The Iowa Circus, cont...

Dec 30th, 2011

Yesterday, I wrote that I thought Rep. Bachmann's handling of the news that her Iowa campaign Chairman, Kent Soreson, had defected to the Ron Paul camp was "crazy and conspiratorial." I resisted the urge to declare that I believed it to be an outright lie. However, Mike Enos, Bachmann's political director in Iowa, issued a denial that nearly seemed to do just that:

"I can say unequivocally that Kent Sorenson’s decision was, in no way financially motivated," Enos said in his statement. "While I personally disagree with Kent’s decision, and plan to stay with Michele Bachmann because I truly believe in her, I cannot, in good conscious watch a good man like Kent Sorenson be attacked as a 'sell-out.'"

Despite his stated intention of remaining with her campaign team, he later resigned. This seems to indicate that he was purged from the campaign for insisting on rational truth.

Rep. Bachmann is, unsurprisingly, doubling down:

"No one else knows about that conversation other than Kent Sorenson and myself."

It's extremely implausible that Bachmann would not have revealed this conversation to her team immediately to begin planning damage control. The reaction of Enos and his subsequent break from her team expose not only Bachmann's executive inability but, also her apparent mental instability.

The Ron Paul camp insists her claim is fiction. Paul himself is quoted by KCAU:

"He called up and asked if he could join us and I said 'That's a great idea!' He's somebody I've known for a long time and we've helped him in the past."

Sorenson appeared on CNN to declare that the alleged conversation "never happened."



I am no fan of Ron Paul. I find him absurd. But, Bachmann is coming out of this looking both desperate and delusional.

With four days to go before the Iowa Circus, I expect this all to get even more entertaining.

Quote Of The Day - Here and Now Edition

May 17th, 2011

"It is the mark of an intellectually pathologized society that intellectuals and politicians will reject their opponents’ realities." -- Jonathan Kay, from his new book on the resugence of conspiracy theories in America, Among The Truthers

To Show Or Not To Show

May 6th, 2011

There are so many reasons not to release the kill photos of Osama Bin Laden. Philip Gourevitch makes his case against it in The New Yorker and observes:

"The main argument for releasing a photograph of the punctured scalp of our enemy is that it will provide proof that bin Laden really is dead. In other words, seeing is believing. But does anyone really believe that any more? Believing is believing. People who want, or need, to believe that bin Laden wasn’t shot dead will have no difficulty believing that a picture of his cadaver is a fake, a simple propaganda trick. The release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate didn’t put an end to birtherism, so why would the release of bin Laden’s autopsy video put an end to deatherism? And why does the White House care to appease the holders of such delusions?"

"Birthers" are out, "Deathers" are in...

May 2nd, 2011

I write this reluctantly. That is because it is more painfully stupid than anything I have encountered in my adult life.

It took less than 24 hours after the announcement of the decade for the crap to get deeper. Yes, there is a crazy beyond the "birthers." They are already called the "deathers." 

They believe that President Barack Obama is clever enough to get every active member of CENTCOM and JSOC to participate in a vast conspiracy to fake a military operation resulting in the death of Osama Bin Laden but not clever enough to have perpetrated it prior to the 2010 election.

Pardon the interwebphemism, but FACEPALM.