Congresswoman Bachman calls for a return to McCarthyism

Andrew_Mayer · October 21, 2008, 2:07pm

If people keep trying to defend her I’m going to get out my whackin’ stick.

J_Matthew_Zoss · October 21, 2008, 2:18pm

Sigh. It’s all Chris Matthew’s fault.

I’m ashamed to be from the same state as this woman.

JonRowe · October 21, 2008, 2:20pm

Those of us in Packerland have been living with McCarthyism in bliss for the past 2 years… you all should join us!

Lorini · October 21, 2008, 2:21pm

[B]REP. BACHMANN: It’s a fair comment, because Barack Obama does have a close association with Bill Ayers.

[/B]That statement alone is enough to brand her as retard. There is no ‘close association’ except the one the Republicans are dreaming up.

extarbags · October 21, 2008, 2:22pm

Longer, the current trend really dates back to Reagan. It’s disgusting.

jeffd · October 21, 2008, 2:34pm

Longer. It dates back to Goldwater.

Anaxagoras · October 21, 2008, 2:37pm

It came from her repeated refusal to get specific about who is Un-American, despite Chris Matthews’ excellent direct questions. She made the innuendo that all liberals were Un-American, and when Chris invited her to refute the innuendo by being specific, she demurred.

Lum · October 21, 2008, 2:40pm

Goldwater was a fiscal/libertarian conservative who would and did violently recoil from the social conservative McCarthyites of the Republican party. We need more like him.

Wikipedia:

Some of Goldwater’s statements in the 1990s aggravated many social conservatives. He endorsed Democrat Karan English in an Arizona congressional race, urged Republicans to lay off Clinton over the Whitewater scandal, and criticized the military’s ban on homosexuals: “Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar.” He also said, “You don’t have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.” A few years before his death he went so far as to address the right wing, “Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you’ve hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have.”

In 1996 he told Bob Dole, whose own presidential campaign received lukewarm support from conservative Republicans: “We’re the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?”

She’s in good company with Sarah Palin, apparently being unable to have a conversation with a reporter unassisted. Darn you, gotcha liberal media!

Damien_Neil · October 21, 2008, 2:45pm

Enough so that liberals have largely given up on it and switched to calling themselves “progressives”.

JD · October 22, 2008, 6:21am

Bill Maher on Hardball:

Chris, I just love it when you give dumb people just enough rope to hang themselves.

J_Matthew_Zoss · October 22, 2008, 2:25pm

Fucking awesome. The Republican party abandons Bachmann.

CSL · October 22, 2008, 2:31pm

Awesome.

Drastic · October 22, 2008, 3:11pm

Greenwald had an entertaining bit today on the growing pattern of usual tactics not only not working well, but actually backfiring.

bago · October 22, 2008, 3:59pm

Speaking of crazies.

JD · October 22, 2008, 4:49pm

What, no “Muslim socialist terrorist”?

Oh, I forgot that “Muslim” kinda implies that…

Andrew_Mayer · October 22, 2008, 4:53pm

Islamo-socialists?

Lum · October 22, 2008, 5:03pm

You know, like Christian swingers.

Sarkus · October 22, 2008, 5:12pm

I was skimming the radio this afternoon and happened on her appearance on Laura Ingraham’s show. Holy crap, they were acting like it was a witchhunt. “I never said Obama was unamerican,” she claimed.

:-)

Marged · October 24, 2008, 6:47am

We can probably file this under “Why he’s winning, part 435.”

"Obama":

“There are no real or fake parts of this country,” he said, a reference to a Sarah Palin speech in North Carolina in which she said she was happy to be in “the real America” and praised “the pro-America areas of this great nation.” Obama continued: “We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this nation—we all love this country, no matter where we live or where we come from. There are patriots who supported this war in Iraq and patriots who opposed it, patriots who believe in Democratic policies and those who believe in Republican policies. The men and women from Indiana and all across America who serve on our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America—they have served the United States of America.”

LesJarvis · October 24, 2008, 6:59am

So Bachmann’s opponent, El Tinklenberg, now has $2.45 million with 11 days until the election ($1 million from the DCCC and $1.45 million in new donations), and a new SurveyUSA poll shows Tinklenberg up 47-44, where prior to the Hardball appearance Bachmann been heavily favored.

TPM TV has a good reel detailing how her story kept changing: