\u00a0Michele Bachmann – newly-minted Congresswoman from the Sixth District – has always been catnip for the nutbars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Going back to her time with the Maple River Education Coalition (now EdWatch), which was (if memory serves) her stepping-stone to the legislature, she’s been a lighting rod for all manner of loonies, spazzes, AV-club marxists, conspiracy-mongering dimbulbs, spittle-flecked wannabee pundits, personality-deficit-disorder-plagued schlemiels (and a few gay people with legitimate gripes about her uncompromising opposition to gay marriage).\u00a0 She beat Patty Wetterling last November, as I predicted (and the Strib did not) by eight points; I remain convinced that her unhinged, deranged detractors were responsible for at least a point or two of that total.<\/p>\n
Someone asked in the comment section last week why I hadn’t commented yet on Bachmann’s seeming malaprop regarding Iran’s plans in Iraq.\u00a0 The simple answer was, I really had nothing to say, yet.\u00a0 I hadn’t really paid much attention; I figured if the mainstream media is attacking Bachmann or, indeed, any <\/em>conservative, it’s either:<\/p>\n The answer?\u00a0 Well, it’s Bachmann, so “all three, and a little drool to boot” is probably the correct answer.<\/p>\n Jay Reding writes the post I would like to have<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Star-Tribune<\/cite> is questioning Rep. Michele Bachmann when she said that Iran was planning to partition Iraq and create a terrorist state<\/a>. Rep. Bachmann is actually correct, except she\u2019s confusing Iran and al-Qaeda.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Al-Qaeda did indeed declare their own Islamic State of Iraq<\/a>. There is also some evidence that the Iranian government has supported Sunni militias in the past<\/a> and would continue to do so if they thought it would serve their tactical aims.<\/p>\n Bachmann\u2019s statements were imprecise, but the Star-Tribune<\/cite> could have done a small amount of research and figured out what she meant \u2014 there is an \u201cIslamic State of Iraq\u201d presently operating in Iraq, and it is quite possible that the Iranians would either support them directly or end up creating a de facto<\/cite> partition of Iraq through their influence of the Shi\u2019ite militias. Bachmann\u2019s statement at most may have confused Iranians with the Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen fi al-Iraq<\/cite> (Mujihadeen Shura Council \u2014 the umbrella group for Sunni militants in Iraq).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Now, Representative Bachmann has never been one of my go-to people on foreign policy or defense; taxes, education and social policy are her turf.\u00a0<\/p>\n But as Ed and I discussed on the show this past weekend, Bachmann’s statement actually got most of the situation right; Iran does <\/em>want to see the US get defeated in Iraq; they do <\/em>want to establish a sphere of influence in the new country; it is obviously they want to use that sphere as a safe haven for their own terrorist proxies.<\/p>\n So did Bachmann muff the facts about who did what to whom in Iraq?\u00a0 Possible.\u00a0 Hell, Silvester Reyes, the Dems’ choice to run the House Intelligence Committee, didn’t do so hot at that either, and that is putatively his turf.<\/em><\/p>\n With any other Minnesota representative, it would have been treated as\u00a0a simple flub – a molehill.\u00a0 Since it’s the poster-child for everything the DFL and the Strib loathes, on the other hand, it shall be treated as a mountain.<\/p>\n NOTE TO THE HATRED-ADDLED:\u00a0 There’s nothing “difficult” about defending Bachmann – because I’m not.\u00a0 Merely pointing out facts.\u00a0<\/p>\n And noting someone’s comment doesn’t imply any form of consternation.\u00a0 At least, not for most of us…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0Michele Bachmann – newly-minted Congresswoman from the Sixth District – has always been catnip for the nutbars.\u00a0 Going back to her time with the Maple River Education Coalition (now EdWatch), which was (if memory serves) her stepping-stone to the legislature, she’s been a lighting rod for all manner of loonies, spazzes, AV-club marxists, conspiracy-mongering dimbulbs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-minnesota-politics","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Rod<\/strike> Morgan Grams)<\/li>\n\n