MICHELE BACHMANN’S McCARTHYISM and the despicably racist and bigoted attacks against Human Abedin inspired Sen. John McCain to take to the floor of the Senate to denounce them. Her former presidential campaign manager Ed Rollins unloaded:
Her unsubstantiated charge against Abedin, a widely respected top aide to Secretary Hillary Clinton, accusing her of some sort of far-fetched connection to the Muslim brotherhood, is extreme and dishonest.
Having worked for Congressman Bachman’s campaign for president, I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level. (Joe McCarthy falsely made claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies inside the State Department in the early 1950’s. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to “condemn” McCarthy on two counts.) …
…As a member of Congress, with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Bachmann you know better. Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hard working,loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a devoted Christian, you need to ask forgiveness for this grievous lack of judgment and reckless behavior.
Back in June, Bachmann wrote a letter outlining her fears, asking for an investigation and the assistance of inspector generals in the State, Homeland Security, Defense and Justice Departments, then said the following on a right-wing radio show [h/t Jason Linkins]:
“It appears that there has been deep penetration in the halls of our United States government by the Muslim Brotherhood,” Bachmann said. “It appears that there are individuals who are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood who have positions, very sensitive positions, in our Department of Justice, our Department of Homeland Security, potentially even in the National Intelligence Agency.”
Bachmann was joined by co-signers Reps. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Thomas Rooney, R-Fla., and Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga.
Unbelievably, Bachmann, the woman who made GOP history by becoming the first Republican female to ever win a presidential straw poll, caucus or primary, had the unmitigated gall to single out Huma Abedin and link her to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The letter to the State Department singles out Huma Abedin, a deputy chief of staff for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and asserts that three of Abedin’s family members are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. It says Abedin’s position affords her access to Clinton, and adds that the department has “taken actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”
After being called out on her racist bigotry, Mrs. Bachmann did what any good right-wing conspiracy nut does, she said the letter was “distorted,” then dug into the “patriotism” hole, as she sees it.
Bachmann said the State Department and White House had been making “dangerous national security decisions” by letting known terrorists into the country. “I will not be silent as this administration appeases our enemies instead of telling the truth about the threats our country faces.”
The charges lobbed at Mrs. Abedin, with Bachmann citing her family members, is as un-American as anything ever leveled in the Joe McCarthy era.
Beyond Bachmann’s racism, that anyone would believe that Secy. Clinton would ever allow anyone remotely subversive to be her right hand for so many years defies credulity.
But it goes right along with the latest Team Romney tactics to label Pres. Obama someone “foreign.”
Just when you think American politics can’t get worse, Republicans hit a new low.
What does this say to muslim americans about serving at state etc? If you can be singled out in such a terrible way with no facts then who is next? Isnt it time folks in MN oust this bigot!
Hell, what does it say to average Muslim Americans? Sheesh.
It’s LONG past time, but they seem content with this woman.
What’s incredible is that this is the best Republicans have to put up for the presidency and she actually won the very first straw poll, caucus, etc. of any woman in the entire GOP history! Think about that for a minute.
The guy who wanted the Ten Commandments posted in the Capitol, but couldn’t name more than three? How in the world does someone that pig-ignorant get re-elected? Wait, I know the answer …
“pig-ignorant”… ho-boy… That’s hilarious. And apt.
It’s really hard not to think of it that way. I’d classify the idea of plastering religious commandments over public buildings in a country that allegedly values religious freedom as being pretty silly, but to not know the document you’re referring to? In previous challenges, I’ve never failed to name at least seven out of ten, and I think I was drunk when I scored that low.
Wait…the pigs have called and they are insulted by the comparison….
In Westmoreland’s defense, though, he was the voice of reason on another occasion when Bachmann went off the rails.
Frightening.
Now wait just a cotten pickin MINUTE!!! Pigs are SMART. Smarter then DOGS and I’d like to see mittens try to tie a cuple of hundred lb. BOAR on the roof of his car!!!!
I live in GA and i’m not quite sure. I’ve decided that a lot of voters here in GA have an unlimited capacity for national embarrassment.
Hmm lets talk of Weiner running for office – a guy the right fears now this botched hit on Huma. And of coure the implication that Hillary is not a loyal American thrown in bc if Huma is Hillary’s right hand lady at state then by having a “subversive” like Huma working with her…so a double hit on 2 power couples that scare the GOP- Clintons and Weiner/Huma. Its gonna be a awesome event when we see SoS Hillary take Bachmann down on this crap-and she will.
hear hear!
She certainly does owe her an apology and delivered from the floor of the House, but MB does not have the class for that. We will see alligators do the limbo before Bachman and/or her clan admit they were wrong.
This is really dangerous stuff that Congresswoman Bachmann is doing. It does screams the McCarthy Era.
What we really need to be concerned about is Bachmann being on the ” Intelligence ” committee. YIKES!
Agreed. I for one would rather have the pigs….
Bachmann is a stinking weasel woman and that’s the nicest phrase I can call her right now. She doesn’t have the class, talent, intelligence, grace or humanity of Huma Abedin let alone SOS Clinton.
The things she’s said about people (even her own colleagues in Congress) calling into question their American loyalty (as if she’s the Sybil on this), makes her reek of the McCarthy stench. She’s becoming the reincarnation of that nasty demagogue drunk (minus the drunk part).
This time, however, her unhinged mouth aided and abetted by that other right wing extremist and hate monger, Frank Gaffney, and a couple of others including a still avenging conservative troublemaker Lucianne Goldberg who was deep in the weeds in the Lewinsky matter wrote things about Abedin and Clinton and their supposed link to the Muslim Brotherhood which made its way to Egypt inciting those people to riot and caused SOS Clinton’s car to be attacked in Egypt while driving through the streets of Alexandria.
She not only needs to make an apology to Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton but the House needs to censure her for her behavior. But, I wont hold my breath that that will happen.
I also hope with all my might that she loses her seat in November and from what I’ve been reading http://tinyurl.com/7casa8m the person running against her is competitive. And, that report was from a few weeks ago before this international incident.
And, she’s a coward after all as she’s ducking press questions about her outrageous and false accusations and running away from reporters like a rat scampering off a sinking ship. She’s a tea party menace and shameless as so many of these tea party extremists are.
Beyond Bachmann’s racism, that anyone would believe that Secy. Clinton would ever allow anyone remotely subversive to be her right hand for so many years defies credulity.
Truly stunning and mind-numbingly outrageous what Bachmann has done here. I hope she pays dearly for this. I can’t wait for SOS Clinton to say something in her usual tempered, intelligent and classy way.
I have to commend Senator McCain for his very welcomed speech on the Senate floor today. He also warned his party of not recovering from these hits. Someone in the Republican Party had to stand up to this hate speech from Bachmann et al and it was fitting it was McCain. Alas, his voice was the lone one in that party to do so. How low can the GOP go? It seems insatiable at this point.
And, the political divide just got infintely wider as if there wasn’t an abysmal chasm before.
The last couple have decades have really beefed up my credulity, at least when it comes to stuff like this. Conservatives have hated the Clintons ever since they got to the White House in ’93. I’ve never been able to figure it out, but it’s been relentless blind hate from the git-go. That some among them would suggest this about Hillary Clinton doesn’t surprise me in the least.
But, had I been living in the jungle for the last two decades, beyond the reach of modern communications, this would probably shock me a little, because it is crazy, and it’s even crazier that acts like McCain’s are so rare.
I used to think it was something about the Clintons that made the conservatives hate them but I have decided that it’s really nothing the Clintons have done or not done. It’s really the fact that conseravatives need someone to hate after the cold war and the Clintons just happened to show up at the time they needed someone. Now it’s even moved on past the Clintons to incoming hate to a lot of people,
Ga6thDem–I think you hit the nail on the head. Conservatives are all about hate and gaining power by stirring up peoples hate and fear.
CONSERVATIVES = HATRED
The sad thing about all this is that Bachmann would never have gotten elected, if the left hadn’t run a third party candidate and split the democratic vote. Bachmann has won each time with less then a majority and wouldn’t have gotten elected except for the 15% or so that the democratic candidates lost to the third party candidate.
Maybe if the dems ran a true liberal democrat, there would not be a third party threat! The reason left-leaning voters desert the dems is because the dems have leaned right-ward.
The reason the left desert the dems is because their to lazy to work to change the democratic party, its so much easier to go vote for some third party candidate who doesn’t have a chance of even getting elected dog catcher and then when its all over they forget about the third party and start bitching about what a terrible person Bachmann is.
Trying to fix a party by “work[ing] to change” a party is like attending a football game expecting to affect the outcome. Political parties are full of people who know everything about what they’re doing. They aren’t interested in your opinion of how they ought to do anything before, because they’ve been doing it longer and they know it all. That’s because the object of political parties is to get their candidates elected. They will do whatever it takes to do that, including running lame-ass candidates who won’t make a difference, but will help them cement their hold on power. After a few years of compromising their values in order to make that happen, they become the kinds of people who don’t want to hear what you have to say, because they had to compromise to get where they are. They become the tiresome people who lecture everyone else about how unrealistic it all is to expect that anything useful will actually get done.
Just like you’re lecturing us right now.
That means until you become like them, you don’t know anything. No one holds to “pragmatism” like someone who used to be an idealist, but gave it all up. I’ve seen this script play out so many times by now that I can see it in my sleep.
Being someone the party needs to please is the only way to get their attention. Trying to reason with them is an exercise in futility.
One other point. Bachmanns district is pretty conservative. and if liberals had a clue, they would know that someone to far left of center really couldn’t even win as dog catcher. Running a left center candidate in Bachmanns district is a sure fire way to lose, and by splitting the democratic vote we’ve sent Bachmann to Washington to destroy more peoples lives.
So you think a third party is going to be any different? I watched the Green party sell out to Ralph Nader, and all it got them was Nader got their time, money and energy and when it was all done and they lost, Nader packed up his bags and left.
We’ve watched the right wing in this country work hard and change the face of the republican party and mold it to their way of thinking. The tea party knew that a third party would not get them what they wanted, so they worked to take control of the republican party. Liberals and the left wing could learn from that, but like I said that’s hard work that the left in this country has never been willing to do.
The left has always thought they could change peoples minds by working outside of the two party system and the left isn’t any closer today then they were 40 years ago, in fact we are weaker today then we were 40 years ago.
The system in this country is rigged to a two party system and unless we change to some form of parliamentary system third parties will never be a winning ticket on a national level, the powers that be will never let it happen.
By the way, I,m not lecturing anybody, I’m expressing my opinion as to the way I see things just like you or anybody else on this site. so you can save the condescending remarks for someone who cares.