Many of her wacky comments and political stunts can easily be dismissed. For instance, she has contended that the arctic wildlife really like the Alaskan pipeline and she's said that Democrats want high gas prices so as to force people to move into "inner cities" and "the urban core." She also introduced the
Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act, a bill to repeal the nationwide phase-out of conventional light bulbs in favor of energy-efficient compact fluorescent lights. The government has no business telling consumers what kind of light bulbs they can buy, Bachmann contends.
She's pro-life, a global warming denier, mother of a brood, evangelical .... hmmm... who does that remind us of? (Heck, slap some of them Kawaski rimless specs on Michele and she'd even look like Sarah "Moosehunter" Palin. Something about those colder climates must produce this strain of womanhood).
Let's not kid ourselves, however. Extremists such as Bachmann are dangerous. Case in point:
During a hearing last week on the financial crisis, Bachmann quoted an article from a right-wing publication pinning the blame for the housing crisis on blacks and other minorities attempting to enter the middle class through home ownership. Bachmann was doing her rubber-stamp thing, amening the likes of Charles Krauthammer, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and the National Review who have contended that President Clinton's efforts to expand home ownership among minorities through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) somehow is at fault for all the ills of Wall Street.
In response to Bachmann's racist claims, more than 30 members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote a letter to Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), asking if the Republican leadership agrees with Bachmann's assertions. "Shifting the blame for the current economic crisis to laws that allow equal access and opportunities to communities of color is ridiculous," they wrote.
The Center for American Progress's Robert Gordon explains that lenders made bad loans not in an effort to comply with the CRA but simply "to make money." "Most important," he adds, "the lenders subject to CRA have engaged in less, not more, of the most dangerous lending."
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