The Annals of Spin
Rep. Michelle Bachman introduces us to the subtelties of universal quantification:
Despite the way the blogs and the Democratic Party are spinning it, I never called all liberals anti-American, I never questioned Barack Obama’s patriotism, and I never asked for some House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt into my colleagues in Congress.
Her precise words:
MATTHEWS: So you think Barack Obama may have anti-American views?
BACHMANN: Absolutely. I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views.
So, indeed, she left open the possibility that some liberals, though not Obama, may not be anti-American. Similarly, rather than ask for a House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt into my colleagues in Congress what she asked for was a media investigation into whether her congressional colleagues’ anti-American views.
45 Responses to “The Annals of Spin”
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October 21st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
MB: buzz buzz buzz anti-American buzz buzz liberal buzz buzz
ME: $25 to her buzz buzz buzz non-crazy Democratic opponent buzz buzz
October 21st, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Matt, you can be Palinesque in your phrasing.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Hard to make the case that she didn’t question Obama’s patriotism.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Why can’t people just apologize when they say stupid things? It costs nothing. How hard would it have been for her to admit that she shouldn’t have used the word “anti-American” and say that while she won’t question Obama’s patriotism she does have concerns about his radical leftist views, etc.?
October 21st, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Why can’t people just apologize when they say stupid things?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Being a Republican means never having to say you’re sorry.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:40 pm
She didn’t “question his patriotism” she said she is “concerned he may have anti-American views”. Those are like so totally different. Question begins with “Q”. Concerned begins with “C”, just for example.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:41 pm
it is so annoying that you feel the need to throw around terms from logic when discussing words like “or” and “could” and “all”. the meanings of these words are mastered by 1st graders, you don’t need to appeal to your formal logic class/professor. it is poor writing that loses credibility trying to sound erudite.
the point of a class in logic is to understand the properties of isomorphisms, prove incompleteness, etc. not to get hung up on truth tables.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I know this is too much for MattY to understand, but there’s a difference between holding some anti-American views and being anti-American across the board. Bachmann was accusing BHO of the former, and based on things like this she’s right. (That link is too difficult for MattY to understand also, so he should just keep on shoveling out the uncorrected smears to his visitors from TP’s main site).
October 21st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Bachmann is probably the nuttiest person in congress. Let’s make sure she loses her seat and is relegated to the dustbin of history (read: a job with Fox News Channel) where she’ll be less dangerous.
It’d be nice someday if we recognized that people like her are essentially insane, but that would require recognizing that religion is insane… and Matt isn’t fond of that.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Bachman’s spokesman also made the following corrections to statements she has made in recent interviews:
* Bachman never asserted pi was 3, merely that saying it was 3.14something something seemed like a lot effort to go to when it’s basically 3. Amirite people?
* When Bachman stated that she favored some sort of fee or tax at voting stations to raise money for voter fraud investigations in minority communities, she didn’t mean she favored a “poll tax” but was simply seeking a common-sense remedy to the perennial problem of minorities registering to vote and/or casting votes for non-Republican candidates.
* Her statement about confining people of Arab appearance or descent in relocation camps until the War on Terror is over should not be construed as advocating street-by-street round ups of Middle Easterners, but was merely an observation about what kinds of measures might be conceivably necessary in an environment where we want to keep our children safe. Some sort of ankle-bracelet monitoring system might work just as well.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
It’s never comforting to know that a lot of people voted for a complete moron. Sadly, it seems to happen almost as much as it doesn’t.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Pace anonymous above, I like the whole philosophy-as-window-dressing approach.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Does anyone else see a strong physical resemblence between Michele Bachmann and Katherine Harris? Is is something in the Kool Aid?
October 21st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Look CD, some of us are damn happy that voters will vote for complete morons.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
“Does anyone else see a strong physical resemblence between Michele Bachmann and Katherine Harris? Is is something in the Kool Aid?”
Worse, I’m suppressing feelings that she’s kinda hawt.
Yuck.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
It’s a veritable buffet of right-wing wankery, each entree so tantalizing. For those with expensive tastes, we have “Obama is anti-American, and many liberals in Congress are, too.” But for those with a more pedestrian pallet, might we interest you in “The blogs and the Democratic party are dishonestly attacking me for questioning people’s patriotism.”? For the brainless among you, you might try both.
I’ve seen this same spread over at Michelle Malkin’s.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Anyone know the Minnesota district that voted this goon into Congress? It’s a sensible State.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:29 pm
The 6th Congressional District. Which includes the city I was born in, Blaine. Kinda embarrassing, really.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
She asked for the mainstream media to conduct an investigation of other congresspeople’s anti-American views. But everybody knows that you can’t believe anything you read in the MSM, so any results of the investigation are necessarily unbelievable and it’s basically like the investigation never happened so technically she didn’t call for it and once again the MSM is trying to mislead the real America.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:41 pm
* Bachman never asserted pi was 3, merely that saying it was 3.14something something seemed like a lot effort to go to when it’s basically 3. Amirite people?
There’s a story, perhaps apocryphal, that a West Virginia state legislator tried to introduce a bill to declare that the value of pi is 3 on the grounds that 3.14159etc was too hard.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:48 pm
there’s a difference between holding some anti-American views and being anti-American across the board.
Wrong. There is no difference. You are either anti-American or you are not. Just as you can’t hold some racist views and not be a racist.
And for the record, MattY should really nofollow links, if he doesn’t already. No reason 24ahead should be able to keep getting Google juice by relentlessly self-linking.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:59 pm
The depressing part: Bachman is smarter than the average Republican.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:04 pm
She certainly presented Obama’s patriotism as an open issue. ‘ I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views,’ as she put it. Indeed, one is usually not ‘very concerned’ about something so dire without good cause, so it may well be essentially true to write, ‘So, indeed, she left open the possibility that some liberals, though not Obama, may not be anti-American.’ But that isn’t literally true, Matt. Being ‘very concerned’ is not the same as being certain. `It presents an anxiety that may or may not be dispelled. In the case of Bachmann, it is almost certainly true that she will ever treat Obama in a way that belies her own petulant, nasty hackishness. In all honesty, one should not fall for this new backspin. And congrats for calling her bluff. But, treating her words literally, it simply isn’t true that ’she left open the possibility that some liberals, though not Obama, may not be anti-American’. She wasn’t an honest enough hack to be quite that transparent. I suppose that’s even more damning.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:39 pm
What she said rhetorically is that Obama was anti-American: that is the take-away someone would have from listening to what she said, and assuming that she did not traffic in baseless suspicions, but was instead slightly hedging, as people often do. But what she literally said is just that it is possible that Obama has anti-American views. Just as it is possible that Obama believes in UFOs or has an ugly birthmark on his back. Many things are possible, which is why we tend to assume that possibilities like this are only raised if there is some basis for them. Republicans often exploit this distinction between what they strictly say, and how a reasonable person would interpret what they say (assuming some reasonable but naive person who had not learned to be suspicious of Republican claims in general) to retain plausible deniability. Instead of treating the distinction as unimportant, we might as well make it explicit to also make explicit the dishonesty of how they argue.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Edward, the mad shirt grinder — this is probably the non-apocryphal version of the story — it was Indiana in 1897, and they were considering three different potential values for pi. (Assuming the Straight Dope guy is right, I haven’t checked him.)
October 21st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Why is it that reporters or pundits never ask the obvious questions? Okay, we have an investigation into Congress, Michele. Who gets to decide what’s unAmerican? And what happens to people that are unAmerican?
And then, “How is this not a witch hunt?”.
Once the foot is headed towards the mouth, the media often stops the person and signals to them that they may have said the wrong thing, instead of encouraging them to fully explain what they mean and prevent further retreading later.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I’m very concerned that Barack Obama might masturbate to child pornography.
What? No, I never said that Barack Obama is a pervert!! Daman MSM twisting my words.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Daman=Damn
October 21st, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Who gets to decide what’s unAmerican?
That’s for the American people to decide. No, wait.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:21 pm
call her Uberbachmann
October 21st, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I know this is too much for MattY to understand, but there’s a difference between holding some anti-American views and being anti-American across the board.
24ADC -
The last time I read one of your comments, it was painfully obvious that, interestingly enough, both the facts of the matter AND your linked-to post is/are too much for you to understand.
(Bachmann)I never questioned Barack Obama’s patriotism,…
in response to her earlier statement:
BACHMANN: Absolutely. I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views.
If you were able to comprehend standard English, you would notice that Bachmann questioned his patriotism. But given that you think that Obama’s comment(s) about “immigrants” (as cited [or as you would say, "sighted" or "sited"] in your idiotic blog) is anti-American, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
But there’s hope for you: my son’s elementary school has remedial reading classes. I think they’re only available to third-graders and younger, but you should fit in rather well. Reading your current stuff reminds me of Charly Gordon, before the operation.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:36 am
As a, usually, proud Minnesotan I would like to begin by saying I live in the 4th District and have nothing to do with Psycho Shelly holding office.
This freak MUST be removed from office. She’s a boil on the rear end of U.S. government and she’s a liar of the worst kind. She’s been making the rounds of local media trying to claim that: a. Mathews “trapped” her and b. she didn’t say what she said. This is BS.
This unbalanced woman eagerly, gleefully, went off on a seven minute scree, attacking “libruls” and her Congressional collegues, and now seeks to shift the blame and change the meaning of her words. Here’s the deal, Shelly. WE HAVE THE VIDEO!
Plus, her opponent has received nearly a million dollars from pro-Americans, across the country and around the world, who realize that extremists like the “Representative” don’t deserve a voice in our government.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:52 am
She’s a boil on the rear end …
What, did Rush finally have that sex-change operation he’s been hoping for?
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