Joe McCarthy, meet Michelle Bachman

I have a couple of posts in the works (re/distribution of wealth, Ayers, more on "anti-Americanism," etc.) but had to put up a quick post regarding the comments of Michelle Bachman. For one, I can't believe we have not moved passed this type of divisive politics. In so many words, Bachman basically said all liberals are anti-American and that an expose should be undertaken on all members of congress to see who is pro-American and who is anti-American. While Chris Mathews gave her the rope to hang herself, it is unbelievable that such opinions are still alive and well.

Here's a brief passage from an article by Michael Tomasky entitled, "The Republicans have lifted the lid off their rightwing id"

This point was proved most dramatically by a woman named Michele Bachmann, a member of Congress from Minnesota. In an interview last Friday on Hardball, a leading US cable talk show, host Chris Matthews asked Bachmann whether Obama worried her. "Absolutely. I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views," she said. He asked her what she thought distinguished liberal from hard left from anti-American. If she maintains such distinctions in her mind, she refused to acknowledge them. Then, finally, Matthews - who deftly fed her the rope to hang herself - asked her how many members of the US Congress held, in her view, anti-American views.

It's been almost a two-year campaign. There have been moments we've thought of as memorable, only to see the tide of events erase their mark from the sand. Bachmann's answer, however, will live imperishably: "What I would say - what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an exposé like that."

. . . .

The call for an investigation into the beliefs of every federal lawmaker, and an exposé of those found wanting in their patriotism, certainly takes us into deeply creepy territory. I would not call Bachmann herself a fascist. Odd as it sounds, to do so would be to grant her far too much credit. For one to embrace an -ism, even a repugnant one, one needs to have read a certain amount of history and political philosophy. Bachmann is just an idiot. She wouldn't know Edmund Burke from Billie Burke (she played the good witch in the Wizard of Oz), and she obviously has no idea that, in her rejection of the two bedrock American principles of separation of church and state and freedom of thought, she is the one who is as anti-American as they come.