We have a strange idea for a litmus test of sorts, for whomever is going to win the 2012 Presidential election.
We think that whatever candidate is going to win the election, which will give them the keys to the largest and most powerful military and nuclear arsenal on the planet, should know the difference between John Wayne - famous actor from Winterset, Iowa - and John Wayne Gacy - the serial killer who posed as a clown and killed 33 young men and boys in the 1970s. That's not to mention the difference between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, or that the founding fathers did not, in fact, seek to end slavery.
Sadly, the latest entrant into the Republican Presidential primary race, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, doesn't know any of these things - or at least, she appears not to.
We have friends who live in Minnesota - solid, sane, Republican friends - who are horrified by the thought of Ms. Bachmann as the President of the United States. They don't even really like her as a Representative, for many reasons. They've said she's pretty enough - but it seems almost beyond belief that she's really as stupid as she appears. Our Democratic and Independent friends there concur - Bachmann should not be underestimated.
It's an old actor's axiom that the people who play dumb the best are actually highly intelligent. If a person's intelligence can be accurately judged by their degrees and accomplishments, Ms. Bachman must be much smarter than her actions lead most people to believe. She worked on President Jimmy Carter's campaign in college. She earned both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Law, and was a practicing federal tax lawyer for five years. She's even ridden the wave of Tea Party discontent higher than any other national politician, establishing the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, for which she is the chairperson.
As journalist Matt Taibbi points out in the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Bachmann is anything but a joke.
For one thing, the base of people Ms. Bachmann appeals to includes a large portion of people who have longstanding grudges against those who are better educated than her base. In Bachmann, her base voters see someone just smart enough to possibly get elected as President - and just dumb enough to hate all the same people they do.
Of course, the rubes she's trying to pull a fast one on don't seem to have learned - yet - about the nearly $30,000 in state and federal funds that her husband's business has received over the last five years. They also haven't learned that her family's farm in Wisconsin, in which she is a partner, received over a quarter million dollars in ag subsidy money during a similar time period. The subsidies that are lining Bachman's pockets now are the same ones she's been railing about for several years, when she continually wailed that the federal government and state governments need to reduce wasteful spending - like unnecessary agriculture subsidies.
If we didn't know better, we'd think Ms. Bachmann was trying to run for the presidency of the Lincoln Independent Business Association - but that spot is already occupied by another hypocrite, who makes a living criticizing the pay and benefits of public employees while feeding at the private sector trough.
The truth is, if politics were always about the better candidate, we'd never be concerned about Michele Bachmann going up against Barack Obama for the highest office in the land. Unfortunately, as we've all seen far too often over the last ten-to-twelve years - including a presidential race decided by a 5-4 Supreme Court vote - that's not how politics works these days, in America.
If you know anyone who thinks Michele Bachmann is a viable choice for President, we ask that you point out to them the facts behind her lies - and then remind them of the old actor's axiom we cited earlier in this column.
Bachman may appear stupid - but she's way too good at it to really be that dumb.
