Every day you see something that makes you wonder: are some of the current crop of Republican conservatives engaged more in a race to obliterate any semblance of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” more than they are in a race to try and win the White House? That has to be it. Otherwise, why would Michele Bachmann say something like this at a time when so many people are hurting and either can’t find jobs or find that their hours are cut or health benefits not enough?
I’ll repeat it again. The people who seem so almost casually ready to make life tougher on Americans who are struggling are usually people with big fat bank accounts, government health care plans because they’re in Congress or ideological media types who have private jets (why don’t all these people who can’t get jobs just get radio shows where they can demonize a political party for three hours a day like they do?).
Bachmann’s comments prove a)she is not as mainstream as she has been trying to prove, b)Ed Rollins is doing a poor job of advising her c)she is not listening to Ed Rollins.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.