Via AmericaBlog: Taibbi on Bachmann: A "six-faced Machiavellian prevaricator" with "Divine Wind" delusions

Michele Bachmann is a fascinating figure, in my view. To all appearances, she's smart, focused, driven, and full-on nuts. Quite the combo.

A taste of Taibbi's prose from his feature Rolling Stone article on her: she's "a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions." He documents that, but it's not his main point. There's no way to do justice to the full piece; you'll have to dive into the deep end and read the whole thing.

Many write-ups on his article are quoting the Bachmann-Palin comparison. My teaser slice is this one (my emphasis):

Bachmann's story, to hear her tell it, is about a suburban homemaker who is chosen by God to become a politician who will restore faith and family values to public life and do battle with secular humanism. But by the time you've finished reviewing her record of lies and embellishments and contradictions, you'll have no idea if she actually believes in her own divine inspiration, or whether it's a big con job. Or maybe both are true — in which case this hard-charging challenger for the GOP nomination is a rare breed of political psychopath, equal parts crazed Divine Wind kamikaze-for-Jesus and calculating, six-faced Machiavellian prevaricator. Whatever she is, she's no joke.

Most Bachmann commenters focus on her children, her poll numbers, her crazed crisco-like self-anointing, or her neo-Palin looks. It's the psychopath part that's new in Taibbi's analysis, based on his documentation of her promiscuous lying. For example:

Bachmann's anti-standards crusade led her to her first political run. In 1999, she joined four other Republicans in Stillwater in an attempt to seize control of the school board. The "Slate of Five" proved unpopular: The GOP candidates finished dead last. ... The slate of five had been put together by a local Republican kingpin named Bill Pulkrabek, who this spring was jailed for domestic assault after he allegedly pulled his mistress down a set of stairs by her hair. According to Pulkrabek, Bachmann initially came to him asking for advice on how to defeat Gary Laidig, a moderate Republican state senator, but he advised her to run for the school board first. ... In her later telling of the story, however, Bachmann substituted a higher authority than Bill Pulkrabek. It was God, she insisted, not a girlfriend-abusing politician, who instructed her to get involved in politics. "As if we didn't have enough to do, He called me to run for the Minnesota State Senate," she said in 2006. "I had no idea, no desire to be in politics. None."

In another version of the story told by Bachmann, she ran against Laidig only because a GOP endorsing convention in April of that year spontaneously selected her, prompting yet another Home Alone extreme-surprise moment. "I came in wearing jeans, a sweatshirt and moccasins, and I had no makeup on at all," she said. "I had made not one phone call, and spent not five cents, and I did not solicit a vote." Laidig, who calls Bachmann a "cold and calculating" person, didn't buy it. "Absolute bullshit," he told reporters. "She planned this all along."

Taibbi calls this a kind of lies-for-the-Lord syndrome, where intentions bless deeds. Similar to when former Attorney General John Mitchell was asked by the Watergate committee if he'd kill to get Nixon re-elected, and he answered, "Senator, you ask a hard question." (My paraphrase, but very close.)

Again, a fun read; do check it out.

For my money, Bachmann is positioning herself to be a rinsed-in-Jesus VP handmaiden to the magic-underwear headliner, Mitt Romney, who looks more and more like the only viable GOP candidate in 2012.

They would both benefit, he by the right-wing version of green-washing, which he desperately needs. And she by the obvious leg up.

Again, she's not dumb, just crazy-for-Christ. (Sam Seder shares this view of her target, by the way, as sometimes expressed on his podcast. If nothing else, it makes great political sense.)

GP