"This isn't about the environment. It's about the cash. "

It isn't about either of them and you know it, you're just trying to change the subject. It's about this woman and her irresponsible statements. And it isn't a one-time aberration, She's gone on public record about how anyone who isn't on her side is unamerican and how the press and the congress should be purged of "people who hate the country". I realize her rants are protected by free speech, and even her calls for armed insurrection are not to be taken seriously, but that is no reason to make excuses for these wackos and to defend them just because they happen to promote your policies. Oh, and I actually read that "Joan Rivers" call-to-arms link. That had nothing to do with politics, it was a celebrity fluff piece. Just what are you trying to pull?

Your response was not the appropriate one, that Bachmann's remarks were out of line regardless of the alleged provocation or even of any fundamental truth that might be lurking behind them. Neither did you defend them as appropriate, which would have been wrong, but at least would have demonstrated consistency. No, you instead launched into a harangue about cap-and-trade and taxes meant to distract the debate from her bad judgement and mean-spiritedness and to shift it onto the issues instead. Your bait and switch tactics don't work here anymore, TB, we've got your number.

Bachmann is the perfect example of all ideologues, whether they be right or left, but she also represents a toxic contagion of view that has thoroughly infected even the most mainstream elements of the "Conservative" movement, and a major reason why so many thoughtful people don't just disagree with the Right, but are disgusted by it. It's not so much the policies they oppose or propose, it's the viciousness with which they attack those who disagree with them even in the slightest, how they are ready to abandon all pretense of civil discourse and democratic debate and accuse any opposition or criticism as unpatriotic. Of course, they alone reserve the right to define what "patriotic" means. It's getting so that Conservatives as a group are starting to sound more and more like Michael Moore and Al Sharpton.