Is Michelle Bachman Crazy?

Female bank robber
thwarted when teller
can’t read her note.

Is Michelle Bachman crazy? I am prompted to ask this question because earlier today I saw an exchange between a Democratic “strategist” and a Republican one. The Democrat started off by saying one reason we shouldn’t believe Bachman is because she is “crazy.” The Republican took umbrage at this and cautioned the Democrat from using such language about someone. So what does it mean when you say someone is crazy? I believe for most people it means that someone is insane, mad, bonkers, dotty, brainless, goofy, not equipped with a full deck, doesn’t possess all her marbles, or something like that. And, indeed, if you look it up on Merriam-Webster you will find that it does have several possible meanings. It means, depending on the context, “full of cracks or flaws,” “unsound,” “mad, insane,” “crooked,” “impractical,” “erratic,” “unusual,” “infatuated,” and even, “obsessed.”

When Bachman announced that under the new health care plan there were going to be “sex clinics” in our schools where underage children could be taken for (among other things) abortions, and their parents wouldn’t find out, a claim manifestly untrue, I think it is fair to say it comes somewhere under the definition of crazy. I also do not believe that calling someone crazy in a situation like this is out of place or even insulting. It would seem to me to be a purely factual description. As Bachman has a history of making such claims one might say she is probably crazy all the time. When it comes to Ms. Bachman I guess there are four apparent choices: she is right and telling the truth (but obviously and demonstrably not), she is simply mistaken (a possibility, although remote), she is lying (for some reason, probably political), or she is crazy. I have heard it said by some that she said this to draw attention away from the real issues about health care (political reasons). She could of course simply be mistaken (but a mistake of this magnitude probably means she really is crazy). Having searched my (very partisan) mind for all of two or three seconds, I conclude she is crazy as a loon (oh, that introduces a further complication, as loons are not really crazy at all although they sound like it).

The trouble with trying to deal with an issue like this, is that with such a broad definition of crazy, it is all too easy to conclude that all Republicans are crazy. This does seem to me a pretty good description of the current Republican Party. Certainly their belief that they may someday regain power with Limbaugh, Beck, and even Bachman and Palin representing them, and by turning their backs of minority voters, has to be considered unsound, impractical, erratic, unusual, and even mad, insane. But with Palin’s book on the best-seller list, perhaps not. Perhaps I am crazy. Indeed, with the Merriam-Webster definition we are all insane. Ha, ha, I knew it all the time. But wait, this is too simple. There is something unusually crazy about Bachman, some elusive quality that I do not understand. For example, when Sarah Palin came out with her claim about “death panels,” a claim almost as crazy as Bachman’s sex clinics, we didn’t think she was insane. We knew full well why she was making such a claim and it was purely political. Some are saying the same thing about Bachman but in her case it is somehow doubtful. Is it because she seems to truly believe the nonsense she spouts, or does it just seem that way? Somehow there is an Alice in Wonderland quality in Bachman that is missing in Palin’s case. I see Palin as calculating, deliberately saying what she does from purely political motives, whereas Bachman has a weird aura of gullibility about her, as if she has no genuine understanding either of what she is saying or its implications. She certainly doesn’t seem to understand that her crazy babblings are harming her own party. I could be very wrong about this, of course, but I hope she keeps on talking along with Beck and Limbaugh, Democrats could hardly wish for a better friend.

LKBIQ:
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.
Mark Twain

TILT:
The tallest giraffe ever recorded, a male, was 20 feet tall.