More Bachmannalia at Michele's

Another interesting photo from the strib puff piece on Senator Bachmann. Mr. Bachmann in bed with his two junior high age daughters, as Mrs. Bachmann shows them various comforters.

Bachmann: Bigoted Demogog or Champion of the Family?

The strib finally published Kevin Duchschere's piece on Michele Bachmann (linked to the title of the post). One of the photos (unfortunately not available online) had this caption: Bachmann and her daughters all tried to catch a bouquet thrown by the girls' dad afte the girls performed a wedding between a doll and a stuffed Dalmation toy...." Now was this an opposite sex couple? Sarah Janecek, Ann DeGroot and yours truly got asked to comment. This blog was mentioned. Lightning rod Bachmann's new leadership position may force her to become more of a team player, said Sarah Janecek, co-editor of Politics in Minnesota and a Republican activist. With her demands for a vote on the gay marriage amendment last session, Janecek said, Bachmann single-handedly ground the Senate to a halt. "She's become a lightning rod because she's so unwilling to set aside her issues for the greater good," Janecek said. Bachmann inspires as much distaste as praise, although even opponents acknowledge her skills. Few legislators have Web sites dedicated to their political demise, but Bachmann has at least two, including a "Dump Michele Bachmann" blog maintained by Eva Young, president of the state Log Cabin Republicans, a pro-gay-rights group. "She's much more dangerous to gay people than someone like Arlon Lindner [a legislator, defeated in November, who made controversial comments about gays], because she's articulate and very good on TV," Young said. Ann DeGroot, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, the state's largest gay advocacy group, calls Bachmann an extremist and her approach mean-spirited. "She sees [the marriage amendment] as loving, but we don't see it as loving or the role of government to tell anybody how to live their life," she said. But DeGroot added that Bachmann is smart and persistent. "She's an effective woman. ... I wish she were working on our side." Erik "Recall Hatch for not defending the Sodomy Law" Lipman also weighs in: Bachmann certainly doesn't fit the caricature of a rigid ideologue, one of the labels often attached to her. She is smartly dressed and coifed, and disarmingly self-deprecating. "What's frustrating to some and inspiring to others is that she puts the lie to the stereotype that folks who believe in traditional concepts of marriage or family are somehow politically Amish or ugly or hateful," said former GOP legislator Eric Lipman of Lake Elmo. I'm not sure what Lipman means by "politically Amish". Bachmann is adept at tayloring her message to different audiences. She was interviewed by Lavender Magazine last summer, and came across as reasonable rather than rabid. If you listen to her on Olive Tree Ministries, she gives a whole different impression. Lipman continues: "She's a modern, successful, suburban woman in the mold of many of the people that she represents." Really? Just listen to Bachmann talking to Jan Markell at Olive Tree Ministries about the need for the Bachmann constitutional amendment. This is a "ticking time bomb", that "there is a very real threat that an Activist Judge Strike down DOMA this year." "They are targetting our children... Then we will have sexual anarchy as the norm in the land." Senate Majority Leader - and Lutheran Pastor, Dean Johnson disagrees with Lipman. Senate DFL Majority Leader Dean Johnson said he suspects that Bachmann is using the gay marriage ban to solidify GOP support for a future run for higher office. On a recent visit to her district, he said, he detected little interest in the issue. "I think Senator Bachmann's singing in a different choir and a different hymn than her constituents," he said. Interestingly enough, Michele Bachmann was one of the Jimmy Carter Democrats who changed political party in the late 70s. Her law degree comes from the Bible-based Coburn Law School, an affiliate of Oral Roberts University. At Winona State she also met Marcus Bachmann, a social work major who shared her growing interest in politics and who, like her, was a born-again Christian. They began dating while working on Democrat Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign, and later attended his inaugural. But Bachmann became disillusioned with Carter and the Democratic Party; the president wasn't strong enough on family issues, she thought, and the social progressive voices she heard at school seemed to clash with the words of the Founding Fathers. Once, while on a train reading -- with growing dismay -- Gore Vidal's iconoclastic novel "1876," Bachmann said, she put down the book and asked herself, "Am I kind of going Republican?" This ofcourse was when the Reagan campaign made the faustian deal to get support from the Leviticus Crowd in 1980. Also rather interesting: And she was one of 40 legislators from around the country recently honored at the White House for promoting President Bush's economic agenda. I wonder if this was the same meeting with Bush that Senator Gerald Allen of Alabama attended. Allen, who has become notorious for introducing a bill to ban books that contain positive depictions of homosexuality ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Picture of Dorian Gray") from Alabama school libraries and college libraries, described the meeting with President Bush as covering taxes.