You know how every year you hear somebody say that such-and-such a color is the new black? Well it seems that Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann is such an icon of rightwing goofiness that now that she has announced her intention to retire at the end of her current term, commentators are searching for the new Michele Bachmann. And guess who the first contender to be named is? Missouri’s own Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4), author of Running God’s Way, a guide for rightwing Christians in politics, famous locally as the Tea Party darling and mostly closeted birther who is also the recipient of massive governmental farm subsidies.

Makes sense. the Tea Party queen stands down while one of the possible number one ladies in waiting takes the crown. Charles Pierce, who is leading the hunt for Bachmann’s successor, notes that among the  points in Hartzler’s favor is her intellectual acuity:

Among other things, Ms. Hartzler apparently believes that the heathen Chinee are spying on us through our toasters.

and her courageous stand for religious freedom for the right kind of Christians:

She’d also rather the government not tolerate those “fringe religions” because the First Amendment says that Congress Shall Make No Law Unless Vicky Hartzler Thinks Your God Is Freaky.

I’d say Vicky has a good chance of becoming the new Michele Bachmann, but I want to know if her election would mean that Missouri will become known as the Bermuda Triangle of Crazy? Do you feel proud that we’re first-off in the running for the crazy crown, or what?

ADDENDA: This is one account of the record of achievement that Hartzler has to equal or surpass in order to become the new Bachmann.

*Slightly edited.

All this time, I’ve been reading about Mitt Romney’s reluctance to pick up on the Michele Bachmann anti-Islam crusade as an example of his political cowardice. Bachmann’s efforts to instigate a Muslim witch-hunt were so egregiously hateful that even a small number of GOPers – those who still have a remnant of conscience – were willing to risk the ire of their mean-minded base and call her out.  I assumed Mitt’s reluctance to discuss the issue reflected the dilemma of a man who, like John McCain, knows better,  but who can’t afford to alienate his only real supporters – the folks who hate Obama and Muslims enough to vote for Romney just because he isn’t either.

Seems, though, that I was wrong – either that or Mitt’s cowardice just hasn’t paid off as regards the aforementioned base. None other than St. Louis fringewing luminary, Dana Loesch, wants us to read Mitt’s silence on the topic of Bachmann as a simple failure to take up the cudgels for free speech, which she presents as a potentially useful political gambit (via DailyKos):

If I were — which I’m not, I’m not advising him, he couldn’t afford me — it just seems so easy to do. Like, if they’re asking him, “What is your thought on the Chick-fil-A story, what do you think about Michelle Bachmann and the Muslim Brotherhood?” he could say, “I don’t have a problem with free speech, do you?”

And that report that Congresswoman Bachmann — the inquiry that they presented towards Congress — that raised a lot of questions. And who’s against free speech?

Who, indeed, is against free speech? Not I certainly. Michele Bachmann has every right to speak freely – but that does not make the content of her speech right correct, nor does it mean that others should let her get away with inciting hateful action without speaking out. I, for example, also have the right to speak freely and point out that Bachmann’s a hateful moron, which in no way contravenes Bachmann’s free speech rights.  So if Loesch is saying that folks should feel free to speak their minds, I agree – and I’ll go a bit further even and say that it would be great if Mitt Romney would do so and, just once, be up front with us about what he really thinks – and not continually try to game the political angles, even in the way suggested by Loesch.

After all, you can only go so far in politics and avoid all specifics. However, it’s also reasonably clear that you can’t go too far at all if you’re given to defending obvious bigotry. Nobody asked Mitt if Bachmann had a right to say what she did, just whether or not he agreed with the content, her call to take action against Muslims in government. Which fact just might explain why Mitt has hesitated to take advice of the sort Loesch is handing out.

And, just for fun, what’s that business about Mitt Romney (multi-billionaire beneficiary of political donors who fit the same description) not being able to afford Loesch? She’s trying to say she’s too principled to work for his prevaricating likes, or is it the case that the poor baby has delusions of grandeur? It’s hard to say, of course, since her advice seems to consist of just about the same drivel he’d get from any random Tea Party celebrant.

*Last sentence edited for grammar.

Representative Michele Bachmann (r).

None of the others even come close.

Representative Michelle Bachmann (r): …But what I want them to know is, just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that’s the kind of spirit that I have, too…  

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, in 1907.

[emphasis added]

The republican governing philosophy makes a whole lot more sense now, in a Jonathan Swift non-ironic sort of way:

Michele Bachmann promises to be a clown and kill teenagers

Posted on: June 27, 2011 4:09 PM, by Greg Laden

…And she still doesn’t know where anything is…

Michele Bachmann promised, in an interview associated with her announcement to run for President of the United States (POTUS) and Effective Leader of the Free World (ELFW), that she would become a professional clown and murder dozens of teenage boys and young men.

Or, perhaps, she is just confused…

Last month, when Michele Bachmann put out the list of the first members of her new congressional Tea Party Caucus, I noted the predictable presence of Teetotaler Todd Akin (R-2nd), and asked where the rest of the Missouri Republican delegation was. The answer is that, with one exception, Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-9th), they are still missing.

It might be that Roy Blunt (R-7th), Jo Ann Emerson (R-8th), and Sam Graves(R-6th) still have some capacity for embarrassment. Or that, lacking the sincere conviction that practically oozes from, say, Todd Akin, they want more wiggle room. They may well be worrying about constituents who would think twice about a congressperson whose goal is to “serve as a listening ear to tea parties.” (Are you, like me, wondering what kind of ears aren’t “listening” ears?)

However, a report from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) suggests that those who haven’t yet joined the Tea Party Caucus membership might want to reconsider in the future since:

… analysis shows that the top contributors to the 50 members of a newly-established congressional Tea Party caucus — which so far includes only Republicans — are health professionals, retirees, the real estate industry and oil and gas interests.

Furthermore, donations from health professionals, oil and gas interests and Republican and conservative groups are, on average, higher for Tea Party caucus members than for members of the House of Representatives in general and even their fellow House Republicans.

I have to admit my first reaction was so what? These are exactly the groups I would expect to be lavishing funds on legislators on the Tea Party bandwagon – and many of the Missouri politicians that haven’t joined the caucus get plenty of moola from those groups as well (you can check out their totals by industrial and other donor groups on CPR’s OpenSecrets.org).

However, I began to get the point when I read further:

Tea Party activists have already established political action committees to fund favored candidates. But the formation of the caucus may make it easier to track which industries’ interests are aligned with the movement.

If the pattern of giving that CRP has described becomes more marked, perhaps we’ll see more movement toward the Tea Party caucus from the rest of the Missouri GOP in the future. Political scientist, Jim Hensen, claims that “The guys that are forming the caucus in Congress are trying to, you know, ride the train …”. Could that be the gravy train he’s talking about?

Okay, it’s late and I am admittedly fit for nothing serious, but when I came across this TPM review of the new Michele Bachmann comic, a crudely drawn electric bulb lit up in the psychic balloon that is always floating above my head just in case I get an idea. The latest issue of the Bachmann comic series is filled with actual statements about gays made by Bachmann, the current Queen of Crazy Republicanland – and, while tragic, they’re also a scream. Earlier issues emphasize her other pseudo-political preoccupations to equal effect.

Starting from the premise that ridicule is the best way to neutralize folks who are both obscene and absurd, wouldn’t it be just loverly if somebody put out a series of comic books about some of our Missouri crazies? Wouldn’t you buy titles like, say,  Calamity Jane Cunningham Hunts the Disappearing Constitution, Cynthia Davis at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, Todd Akin’s Fantastic American History,The Godfather Blunt, or Strange Climate Science with Blaine Luetkemeyer? There are almost unlimited possibilities.  

Alternatively, following the example of baseball cards, one could just print the most outrageous statements made by our fringewing celebs on collectible cards – or maybe put together a flash card game where one would have to guess who said what. So much of what these folks say manages to be so appalling and yet so amusingly fantastical at the same time that I can’t understand why some enterprising soul hasn’t already done something along these lines – perhaps, as a handy campaign aid?