Well, Anderson Cooper is not buying it, and last night called Bachmann out for her sudden shyness about same-sex equality.
Cooper points out that Bachmann is likely avoiding such questions because she's running for president and such anti-gay notions won't go over well with the American voter. He also notes that Bachmann was invited to join in the conversation, but no one from her camp returned CNN's calls.
As with Sarah Palin, the media keeps the focus as frequently on Bachmann’s verbal gaffes as on her political positions.
“It does seem that female politicians get caricatured more harshly than men. They seem to get caricatured more quickly,” Jessica Wakeman, a writer for women's pop culture blog The Frisky, told TheWrap.
Also read: Newsweek's Michele Bachmann Cover Unlikely to Give Mag What It Needs Most
Bachman’s perky looks and anti-establishment views were on display in last week’s hotly debated Newsweek cover story, which plastered a shot of a loony-eyed Congresswoman alongside the headline “The Queen of Rage.”
Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin took the magazine to task, saying Newsweek “... resorted to recycling bottom-of-the-barrel moonbat photo cliches about conservative female public figures and their enraged ‘crazy eyes.
On Tuesday, pictures emerged with a rival GOP candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, conspicuously munching on a similarly prodigious corndog. Whether those photos will rise to the same level of scrutiny as those of Bachmann remains to be seen.
Not that Bachmann has exactly discouraged the gender double standard. The press may scrutinize her outfits, just as they do the getups worn by Hillary Clinton and Palin. But as a recent New Yorker profile of the politician documents, Bachmann is singularly obsessed with appearances, refusing to be photographed in informal clothes.
“The glamour-puss element to their candidacy is partly imposed, but partly encouraged by them as well,” Bruce Cain, professor of political science at UC Berkeley, told TheWrap. “Once the media senses a person is more a glamour-puss than a substance person, they will press you with the kind of factual questions they might not push on other candidates.”
There’s no denying that Bachmann is a problematic figure for feminists who might be compelled to rise to her defense.
Bachmann’s stances on the debt ceiling or the Iraq War fail to generate the same attention as the time she confused John Wayne’s Iowa hometown with that of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, or when she wished Elvis Presley a happy birthday on the anniversary of his death.
She's certainly not the first female politician to face scrutiny that seems inappropriately harsh -- Hillary Clinton is often indelicately labeled a shrew for the slightest display of assertiveness.
But it's Bachmann's very intelligence that always seems up for debate.
And willingly or not, she seems to invite comparisons with Sarah Palin.
“She does fill the Palin niche,” Cain said. “They’re both media-genic. They have the capacity to say in snappy sentences things that are often controversial, and they can state their policy ideas in snarky one liners. That’s important, because much of modern campaigning is by electronic media and social media, so they come across well on TV, radio, tweets and YouTube.”
Taking a page from the former Alaska governor, Bachmann has also demonstrated a tenuous relationship with facts and a creative interpretation of American history, such as her much derided claims that the Founding Fathers worked “tirelessly to end slavery."
Like Palin, she has also engaged in a love-hate relationship with the press corp. She craves its attention, but refuses to answer questions about her more controversial beliefs on homosexuality and Dominionism, a view among conservative Christians that they should take control of secular institutions.
To Walsh’s way of thinking, the marriage questions and the photo shoots are less offensive than the constant comparisons with Palin.
“They always say she’s the smart Sarah Palin; she’s never the pragmatic Ron Paul or the Christian right Ron Paul,” Walsh said. “She and Rick Perry have a lot in common, so why is she not compared to Rick Perry? Women have to go in the women candidate silo.”
It’s also left Palin in the unusual position of ceding the klieg lights to Bachmann, leaving her own presidential ambitions, if indeed she has any, in jeopardy.
That Palin has been eclipsed by Bachmann can also be chalked up to a series of political miscues ranging from her ill-considered “blood libel” comments following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to a bus tour of historical sites that produced only one highlight reel worthy moment, a rambling re-imagining of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride.
The consensus is Bachmann’s Tea Party views and penchant for putting her foot in her mouth will prevent her from ever winning the Republican nomination, but her technicolor conservatism has helped her stand out in a field of staid men in grey flannel suits.
At least, that was the case, until the cowboy boot-wearing Rick Perry dropped his figurative 10-gallon hat in the ring last week.
No comments:
Post a Comment