Again: you people who are sending money to Tinklenberg (Bachmann's Dem opponent) don't know how much good you're doing.
For eight years, the big papers here have suppressed/failed to report Michele Bachmann's most extreme remarks. (Stuff like the stuff you saw on the Matthews/Hardball interview.) They're doing it again today. (continued)
Today I went out and bought the Sunday editions of the two biggest papers in Minnesota, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Not a word on the front pages about Bachmann or the more than $600,000 that has been raised for her opponent on the basis of her "investigation of anti-American members of Congress" remarks on national television. This, despite the fact that your response to Bachmann's remarks is surely unprecedented in Minnesota history: hundreds of thousands of dollars, from all over the country, raised by the grassroots voters in less than forty-eight hours--and poured into an obscure Minnesota congressional race to end the career of a McCarthyite demagogue and hatemonger.
There's nothing like that in Minnesota campaign history, to my knowledge--but the two biggest papers in the state keep it off their front pages. What did they put on their front pages this morning?
The PiPress top story is about motion detectors for seniors. Featured is a color photo piece on the campaign of conservative GOP Senator Norm Coleman.
But the Star Tribune front page goes them one better, for bottom of the barrel news coverage. Yes, there are pieces on Dem senate candidate on Al Franken and Obama's lead over McCain. (The Strib is supposedly the "liberal" paper.)
But instead of a front page headline on Bachmann's call for an investigation of "anti-Americans" in Congress and the unprecedented contributions you made to her opponent: the Minneapolis Star Tribune ran a front-page story about (wait for it:) shit.
That's not a joke. Instead running a story on Bachmann's wild-assed charges of anti-Americanism in the U.S. Congress, the Star Tribune ran a front-page story about human feces. A story about how all the bacteria in a patient's intestinal infection "could be replaced with a tiny dose of someone else's stool." The reporter warns readers it's going to be front page story about shit:
"Warning to readers: The rest of this story requires a strong stomach..."
This is the press environment we have in Minnesota these days. A Minnesota congresswoman calls for an investigation to out "anti-Americans" currently serving in Congress, and instead of alerting citizens to that, the biggest paper in the state serves up a front page story about stools.
You think that's funny? I don't, because I live here. For eight years, Bachmann has been making extremist statements about federal government "conspiracies," demonizing gays, suggesting that liberals and Democrats hate America, blaming the current financial crisis on lending to the wrong races, (that happened this year)--and the big papers have been keeping those statements out of their reporting. That non-reporting on Bachmann's most extreme statements and positions is one of the chief reasons that she got into Congress.
It's not that the two big papers entirely ignored the Matthews interview and your fundraising in its wake. They both ran stories today, and if you are a Bachmann campaigner or supporter you couldn't be more delighted with their coverage.
The Pioneer Press wrote a story. Nowhere in the body of that story is a mention of the reason that you contributed to Tinklenberg (Bachmann's call for an investigation of anti-Americanism in Congress.) Instead, the reporter suggests that the reason that hundreds of thousands of dollars poured in last night is because Bachmann dissed Obama. Readers relying on this account will never know that that Bachmann called for an investigation into anti-Americanism in Congress.
That's just typical, I'm sorry to say. That is the kind of press coverage we get on Bachmann here in Minnesota: she says something inflammatory and extremist, and the next day the reporters spike the inflammatory and extremist statement. The PiPress didn't even get a quote from Tinklenberg, apparently didn't even check the comments made by donor/contributors on the Kos or any other blog. The story matches today's Bachmann spin on the incident perfectly: they're telling people that you contributed to Bachmann's opponent because she dissed Obama. That's a lie, but it's a lie that enables them to keep the spotlight off Bachmann's "anti-American" nonsense about liberals and fellow legislators.
How about the Star Tribune account of the incident? Is that any better?
No. Again, the reporter doesn't report: the money poured in because Bachmann called for an investigation into "anti-Americanism" in Congress, among liberals and Democrats. Nowhere in the body of the storydo you get that, in this piece of reporting. At least this reporter called Tinklenberg, but you'd think that the only reason you sent in money to Tinklenberg was that Bachmann dissed Obama. No reference to Bachmann's most extreme charge; the interview is spun by the local press exactly the way that the Bachmann campaign would have it spun.
Bachmann's spokesperson is even able to get press denying that Bachmann ever said any such thing.
But a spokeswoman for Bachmann denied that the congresswoman had portrayed all liberals as anti-American...
(Bachmann spokesperson Michelle) Marston said MSNBC attempted to "paint Congresswoman Bachmann into a corner," but that "she never said that all liberals are anti-American and she never asked for an investigation of members of Congress."
All these reporters had to do was watch the frikin' video, to see what she said. All they had to do is read the comment threads of people contributing money, to see why people all over the states were contributing it.
We're used to this from the local press; it's the reason why the Dump Michele Bachmann blog exists. She can tell people that gays are out to get people's children; the big papers don't report it. She can tell people that liberals killed funding for alternative energy, the big papers don't report it. She can tell people that she is receiving career advice directly from Jesus Christ, the big papers won't report that. All the stuff I've just mentioned is documented, out of her own mouth.
And she's the local protege of the national evangelical right, regularly appears on and is plugged by the evangelical radio here: the local press simply won't touch that one, won't report on it to the voters. The traditional media in Minnesota has been covering for her for years; it's the out-of-state media that's willing to report and document what a nut she really is. (And the out-of-the-country media. Here's a link to an article on Bachmann's history and remarks in a BRITISH newspaper: the Guardian. Read down, the story starts out being about Obama/McCain but ends up being about what a nut Bachmann is. They print that in Britain, but in Minneapolis/St. Paul, it's a closed book...)
That's why your contribution can do so much to help her here us here in Minnesota. Thank you, so so much. Dump Bachmann is a non-partisan blog, we aren't affiliated with Democrats and there are Republicans who write for the blog simply because they know this legislator's a menace.
But getting Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg into office is our only chance of getting this nut out of office this year. Please help us to do that, the local press won't report on her extremism and is in fact helping to foster it. Instead we get front page stories about shit: LITERALLY!
Here's the link to the Tinklenberg web page:
http://www.tinklenberg08.com/