News of this series of Bachmann statements (made during the course of a single interview) was published yesterday. I suppose that by tomorrow morning you will be able to find headlines about these statements in news outlets all over the country.
But we need a copy of this particular Bachmann grand slam for the archives here, so...
Michele Bachmann, from an audio recording of an interview given to an attendee of the GOP Youth Convention, July 22:
Transcript follows...
INTERVIEWER: I may be putting the cart before the horse here, but assuming the Republicans win the House back this next cycle: how do you feel about the chances for a little oversight and a little accountability now that the Republicans would have the subpoena power, how aggressive do you--
BACHMANN: Oh, I think that's all we should do...I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another. And expose all the nonsense that is going on. And it's very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership because the American people's patience is about this big...
...So we have to make sure that we do what the people want us to do because one thing that you should is that the most dramatic story that's happened in the last 18 months is that the federal government - before 18 months ago, the private economy was 100 percent held in private hands. But today 65 percent of the economy is now held in government's hands - either in direct ownership or in control we're talking about. So we got to unravel that and we got to get the private sector back to being private and the government back to being government.
...This is the year - this is it. All of our chips are on November. If we don't get it back and then starve the beast - the House, we have the power of the purse - so we can starve ObamaCare. We don't have to fund any of these programs and that's exactly what we need to do - defund all of this nonsense and then unwind it.
So: you got that? The Republican agenda next year, as Bachmann sees it: take back Congress, defund Obamacare in order to kill it, reverse "the government takeover of 65 percent of the economy that started when the Obama administration came into office"--and devote the entire focus of the United States Congress to a never-ending investigation of Republican political opponents.
These are the priorities: nothing in there about cleaning up the oil spill, nothing in that agenda about the war in Afghanistan, the occupation of Iraq, the war on terror around the world, nothing in there about controlling energy prices, nothing in that agenda about the economy and job creation. Instead: all investigations of Republican political opposition, all the time...the kind of government you see from corrupted "republics" in Central and South America and various failed democracies throughout the world.
Proto-fascism; in this case using the power of law and government to demonize, harass and stop any significant political opposition.
You think she's "just" a nut because she adopts this stand publicly? She's not "just" a nut: as of July 22 forty other members of Congress have signed up to join her Tea Party Caucus (that's up five from the total listed two days ago.) A British newspaper just identified her as the queen of the American right; she's got more money than any other member of Congress for re-election--and that money is being sent in in small amounts by people from all over the country who agree with her.
The agenda she's talking about is nuts, and she is nuts (as I've always maintained)-- but if you think that a nut must be irrelevant in politics simply by virtue of the fact that he/she is a nut: I would direct you to the history books to check out that opinion. Don't tell me that that can't happen here--it's happening here. She's announcing that it's happening here.
This will hurt her, because it will send money into the Tarryl Clark coffers. But it will help her as much as it will hurt her, because she is advocating what tens of millions of Americans believe should happen. They will be proud of her for advocating what they want. Bachmann represents them, and she has the support of a national conservative evangelical machine that is so powerful that it is able to veto Republican presidential candidacies.
If she wants, she can back up on the statements, she can evade or change the subject when she's asked about the statements in follow-up--but it doesn't matter: her supporters and mentors know that she means it. They know that this is how Michele Bachmann would change American government if she and her mentors and supporters are ever given the chance to do so.
What can I say; this is the story, this is why I devoted all these years to covering the career of this particular politician and the political movement that mentored her. It's horrible and fascinating. McCarthy on a pedestal, McCarthy sober and successful, McCarthy proceeding under the banner of Christ, nationally popular and on the rise...
