Local: Communication Breakdown

Hello, out there in TV Land!

Sorry I was incommunicado there for a while. The wireless service in my apartment went out, and we were trapped here in the French Quarter for nearly a week with nothing to eat but four-star cuisine.

I have found a internet cafe in working order. Here is what has happened in our story so far:

Michele Bachmann, opportunistic lying homophobic Christian fundamentalist right-wing careerist power-junkie and panic-monger, steamrollered the regular Republicans at the Sixth District nominating convention by showing up with about a hundred members of her growing political cult. Though not among the people who regularly show up at such GOP meetings, the Bachmannites quickly eviscerated the other Republican contenders (including senior no-new-taxes statesman Phil Krinkie) and made Bachmann the nominee. Then they immediately surfed away from the meeting on a wave of homosexual panic, leaving the stunned "secular" Republicans to wonder at the "changing face of politics" in their district, and whether they ought to work the phones and get out the vote this fall for "end times" fundamentalist party-crashers.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch--nationally famous child advocate Patty Wetterling is trying to organize a Sixth District candidacy of her own, having secured the DFL nod. But is Patty "man" enough to take on Bachmann? She comes off as awfully sensitive to me--and this is no asset if you are facing a Michele Bachmann--a totally ruthless amoral liar backed by the powerful national and local Christian broadcast media and a small army of small-foreheaded pseudo-Christian bigots, hypocrites, and money-grubbing pastors.

Patty ran a slightly vague campaign against Rep. Mark Kennedy last time around, but her losing vote total was respectable given the fact that Kennedy was an incumbent.

Still--Mark Kennedy is respected and feared as one of the stupidest men in Congress, a wide-eyed but blindly obedient fan of George W. Bush. Running a respectable race against Kennedy was no big trick, Patty--you might even have beat him if your campaign had been better organized.

But beware this time around, Patty. Michele Bachmann is no Mark Kennedy. All means--fair or foul or in between--will be employed to destroy your good name and reputation, so long as Bachmann and her paranoid, pre-apocalyptic followers feel you represent any threat to MB. The way the national and local media characterized the late Terry Schiavo's husband and his motives for their listening audiences--that's the way that the Bachmann campaign is going to characterize YOU!

Because these people in the pseudo-Christian media are as slimy as they come, modern-day McCarthys with no scruples and plenty of airtime and an audience full of credulous chimpanzees who think the voices coming over the radio represent Jesus--so watch out, Patty-girl! Remember to duck! INCOMING!

And don't expect any help from the 'secular' media, either. They've already fired one major strike against you--by consistently refusing to identify Bachmann before the public as she is: a Christian fundamentalist politician.

They prefer to tag her with the more voter-friendly label: "social conservative." I don't know why that is. If any reporter listened to Bachmann for more than twenty minutes on any of the local Christian radio stations over the past few years, they'd walk away convinced that it was absolutely fair to describe Bachmann as a "Christian fundamentalist politician." "Socially conservative" doesn't begin to describe Bachmann's identity, politics, and agenda; there are lots of people who are "social conservatives" who aren't members of an organized Christian fundamentalist takeover party.

But journalists and editors have apparently taken it upon themselves to promote Bachmann's election chances over Wetterling's by continuing to identify her as a "social conservative" rather than a "Christian fundamentalist politician." One is left to wonder how they would describe the modern day equivalent of Mussolini or Hitler to their readers--certainly not as "Fascist" or "Nazi", unless Il Duce and Der Fuhrer conceded those labels.

So Patty starts out at a severe disadvantage, in both the conservative and so-called "liberal" media! Michele begins with the high ground. Wouldn't it be ironic if her precious and eagerly sought "cover"--her pose as a mainstream Republican when addressing non-fundamentalist crowds--ended up costing her the election? For this is a year when the best informed political observers fear for the chances of any Republican.