...the tragedy is that the BEST Bachmann interview by a media figure so far this year was just conducted by: Bill 0'Reilly.
This is an astonishing, perverse development that no one could have seen coming. After supporting Bachmann again and again (she's been one of his favorites, he's had her on to spout her crap nationally time after time): O'Reilly handed her her head on the BP oil spill compensation issue, her shilling for BP, and her attempted character assassination of the man appointed to run the compensation fund!
Skip the usual anti-Obama garbage about pulling over disaster recovery boats for safety inspections for the crews, it's his usual whiny garbage. Go straight to his exchange with Bachmann:
Good God, how about that?
(CONTINUED)
Yes, Bill O'Reilly, the right wing bully O'Reilly, the liar O'Reilly, the falafel sex fetish Bill O'Reilly, the "the Kos is stalking me" O'Reilly. That asshole, that flaming asshole, does the best TV job at pinning her down about her habitual spouting of lies and smears--since Chris Matthews broadcast her call for a media investigation of anti-Americanism in Congress.
It's all wrong, all wrong. Watching Bill O'Reilly go after Michele Bachmann on a substantive issue and smear charge: you feel like the Roman augur who cuts the chickens open to read the auspices--and sees a '72 Camaro in there, it just doesn't make sense.
And the worst part of this is, tough questions to Bachmann by a media figure only could have only happened on a conservative broadcast. She sticks to conservative media like glue, because she sure she'll get sweetheart interview treatment amounting to personal advertising. She's totally thrown off balance by the fact that Billo is asking her specifics about what she said, here in this Fox forum. She resorts to evasions and changing the subject, question after question.
I say that this could only have happened in a conservative broadcasting forum because the access of traditional news media to Bachmann is tightly controlled by her people. Unlike other members of Congress, Bachmann retains three congressional staffers to handle press, only one aide on her legislation--because her legislation is non-existent, and media presence is everything to this demagogue. Bachmann's three-to-one press staff-to-legislation staff ratio is the reverse of the normal staffing ratio in these areas--it reflects Bachmann's siege mentality when it comes to traditional journalists who might ask her tough questions.
What does it mean? What does it mean when Bill O'Reilly gets to do the "Congresswoman Bachmann, you were deeply irresponsible with these ridiculous charges against the administration and innocent people" interview? And it was Bill O'Reilly who charged that at least ten per cent of the teabaggers were extremist nuts and crackpots. True, he tried to explain it away by arguing that ten per cent of any organization were nuts and crackpots (including the Defense Department?)
But what O'Reilly did here is suspiciously close to real journalism. He's a conservative j.o. who's done incalculable harm with the propaganda and smears. But the other conservative j.o.'s never slice and dice the haters in the GOP in public like O'Reilly did here.
Addendum: Much love to Crooks and Liars for posting the video. As you can see in the logo accompanying the video tape, they uploaded this O'Reilly Bachmann moment that I wrote about in this diary. Thank you very much, guys.
Oh my God, up is down, down is up tonight...I must move on or go mad...
Next:
Very personal note here. Michele Bachmann mentioned (in passing) the comic book series biography I've been doing of her. And the passing mention turned out to be...*another lying smear, this time directed at the work of yours truly!*
It had to happen, eventually. I've been writing for years about how she smears other people--it was only a matter of time that I myself would wind up on the wrong side of Bachmann smear.
The smear here is that she attempts to identify our work in the comic book (False Witness: The Michele Bachmann Story) with some other anti-Bachmann stuff that is offensive: a withdrawn Playboy article by an idiot who said he'd like to "hate-fuck" her; a local Minneapolis hip-hop group who announced a "Fuck Michele Bachmann" event. Here's an excerpt from the Sean Hannity Show:
Hannity: "I'm even sorry that I have to bring this up, but um, there is apparently a concert. I don't know if you've had a chance to see this. I don't even know how to say this. They're using your name as a headline, the "F" word and 2010. Have you heard about this?"
Bachmann: "I have, I have. It was just brought to my attention yesterday. And um, this is part of a pattern. I know you've reported on this before, there's a Playboy article. They had highlighted various conservative women and talked about the very lewd, derogatory, hateful, violent things that they wanted to do toward those women. I was one of those women. And this is a concert series, as you said, where they're using this degrading terminology. Also in Minneapolis there's a comic book series that was written showing me in a similar light.
The link above is to a sample of the kind of material we do in the comic book. I pity the poor sick bastard who listens to the Hannity Show and order a copy of False Witness because he thinks it contains "lewd," "violent" sexual stuff about Bachmann and women. The comic books have no graphic sexual content, no sexualized language or images that degrade women in general or Bachmann in particular. The comics do point out that Bachmann is nut, liar, and bigot: but that's a conclusion that must reached because the basis of all the scripts are Bachmann's own words.
What the hip-hop group is doing is not only wrong but stupid, because it actually aids Bachmann's re-election bid. (She's actually doing fundraising on the basis of the hip-hop group's choice of words; who is so stupid that they would want to help her fundraise by creating more sympathy for her with her base?) And the Playboy article was reprehensible; I denounced it when it appeared about a year ago.
But the comics I do are about documenting Bachmann via her own words. Maybe that's she what finds--*obscene, degrading and offensive.*
ACTION LINK:
Tarryl Clark, Michele's opponent, needs twenty, ten, five bucks whatever you can give to get this nutty oil company shill out of government:
http://tarrylclark.com/