Michele Bachmann Looks Crazy On Newsweek Cover?
Conservative websites are angry over Newsweek’s latest cover featuring Michele Bachmann. The Bachmann article is entitled “The Queen of Rage.”
The cover shows Bachmann standing against a stark blue background, looking directly into the camera with a wide-eyed expression. The headline advertising the magazine’s story reads, “THE QUEEN OF RAGE.”
“Rage” is a word that doesn’t appear in Newsweek’s actual profile of Bachmann, though author Lois Romano does criticize what she calls the “radical” nature of the Tea Party that Bachmann champions.
Conservative websites are already crying foul over the cover, with some saying it makes Bachmann look “crazy” and one blogger asking, “Can anyone really say with a straight face that the mainstream media is not totally biased against conservatives?” [Huffington Post]
It seems that while conservatives are not very happy with the article’s title “Queen of Rage” they seem to be really enraged with Bachmann’s “crazy eyes.” I would like to point out that this is the woman who has made the following statements throughout the years:
2003: On the theory of evolution. Bachmann, then a state senator, explains why she doesn’t agree with the theory of evolution: “Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat, which became a donkey, which became a human being? There’s a real lack of evidence from change from actual species to a different type of species. That’s where it’s difficult to prove.”2004: On songwriter Melissa Etheridge’s breast cancer. That’s bad news. But there’s good news too, Bachmann tells the conservative education group EdWatch: maybe the cancer will give her time to reflect on her sinful lifestyle: “Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers. This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.” In the same speech, she alleges that “almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life, either by a male or by a female.”
2007: On Iraq. In an interview with the St. Cloud Times, Bachmann drops a bombshell: Iran is planning on turning all of Northwest Iraq into a secret terrorist training camp: “Iran is the troublemaker trying to tip over apple carts all over Baghdad right now because they want America to pull out. And you know why? It’s because they’ve already decided, that they’re going to territory, they’re- they’re going to partition Iraq and half of Iraq, the western northern portion of Iraq is going to be called, the United, uh, the, the uh, -oh, I’m sorry, I can’t remember the actual name of it now, but it’s going to be called, um, uh, the, the, uh, uh the Iraq State of Islam, something like that.”
2008: On Global Warming.“The big thing we are working on now is the global warming hoax. It’s all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax.”
2009: On Greenhouse Gases. Bachmann argues that abnormally large emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide can’t be regulated because if we did, birds would lose their natural habitat—air: “Life on planet Earth can’t even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that’s on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that—that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.”
2010: On Obama’s trip to India. Ever vigilant of bureaucratic waste, Bachmann alleges that President Obama’s trip to India will be more expensive than the entire war in Afghanistan: “The president of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He’s taking 2,000 people with him. He will be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are five-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending.” An exasperated White House spokesman later said the charges, which stemmed from an anonymous official in the west Indian state of Maharashtra, had “no basis in reality.”
2011: On light bulbs. Seizing on an administration directive to promote energy-efficient light bulbs, Bachmann accuses the administration of banning light bulbs altogether: “I think Thomas Edison did a pretty patriotic thing for this country by inventing the light bulb and I think darn well you New Hampshirites, if you want to want to buy Thomas Edison’s wonderful invention you should be able to!” [MotherJones]
I have no idea what all these conservative sites are referring to. She looks pretty normal to me on the Newsweek cover. Maybe what they’re really angry about is that she looks exactly like herself. Now, that’s something to worry about. I couldn’t agree more.
… she looks LESS deranged in that cover photo than in a lot of the pictures I’ve seen of her all over the place. Either people have a knack of waiting for the worst moment ever to catch this woman in a picture, or she’s really got the crazed look down pat.
Now, on the things Bachmann has said…
On Melissa Etheridge’s breast cancer – Bringing up religion, especially religion that not everyone ascribes to and is much less factually sound than evolution, makes her argument automatically invalid.
On Iraq – … *facepalm* I understand it’s somewhat impossible to be perfectly informed about everything that goes around everywhere, but more of an effort should be made so slip-ups in public that would cause people to greatly doubt her intelligence DON’T occur. This is even more vital considering she’s currently attempting to be the next President of the United States.
On Global Warming – I have no problem with people trying to prove that it’s all a hoax, as long as it’s not an excuse to keep abusing the planet like we’ve obviously been doing without fear of consequence. Global warming being “voodoo” or not, we only have one planet, so it’s best that we don’t screw it up beyond repair and say “oops” when it’d be way too late to do anything to save it… and by proxy, those of us that live on this rock.
On Obama’s trip to India – I’m happy she can tell the President of the United States what frivolous spending is all about, when according to another article she evidently spent almost 5 grand in hair and makeup in 5 weeks. Everything has its proper place, of course. Besides that, a trip to India does not cost as much as an ongoing war.
On light bulbs – … this doesn’t even begin to make much sense to me.