Has Bachmann Met Her Waterloo?

June 29, 2011

The old parochialism meets the not-so-new isolationism in Michele Bachmann.
By Christopher Hitchens

"That was actually three dripping custard pies, rather than just the one, with which Rep. Michele Bachmann assailed her own face by bragging to Fox News about her small-town Iowa roots. Having hymned the incomparable Dairy Queen and Wonder Bread facilities boasted by the sturdy small town of her girlhood, she went on to claim that "John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa," adding, "That's the kind of spirit that I have, too."

Read More (Slate)

23 comments:

Michael Dawson said...

What twisted times we live in! A supposed rationalist and advocate of the good parts of "Western Civilization" attacking a Know Nothing candidate who is right about one single aspect of U.S. foreign policy for all the wrong reasons, all in the name of the principle that whomsoever "we" think is crazy or incompetent in another nation-state is a legitimate target for overthrow.

Anonymous said...

yeah what he said

Anonymous said...

i think someone is impersonating hitchens. his identity has been stolen. i want the real christopher hitchens.

April said...

I wish he'd just say what he really means... women have no business in politics, they're only good for washing your socks and havin' babies. lol

Anonymous said...

I think he gets off on kicking the shit out of a woman's ego. and i quite enjoy it myself.

Anonymous said...

Obama's not going to lose this next Presidential Election, even if the Republicans re-animated the corpse of Abraham Lincoln and put him up for election.

Anonymous said...

Obama is the new Jimmy Carter.

Anonymous said...

Why is he writing this? She is not going to win, or get even close to the presidency, what is the point of even mentioning her?

Sally Forth said...

Shooting fish in a barrel. A more meaningful piece might address WHY so many Americans now find an appeal (however ingenuous) to small-town values attractive. Could it have to do with the alienation of the subject under increasingly bold and oppressive exploitation by USA, Inc.??

Mouth said...

I found this piece to be quite funny for all the right reasons, and I found the passage revolving around this idea:

**"Where does it come from, this silly and feigned idea that it's good to be able to claim a small-town background?"**

to be spot on.

The joy Hitch feels in the act of writing is apparent even when, or especially when, he is in attack mode. To me, his writing is delightful, though I do hope that the subject for this particular essay turns out to be an inconsequential one. That is, I won't mind reading more of Hitch's eviscerations of Congresswoman Bachmann, but I hope there is no more need of such enjoyable journalistic, literary endeavors beyond this summer, as, Allah willing, she will disappear from national prominence & scrutiny.

bitch heat said...

"Why is he writing this?" Quite obviously, irked by her position on Libya.

As for, "gets off on kicking the shit out of a woman's ego. and i quite enjoy it myself..." Really? How brave of you. I dare you to try that line on a second time, you loathsome twit. Only a unibrowed, mouth-breathing, pussywhipped, cuckolded, mother-obsessed, sexually null and recessed gene spooler would make such a claim.

I'll note that our moderator likes to slam hard and fast on any veiled anti semitic comment around here, but starkly left this blatant and violent woman-hatred to stand tall. I guess it's been left to me to kneecap it for what it is.

Sally Forth said...

What bitch heat said.

pmathews said...

So, if you hate stupidity and ignorance, you should hold fire if it comes from a women?

bitch heat said...

re "So, if you hate stupidity and ignorance, you should hold fire if it comes from a women?"

you're demoing the inverse of the dastardly, retrograde attitude of my target. the commentator was exhorting kicking the shit out of a woman's ego, not bachmann's stupidity and ignorance. as it happens, she's not notable in these qualities. stupidity and ignorance are precursors to american political ambition.

in any event, some know how to engage ideological difference of opinion without making the rhetorical engagement an either/or one. then again, some don't. if i need say more, you need some learning.

J. Gravelle said...

It's perplexing to think that any of my fellow conservative / libertarian types would believe, even for a moment, that a former IRS goon might be the savior of an over-taxed populace:

http://www.dailyscoff.com/?p=3424

Quite frankly, Elvis was a better choice for Drug Czar...


-jjg

sonofmailer said...

Part 1 of a two part post. First off, I'm not a big hitchens fan. Why am I saying this? Because I don't what what I've written to be taken for hitchens apologetics. For a guy who is so critical of ayn rand he certainly shares her disdain for libertarians, such as myself. What am I? Well, an atheist misogynist, far right on guns and economics, and with a pure libertarian view of drugs and vice (stay away from my guns, porn and weed). I have a hatred of Islam which I would say goes well beyond hitchens but between Bush's bumbling and obama's cowardice, I don't see how we can have a lasting impact in the reigon; so his foreign policy is, as Clinton once said of the current president "A fairy tale". In any case, hitchens and I don't share much in common on anything accepting our respectively similar views of organized religion.

Its interesting to read all of these feminists who pan him so often because he really is a classic man traitor. But hey, this is a political discussion. Why should anything make sense or follow any kind of logic?

What also doesn't make sense to me is why all these leftists spend so much time posting here. True, I'm not a fan but this is my first post. It's almost as if they can't get over the fact that the caustic bitter sting of the drink sodden ex-trotskyist's prose is no longer in the stern employ of the left. Get over yourself. You don't hear me complaining because he doesn't write pieces about the history of firearms in the confederacy; or because he didn't do a larry flynt interview.

okay sally forth, bitch heat and whatever other bull-dykes want to post here. Say whatever you think. That's America. That's as it should be. But if I'm mistreating and exploiting women for my own pleasure and I'm doing it well within the bounds of the laws and the constitution of these united states, then don't you dare try to stop me and "introduce enlightened legislation" to try and legalize your moral world view or to enforce your own sense of virtue through terror and convict me of thought crime because my sexuality isn't something that you and your friends at the jermaine greer convention find acceptable.

Whatever morality you might have; a morality incidentally that most people in the world probably share with you (not me though) could never justify such a dastardly retrograde attitude.

Since we're talking about retrograde i think its quite unseemly the way feminists will latch on to any so called freedom group even if they advocate the destruction of israel or spew disgusting nonsense about the United States or about how you enforce an economic non reality on people. Why? Well because they're the populists. They represent the creatures held back. Is catholic populism and destructive notions of social justice responsible for great violence and woe throughout history? Well, maybe. But hey, that whole image of the working class irish and continental catholic americans workin' hard and not takin' any crap. The ellis island americans are the real americans it doesn't matter if they believe things or have been taught things about justice and jews that are ridiculous and stupid; it also doesn't matter if they become part of a mass culture that tries to hold everybody hostage under a politically correct mob rule because they're the real americans.

sonofmailer said...

part 2 of my previous post (if approved it will actually be 3 parts)

It doesn't matter if these ideas have way more in common with the violence and brutality of the 20th century then any good awful old anglo saxon captialism ever could-that doesn't matter because these people of the mob with their mob culture and their mob ideas and their mob mentality are so much more scruffier and real looking than a bunch of boring WASPs. Its just like in Germany.

Those real Germans from bavaria were so much more interesting then the drab folks of the north with their progress and protestantism and jew blood. Expecting people to stand on their own 2 feet and not give in to hate and to the group idea that we can burn everything and start a new world of justice according to design. That's not justice that's not compassion and I don't care if moveon.org says it is. Its perverted mob rule totalitarianism. I don't think feminists quite understand what they're connecting themselves to when they do a hanoi jane and support "populism", weather it be in the PLO form or the muslim brotherhood form (feminists supporting the muslim brotherhood. Now I've seen everything. Why don't they support the prime minister of Iraq. He's done more for women then the PLO or the IRA, two of feminist favorites).

We can add to that the feminist sympathy for angry working catholics looking for somebody to blame (now they just say bankers instead of jewish people. Sad) Feminists it seems, as the inter-personal imperialists, will stand with anybody no matter who they are against somebody who is too wealthy or who doesn't happen to be descended from one of the modern noble "ellis island tribes". We simply get in the way of their perverted moral narrative. That's disgusting and its way more disgusting than me and my pornography

We might also consider deluded female notions that as women their brains are larger (we're dealing with nazi tactics now. They tried to prove non jewish brains were larger). The fact that women actually entertain the notion that they are superior to men proves that they truly aren't. It's about as disturbed as race theory. I think a gender that was actually superior could come up with something better than that.

sonofmailer said...

Moderator, Im simply reposting this because I was not sure if you had received this third section and my email is not functioning. If you had already received this section or perhaps decided to only post the first two then I apologize.

Science and reason mean just about as much to the feminist as they do the religious right. Just ask Christopher Hitchens, who first transgressed by saying what any person who has watched comedy central for the more than five minutes must have realized; namely, that female comedians tend of be "Dykes, Jews or Butch". Ironic when we consider bitch heat's comments about the moderator. Hitchens again committed and unforgivable sin by pointing out from an evolutionary standpoint women do not have the same need to be funny because that behavior has not been part of their intellectual construct until more recently in our evolutionary history. I guess this "asshole" as many people seem to think of him on his own blog, is a pig like me and just doesn't seem to get it. I guess he hasn't made enough timid comments about how women are the key to democracy or he hasn't blasted men like me enough for our brutish disposition.

But we can't possibly consider every morally inexcusable thing feminists have done in the name of taking power for those who "deserve it". What we will consider is the hateful idiotic nonsense coming from bitch heat and others masquerading as some form defense of those without a penis. That's not intellectual maturity; its your typical bon-bon eating, dr. phil watching gloria steinem worshiping hair lipped ejaculation hating penis envying sexually stultified mentality that makes women hate male sexuality and makes men hate women even more.

And since the sister suffragettes (especially the rather aptly named bitch heat) are so free and easy with the man insults, I feel it is my solemn duty to kneecap this man hatred with a little sanity and close with janeane garofalo wanna be alanis morissette listening not leg shaving ballon juice spewing nazi feminist windbag.

Sally Forth said...

sonofmailer, I'm thinking you just might have been one of the inspirations for David Foster Wallace's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men." Alas, not brief enough.

bitch heat said...

what Sally Forth said.

pp said...

@sonofmailer

I pity your parents. Im very sorry that they had to see their child turn into pure human filth.

You know what i am talking about. You have no excuse for your current views and/or behaviour towards women.

sonofmailer said...

I was an orphan pp and I do appreciate your sincere caring. And now a story of true human filth (no pp, its not you).

Part 1

Unfortunately for you, Sally Forth, there's more in my head than a few "what these men don't understand" soundbytes. I wish the same could be said of everyone who posts here ("i pity your parents". Ha! No dice! I pity yours! Touche'!). All you can come back with is another "you're a disgusting man ape" cannard? 40 lashes.

You probably didn't read what I actually wrote because it wasn't "brief enough". That actually says a lot more about you than it does about me. Since no honest attempt was made to engage in the issues which I brought up and a pretentious statement was made about the parents I don't have, let me just say this: Go back to the ya ya sisterhood pity party and take your bobbit laden rantings with you. Don't forget to let the door hit your lopsided undesirable rear end on the way out.

In regards to this grotesque parody of humanity whom you refer to as David Foster Wallace, I can only say this; its no small wonder that a man who was that tormented and full of self-loathing would take a view of male sexuality similar to yours. I don't think it stops there. I wouldn't trust anybody who belongs to a church to explain healthy sexuality at any rate (and David takes another bow!).

In the form of this man we have a truly disgusting fusion of apathetic politically correct left wing religious modernism melting into a self-loathing overly pretentious uncritical non-literary mess. But more on him in later posts. For right now, lets ask why do you not, oh masters of castration, have to recognize the deep mental flaws in this person if you are going to use him as rock to throw against me. After all, this decent gentle man is documenting the man pigs. But what of him? After all, you don't need to ask questions like that do you. You know as a woman, your soul is pure and that I am "human filth". How proud you must be. How brave you truly are. Eat me.

End part 1

sonofmailer said...

part 2

David Foster Wallace announces the ground rules for how one must think; otherwise, your just a pawn in a game and not truly free. How original. Wallace takes his first stab at liberating us by condemning desire in any form which he deems to be unworthy of true humanity (true humanity, which of course would be those who resemble him). As if. The fact that you enjoy such rot is hardly surprising. Like yourself (bitch heat, sally forth, pp), the good Mr. Wallace seems to have a rather incredulous view of freedom. He says literature is about "being a fucking human being". Apparently, Wallace has a very dismal, reductive, shame ridden conception of what a human being should be. A conception which is both self-congratulatory and self-abnegating. Maybe Wallace, who believes that irony and circumstance determine our interactions, should put that in one of his books about "modern irony" because it is indeed quite ironic. As for me, Ill take desire and free will any day.

Of all that is truly loathsome in this man and his work, what I find to be the most hateful, the most cynical, the most servile and the the most fear/despair inducing is the (pardon the expression) unholy alliance Wallace creates between apathetic, detached modern existential irony with repressive new age twinged christian morality which tells people say no to life and yes to contemplation. Essentially, a concoction which fuses defeatism with puritanical communitarian discharge.

Now we have detached irony, existential futility, and a new wave modern pseudo-liberal version of the same group-fixated religious piety which defines freedom as nothing more than misery, suffering and submission to the collective will (the "community" as some people refer to it). Wallace of course does dress his puritan movement in the same traditional small town garb as the preachers we are used to. He adopts the chaste 1990s new hippie routine. "Dude, my base urges are just a distraction from smelling the colors and watching kids in the hall. Its so like ironic because as you pursue pleasure, you feel more pain. I guess I'll just sit on the couch. Beavis and Butt-head is coming on."

From there it just keeps getting more interesting or should I say stupid and ridiculous.

 
 
 

Christopher reads from Hitch-22: A Memoir