid waters, head first. “What’s going to happen now?” she asked. “Will the federal government start IDing returning veterans? Start IDing gun owners? Start IDing prolifers — and then pull us out of the line for special searches at the airports before we’re allowed to get on the plane because we could be considered a rightwing domestic terrorist while we would see Osama bin Laden and his friends skate by because they’re not…?”
I also loved this line: “It is intriguing to me, we have a report now that says … 80 percent of the American people would be classified as ‘right-wing extremists’ under this report. Couple that with a statement made by President Obama during the campaign that we need to have a federal police force the size of the military. Add it up.”
“Add it up,” as in, there’s a conspiracy afoot that Bachmann sees and the rest of us don’t. Indeed, in the next breath, Bachmann added that it’s “no wonder” people are stockpiling weapons and ammunition, since they see “the handwriting on the wall,” and need to be prepared for the Obama administration, which is “looking at weapon bans.”
Remember, she thinks others have gone “absolutely stark raving mad.”
