People In Glass Houses...

There are a number of big stories in today’s news…

The economic recovery is gaining strength.  The markets are posting record “highs” while housing and auto sales are soaring.  The IRS investigation has moved from a handful of low level beaurocrats to officials occupying the highest levels of the tax collector’s food chain.  And the president and Governor Christie have renewed their “bromance” on the Jersey Shore.

But we would like to comment today on a story that is near and dear to our hearts…

Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachman has announced that she will not seek a fifth term in office.

In a lengthy, rambling convoluted video posted on her website Bachman tells us all the reasons that she is not quitting while leaving out the reasons she is.  She says she is not quitting because she faces a tough challenge for her seat and there is a distinct possibility that she will go out a loser.  She says that she is not quitting because the congressional ethics committee, the Justice Department, and the FBI are all looking into allegations that she mishandled campaign funds during her presidential run.  She says she IS quitting because “Eight years is simply enough.”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

Congresswomen Bachman’s litany, like so many of her statements throughout her career, is simply untrue.  Her decision to quit was not the result of a long thought out contemplative process.  This was quick kneejerk reaction to some very bad news coming Bachman’s way.  We know this because just last Thursday Bachman made a huge ad buy, running ads to kick off her re-election efforts eighteen months before the 2014 mid-terms.  Bachman had every intention of running…until something spooked her.  Now she can avoid going out a loser.  She can attempt to remake her image and, ala Sarah Palin, make millions on the speech circuit and book tours.

Michelle Bachman was a Tea Party Republican who liked to make headlines with her inflammatory language.  She liked to throw out catchphrases like liberty, religious freedom, family values and constitutional rights while criticizing individuals that didn’t practice those values the same way she did. 

She attacked the president mercilessly, questioning his faith, his birthright and his belief in the tenants of capitalism. And she sponsored or co-sponsored over 35 bills to overturn the Affordable Care Act on the basis that at its core “Obamacare” was the very embodiment of socialism, communism and Marxism that threaten the very ideals on which this nation was founded.

But it was not Congresswomen Bachman’s politics that made us cringe.  It was the self righteous, moral indignation that she spewed while demonizing gays and pro-choice advocates.  For Congresswomen Bachman saw gays as sub-human and their sexual predisposition as depraved, aberrant behavior.  She and her husband believed that one could simply “pray the gay away.”  She called pro-choice advocates as murders…plain and simple.  And she viewed those who disagreed with her position as flawed in their own right.

Now we know the Congresswomen Bachman is just like so many other public figures…preaching from the moral high ground while using their power and privilege to subvert the very values they have so righteously avowed.

People in glass houses should not throw stones.