What is the proper adjective or noun to describe this thing?

[Elwood P Dowd]

This thing called Bachmann.



Stop Taking Bachmann Seriously!

by Eric Alterman

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-24/michele-bachmanns-could-be-2012-presidential-run-not-worthy-of-serious-coverage/

<snip>

George Will calls Bachmann “an authentic representative of the Republican base.” Well, perhaps, but I don’t think it fair to smear millions of people with the sins of an individual so obviously mentally and emotionally challenged. Bachmann, whom the Tea Party appointed to give its response to President Obama’s State of the Union address (which CNN thought worthy of broadcasting live, in full) knows less American history than the students of Ms. Ajami’s seventh grade MS 54 Humanities class. (As the parent of one of them, I’ve seen their exams.) Like most seventh graders, but unlike Michele Bachmann, those kids know that that the famous “shot heard around the world in Lexington and Concord," was fired in Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.

Also unlike Bachmann, your average public-school seventh grader is aware that “the very founders that wrote” the U.S. Constitution did not “work tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.”

<snip>

Lest you think Bachmann is just having a bad month or so, the last time my Daily Beast editors embarrassed me into examining her record, I discovered that she had blamed the "Hoot-Smalley Tariff," allegedly passed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for causing the Depression, ignoring the fact that a) it was passed under Republican Herbert Hoover; and b) the Depression was already in full swing when FDR was elected years later.

Then there was that “interesting coincidence” she professed to discover during the swine flu scare at the beginning of Obama’s term--“that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter.”

Bachmann rather generously insisted that she's “not blaming this on President Obama” or the Democrats. It was just sort of you know, “interesting.” Thing is, the last outbreak had taken place not under Carter, but under Republican Gerald Ford. (To be fair to Bachmann, you need to be in about ninth grade to have gotten that far in American history.)

One could cite such examples almost indefinitely. OK one more: Global warming is “all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax," says climatologist Bachmann. But here’s my point. What does it say about our national media that this woman is considered a serious person? What is she doing being taken seriously on Meet the Press? Why in the world does ABC’s George Stephanopoulos think it important to find out whether she’s a fan—I kid you not—of Lady Gaga?

[lonestarnot]

1. ignorant snake on a plane.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. plain ignorant snake.

[lonestarnot]

6. plain ignorant snake on someone else's plane. Grifter.

[Avant Guardian]

3. I think George Will is spot on

She intentially preaches to the choir. The republican base are a bunch of deluded lunatics.

[kenny blankenship]

8. That may be the scariest thing I've ever read.

Radiation 10 million times normal inside Fukushima-Daiichi reactor buildings? No sweat. We can formulate a plan to deal with this...

"Michelle Bachmann is an authentic representative of the Republican base" Holy Fuck, where's my suitcase!

[madamesilverspurs]

4. She's one of these:

Seriously.


-

[Urban Prairie]

5. Batshit Crazy

[Zebedeo]

7. Women are not "things."

They are human beings. Sexism on DU is deplorable.

[Canuckistanian]

9. OK, put it this way...

Bachmann is a TERRIBLE example for women who want to be known as serious actors in the political world. She embodies the image of the "brainless female" that PREVENTED women from getting the vote for DECADES.

Moreover, she's a shill for the rich in this country. They're only USING HER to obtain their own goals. Look at Katherine Harris of FL.

DU doesn't USE women. Republicans do.

[pacalo]

11. Some alleged human beings, who happen to be women, could qualify as "things".

And it's clear what the OP meant by "thing": showing no valued human traits such as compassion or empathy toward others' plights.

And if we women nitpick everyone's language to invoke an anti-feminist meaning from a statement that obviously wasn't meant as anti-feminist, we're the ones undermining women's stature in society. Bachman's a big girl in the public spectrum.

[Elwood P Dowd]

14. This!!!

:toast:

[Zebedeo]

20. I strongly disagree.

I think that dehumanizing a female political opponent by calling her a "thing" is beyond the pale. It is counterproductive as rhetoric and it is demeaning and sexist. It is designed to deny the humanity of the target woman, and it should not be tolerated here.

Imagine if you will that a freeper called Hillary a "thing." Would you be so blase about it?

If there is a disagreement with Michelle Bachman's policies and political positions and actions, those disagreements should be stated and discussed. However, to simply name-call her in a deliberately dehumanizing way is just plain sexism, and I find it abhorrent.

[pacalo]

10. Ill-equipped. And I'm not just talking about this...

[Kablooie]

12. A moderately priced train set.

[LuckyLib]

13. She is simply a dingbat. n/t

[Cleita]

15. Tweety's term was pretty good. He called her a "baloon head"n/t

[pacalo]

16. Good replacement for airhead.

[Historic NY]

17. A waste of oxygen!

[Elwood P Dowd]

18. "Things" don't need oxygen. You could put her on the moon, and she would still keep talking

like a dingbat.

[intaglio]

19. The correct noun to describe Bachmann is "santorum"

You know, a frothy mix of fecal matter.