WATERLOO — IOWA Unlike nearly five million other people, I’m tearing myself away from videos of kittens falling asleep to bring you the news that a dangerous karate practitioner— who says every chance she gets that everything she needed to know she “learned in Iowa”— has announced she is “running for the president of the United States.”
In doing so, Michele Bachmann inadvertently invoked the memory of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, also a one-time Waterlootonian, who was later convicted of raping and killing 33 young men. Many of his victims were found buried under his house.
Bachmann was mistakenly referring to the spirit of John Wayne, the dead actor, as someone who once shared the same hometown roots of Waterloo. However, John Wayne (aka Marion Morrison), was not born there, and never lived there. But just how do you confuse the spirit of a dead, hard-drinking Hollywood icon with a murderous sexual predator who dresses up like a clown? Strange to say, J W Gacy has been in the news recently, in connection with a Las Vegas art gallery that created a shitstorm for wanting to show some of his “paintings,” which he um, executed while awaiting execution in Illinois.
Not likely that Bachmann heard about that. More likely it was just poor geography. Dozens of compulsive Wiki-buffs already know John Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, not Waterloo, as Bachmann claimed. But what’s a mere 146 mile mistake when you’re totally busy being presidenty-ish? After all, both towns are in Iowa, and begin with a “w”; and for a lot of Americans that’s plenty close enough.
Bachmann:
“We can win in 2012 and we will! Our voice has been growing louder and stronger! And it is made up of Americans from all walks of life like a three-legged stool! It’s the peace-through-strength Republicans, and I’m one of them, it’s fiscal conservatives, and I’m one of them, and it’s social conservatives, and I’m one of them! It’s the Tea Party movement and I’m one of them!”
One of them… One of them…
“All walks of life— like a three legged stool.” That’s clearly creepy code, I thot to myself, and sure enough, a little wiki-diving turned up the analogy of the “three-legged stool” of scripture, reason, and tradition in an article on the Anglican Church. They thought of scripture as the foundational, mui macho leg of the stool, and reason and tradition as vitally important, but clearly secondary legs of the stools. Harumph.
Earlier this month, Bachmann said she had felt “a calling” to pursue a bid for the White House. I’m betting it was probably from the main leg of of the stool, and not one of the two secondary legs. And it is this message from the main leg of the stool that has set Michele Bachmann on to another, bigger leg of the presidential stool: the Sunday talk shows:
With the ability to obfuscate like a pro at will, Bachmann will be an amazing candidate. Here is her opening salvo, a pitch-perfect counterpoint to Obama‘s Yes we can mantra:
- We cannot continue to kick the can of our problems down the road, because they are problems of today and not tomorrow.
- We cannot continue to rack up debt on the backs of future generations.
- We can’t afford an unconstitutional health plan that costs too much and is worth so little.
- We can’t afford four more years of failed leadership at home and abroad.
- We can’t afford four more years of millions of Americans out of work or in jobs that pay too little to support their families.
- We can’t afford four more years of a housing crisis that is devaluing our homes and making home ownership impossible for many Americans.
- We can’t afford four more years of a foreign policy that leads from behind and doesn’t stand up for our friends and stand up to our enemies.
- We can’t afford four more years of Barack Obama.
YES WE CAN’T! — Afford NOTHIN’!
Get use to hearing it.
*“I don’t take back my statements on gangster government,” she said, referring to a charge she made during the debate over health care reform. “I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt.”
The description of the three legged stool in your article via other sources sounded sort of architecturally odd. If one leg is bigger than the others it sounds more like a scary anatomy lesson than metaphorical furniture building.
As for her flub regarding John Wayne Gacy–Truth in advertising. An insane, sodomizing rapist clown that hides the bodies of his victims under his house. while attempting to hide his psychological pathology behind the benign image of a clown.
She is a dangerous idiot just like Bush and Palin, and it is because she tries to hide her dangerous connections behind the benign face of ridiculousness and frail attempts at feminine charm.
That ain’t no stool, Agent 9999, that’s a wingnut colander made out of unobtanium, with religious iconography encrusted on it. It’s the secrit that makes Micheleloo as Tiabbi says, “a turbocharged cross between a born bullshit artist and a religious fanatic, for whom lying to the infidel is a kind of holy duty.”
3-legged stools are even scarier when they have 4 legs. or did i miscount?
Did you catch this from Jonothan Chait:
“[T]he religious right has changed — its power to bend the party to its will has decreased, and its focus has largely merged with that of the GOP as a whole, so that the religious right is almost as concerned with economics and foreign policy as with social issues.
Bachmann represents that transformation. She came into politics through Christianity, but has broadened that style of apocalyptic thinking to economics and foreign policy. There is hardly any difference in the way Bachmann warns that Obama’s policies will destroy the traditional family and the way she warns his economic policies will destroy the economy, or that his foreign policy will lead to the triumph of our enemies. And there’s hardly any difference in the way she discusses these issues and the way most other Republicans do. They are all speaking the same apocalyptic language now.”
I can’t wait until she really gets rolling on things like Intelligent Design and Evolution. . .