(Bachmann seems so unduly obsessed with Shariah law that, after listening to her frequent pronouncements on the subject, one begins to wonder if her crazed antipathy isn't born of professional jealousy.)and
The public has become acquainted with some of Bachmann's other excellent qualities as a politician — her TV-ready looks, her easy confidence in public speaking, her quick command of a mountainous
database of (frequently bogus) facts — but often overlooked is her greatest quality, the gigantic set of burnished titanium Terminator-testicles swinging under her skirt.
Son, never give a politician the opportunity to pray.
For many years, American scholars believed the Orthodox were, like leprechauns, unicorns, and Eskimos, purely the product of the fanciful imaginations of medieval writers. Recent evidence leads us to tentatively conclude, however, that Eastern Orthodoxy may have somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million adherents. Protestants tend to see the Orthodox as "Catholics with beards," while Catholics confess to a haunting sense that they are simply "Orthodox without beards."posted by Copronymus at 10:09 AM on June 23, 2011 [11 favorites]
There is an old Republican saying that “a government strong enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take away everything you have.” This statement contains an essential truth that liberals have no right to overlook. But it is negated, not amplified, if it comes festooned with racism and superstition. In the recent past, government-sponsored policies of social engineering have led to surprising success in reducing the welfare rolls and the crime figures. This came partly from the adoption by many Democrats of policies that had once been called Republican. But not a word about that from Beck and his followers, because it isn’t exciting and doesn’t present any opportunity for rabble-rousing. Far sexier to say that health care—actually another product of bipartisanship—is a step toward Nineteen Eighty-Four. Ten percent unemployment, on the other hand, is rather a disgrace to a midterm Democratic administration. But does anybody believe that unemployment would have gone down if the hated bailout had not occurred and GM had been permitted to go bankrupt? Why not avoid the question altogether and mutter about a secret plan to proclaim a socialist (or Nazi, or Jew-controlled: take your pick) dictatorship?-Hitchens takes on this topic.
There have been five revisions since it was first published in 1952, gradually including more mental disorders, although some have been removed and are no longer considered to be mental disorders, most notably homosexuality.So, uh, worth considering that "we" really aren't all that removed from when "all" of us would have been homophobes, and it would have been totally justifiable because "modern medicine told us so" -- to deny such a conclusion would be akin to how "we" sneer at anti-vaccers today; and are we so removed from widespread acceptance, even by moderates, and liberal leaning folks of segregation as "normalized"... So yeah, yay "progress", but also, "don't forget that these views are not Münchhausen, they have a long history of normalization, and dissemination. Not from "fringes", racists, or bigots... but medical professionals working earnestly. It is worth considering the company one is keeping when using these ideas , labels and terminology as recreational invectives, as cathartic lamentations, even as in-group signalling, and team motivation (This, I note because I am ALL for creative, productive, well aimed, accurate, or otherwise situationally appropriate anger and subsequent invective lobbing). Even Bigotry has an aetiology. A history. And often it is not rising from the outside, or fringes, where it primarily resides today, but from the centers, from the normal, from the accepted and approved, the so called 'normal' majority.
SCHIEFFER: I want to ask you about something else. A lot of your critics say you have been very fast and loose with the truth. You know, the po-- PolitiFact, which is a website that won a Pulitzer, did an analysis of twenty-three statements that you made recently. Of these twenty-three, only one they said was completely true. Seven they call "pants on fire" kind of falsehoods. Four were barely true and two were half truths. How do you answer that criticism? Because here’s one of them, you know, you said on the record there had been only one offshore oil drilling permit during the Obama administration and, in fact at that time they had been two hundred and seventy. How do you explain that?So, when called out on national television for a specific, blatant lie, she dodges the accusation by telling two more specific, blatant lies in the same sentence. And she followed up later in that same interview with a false claim about food price increases and a barely true claim about the number of federal limousines, all using specific-yet-factually-incorrect numbers. She's utterly shameless about it, because she knows she's not going to get caught lying in the moment, only much later when few are paying attention.
BACHMANN: Well, you know, I think that what is clear more than anything is the fact that President Obama does -- has not been issuing the permits, that he should have been issuing on offshore drilling that’s--
SCHIEFFER: Well, it’s more than three hundred now.
BACHMANN: Well --
SCHIEFFER: At-- at that time there had been two hundred and something. And you said there had been only one.
BACHMANN: But as far as drilling goes, we hadn’t been drilling what we need to-- that’s why we just this week--
SCHIEFFER (overlapping): But that’s different, isn’t it?
BACHMANN: Well, that’s why this week it’s-- it’s ironic and sad that the President released all of the oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve because the President doesn’t have an energy policy.
SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Do you think that was a good move?
BACHMANN: He has a politically correct environmental policy.
SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Was that a good thing?
BACHMANN: It was a very bad move. It put-- it has made the United States more vulnerable. There’s only a limited amount of oil that we have in the Strategic Oil Reserve. It’s there for emergencies. We do not-- the emergency that we have is the fact that -- the fact that-- the President of the United States has failed to give the American people an energy policy.
SCHIEFFER: I want to ask you about something else. A lot of your critics say you have been very fast and loose with the truth. You know, the po-- PolitiFact, which is a website that won a Pulitzer, did an analysis of twenty-three statements that you made recently. Of these twenty-three, only one they said was completely true. Seven they call "pants on fire" kind of falsehoods. Four were barely true and two were half truths. How do you answer that criticism?This is where Schieffer should have stopped and let her answer the question. He should have focused on the fact that she lies repeatedly and has been called out as a liar by a very reputable source, in a well researched analysis. Instead, he gives her an out:
Because here’s one of them,Stupid, stupid, stupid. Unless you know the subject backwards and forwards and can point out where she's lying -- and hold her accountable for it -- you're giving her an escape route.
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posted by haley_joel_osteen at 9:01 AM on June 23, 2011 [2 favorites]