Attacks Against Bachmann

At Political Mavens, Lloyd Green writes:

This past week’s The New Yorker blog offered a window into the liberal soul in it current state of ideological corruption, in which virtually all that remains is reactionary negativism. Chronicling his interviews with a group of Brooklyn bar flies at an Atlantic Avenue dive, The New Yorker’s John Cassidy pronounced that the Bachmann presidential campaign was tantamount to Nazism. According to a Cassidy, “From National Socialism to Poujadism to the Tea Party, the suggestion that the motherland needs reclaiming from alien forces has been central to populist right-wing movements.”

Using the other “N word” in reference to Bachmann is over the top. Comparing Bachmann to European fascists denies reality and ignores the facts.

Bachmann is a Christian Zionist. In 1974, Bachmann volunteered on a Kibbutz. This was in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. She remains a staunch supporter of Israel. According to Bachmann, the United States and Israel “share the same exceptional mission — to be a light unto the nations.”

By crudely trashing Bachmann, Cassidy disregarded one of the cardinal rules of debate, namely, that the first person to invoke the Nazis or Hitler in debate that is not about World War II is the loser.

The fact that The New Yorker — long known as an editor’s magazine, which is to say, this was no random incident — bandied the Nazi motif so early in the campaign speaks volumes about how liberal America views Michele Bachmann and the 2012 presidential election. Liberal America is scared of Bachmann, in particular, because Bachmann’s profile is a Red State mirror image of those things that Manhattan liberals prize most.

Bachmann is family oriented and accomplished. Bachmann’s home life is tidy. Bachmann is credentialed in the way that editors and readers of The New Yorker would otherwise be comfortable.

She is a former tax litigator with a Masters of Laws degree from William and Mary. One of her children taught with Teach for America. Another child graduated from medical school. There is an upward and literate arc to the Bachmann household. Her family is no less admirable than the Obamas.