Interesting title, don't you think? Before anybody wonders what's going
on....I want to make it clear that it has nothing to do with me
personally or anything I'm currently dealing with, but something I
witnessed on TV. I was watching Hardball on MSNBC early Friday evening
and saw something that got under my skin. It shouldn't have, but it
did. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota, was on the
show dissing presidential nominee Barack Obama and unsurprisingly
claiming he was anti-American. However, she implied a couple things
during the interview that really made me wonder how a crackpot like her
got voted by actual people into Congress. One, she was asked if any
Congressional Democrats were anti-American and she actually called for
an "expose" by the media to determine "if they were pro-American or
anti-American." Two, she implied that liberalism itself was
anti-American. Now, if this were the Fifties, she would probably fit in
with Joseph McCarthy, the rabid and paranoid Congressman who had those
trials in an attempt to uncover Communists. However, this isn't the
Fifties...it's 2008.
This presidential election has been a
charged one, with claims going back and forth as to what direction
America should take going forward. In the past few weeks there have
been very damaging charges made toward Obama and his wife questioning
their patriotism. It is a fear card being played, but to see it in
action from somebody who shouldn't be playing in...that gets to me.
Even in this highly partisan environment there really hasn't been any
questioning about particular Congresspersons' patriotism until now, at
least regarding an entire political party.
Now before anybody
starts making charges that one side or the other is more patriotic or
more concerned with America, let me say this: any person elected to
Congress is sent there to bring about policy and legislation in order to
improve our country and its inner workings. They will differ on
philosophy, whether liberalism, conservatism, centrism, or any
particular American philosophy is better for the country at any
particular time, but undoubtedly they are all loyal Americans. There
have been very few people who were outright kicked out of Congress
(Democrat Jim Traficant of Youngstown was one...he was an arrogant jerk
and a crook to boot), but usually it's due to their own greed or
stupidity. For any person elected to Congress in this day and age to
question the patriotism of their fellow colleagues or to call a
philosophy that represents at least half of the US or a person who
follows it "anti-American," regardless of what side of the
conservative-liberal divide one may be on...that's going too far.
Rep.
Bachmann has not only managed to insult me as a Democrat...she has also
managed to insult me as an American. Watching the interview, just
witnessing the sheer ignorance and stupid philosophy she espoused....and
how she actually believes this rubbish...it hit a nerve. I don't
normally mind watching stupidity, but this was over the top for me and
an outright insult to my intelligence. There is no way anybody can be
this stupid.
I know I should take this so hard, but she hit the
wrong nerve at the wrong time. I'll be over this soon enough, but I
just had to vent. Here's a link to an article talking about this:
The Huffington Post: GOP Rep Channels McCarthy
My ranting is done. I'm heading to the OC tomorrow night...come on up and visit. Later and God Bless.
DJ
