Thursday, July 19, 2012

Dialing Back the Crazy: Leading Republicans Call Out Bachmann's Islamophobia




When even the crazies call Michelle Bachmann crazy, you know she's gone waaay 'round the bend.


I do keep in mind that Bachmann's McCarthyeque Islamophobic ploy and the renewed (and stepped-up) attack on Planned Parenthood are not just red meat thrown to the right-wing base of the GOP, but also diversionary theater designed to keep us from watching the drama unfolding on center stage in the current pre-election debates.

The center-stage action is, of course, what Mr. Romney refuses to disclose about his financial arrangements, and what the partial indicators we already have about those arrangements from strangely incomplete 2010 tax return disclosures already tell us.  All of which becomes all the more important as we learn that in the financial downturn of the past several years, we've reached a point at which half of American households hold only 1% of the nation's wealth.

And we learn this at a point in American history when the Supreme Court has opened the door, with Citizens United, to unlimited and hidden spending by the 1% who control the vast majority of the nation's wealth, as candidates are selected and elections decided.  And as the Republican party--the same people offering us the diversionary theater of menacing Muslims squirreled away in dark beltway corridors, the diversionary theater of contraceptive debates and healthcare debates--has once again decisively squelched an attempt to call for greater transparency about political donations.

As I say, I do keep all of this in mind as I read about Bachmann's wild contention that Muslim agents bent in destroying the American way of life have infiltrated our government.   Even so, I agree wholeheartedly with Sarah Posner's contention (see the link at the head of the posting) that John McCain's, Ed Rollins's, and John Boehner's attempt to dial back Bachmann's crazy is pretty important.

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