Leap of Faith (The transformation of Michele Bachmann)

[no_hypocrisy]

-snip-

Bachmann belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians. Her campaign is going to be a conversation about a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature, including Sarah Palin, to whom she is inevitably compared. Bachmann said in 2004 that being gay is “personal enslavement,” and that, if same-sex marriage were legalized, “little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal and natural and that perhaps they should try it.” Speaking about gay-rights activists, that same year, she said, “It is our children that is the prize for this community.” She believes that evolution is a theory that has “never been proven,” and that intelligent design should be taught in schools.

-snip-

Eidsmoe explained to me how the Coburn School of Law, in the years that Bachmann was there, wove Christianity into the legal curriculum. “Say we’re talking in criminal law, and we get to the subject of the insanity defense,” he said. “Well, Biblically speaking, is there such a thing as insanity and is it a defense for a crime? We might look back to King David when he’s captured by the Philistines and he starts frothing at the mouth, playing crazy and so on.” When Biblical law conflicted with American law, Eidsmoe said, O.R.U. students were generally taught that “the first thing you should try to do is work through legal means and political means to get it changed.”

“Christianity and the Constitution” is ostensibly a scholarly work about the religious beliefs of the Founders, but it is really a brief for political activism. Eidsmoe writes that America “was and to a large extent still is a Christian nation,” and that “our culture should be permeated with a distinctively Christian flavoring.” When I asked him if he believed that Bachmann’s views were fully consistent with the prevailing ideology at O.R.U. and the themes of his book, he said, “Yes.” Later, he added, “I do not know of any way in which they are not.”

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Bachmann usually describes herself vaguely as a “former federal tax litigation attorney,” but, in part because she was new, she didn’t do much litigating. I talked with six of Bachmann’s former colleagues in the small I.R.S. office where she worked. Three of them still work there. No one would speak on the record, but they all said that Bachmann was not on the job long enough to gain much experience.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/15/110815fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1UXD6o29F

[TxVietVet]

1. As more and more history about Bachmann comes out,

we'll find out that she's a flake and a result of the "peter principle". Hopefully, more and more authors will come out with more and more documentation on the goofy world of this batshitcrazy woman. I just love the picture of her on Time. "The eyes are windows to the soul." She's like Minnie Mouse....... f*ckin' Goofy. :rofl:

[Kalidurga]

2. I am afraid

that crazy eyes isn't going to get the nomination.

[catbyte]

3. Why didn't Lizza mention that the Swine Flu outbreak occured

during Jerry Ford's administration, NOT Carter's?!!? Bachmann wrong AGAIN.

[Coyote_Bandit]

4. If her circle of influence

was better known she may never have been elected to anything.

Too bad those influences have not been better documented.

[TxVietVet]

5. All these fundies have a serious problem.

Like the "Family". Their perception of reality is seriously flawed. Americans should be aware of these sick puppies. I remember, as a kid, watching Oral Roberts healing the sick on TV. Black and white TV. Roberts and his family threw away millions of donated dollars on a lavish lifestyle and overbuilt a huge hospital. Professional pulpit pimps.