A Slightly Tougher Audience Than The Sunday Morning Talking Heads

[filkertom]

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been challenged to a debate/fact test on civics and the U.S. Constitution by a tenth-grade student.

I love the idea of having it hosted and moderated by Rachel Maddow. But I bet it's not going to happen. As was pointed out in the post, "Bachmann is famously reluctant to put herself in positions where she might have to talk to someone who disagrees with her."

Comments

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Tenth-grade students are a notoriously tough audience, given the right to ask questions at all.
Most authorities like to make them be quiet...

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Funny, but it would be depressing.

As soon as Amy started running rings around her, Rep. Bachmann would denounce her as a "fresh-mouthed smarty-pants", insult her zits, her weight, or her choice of clothes, and tell her that she must study books all the time because she's a loser who can't get a date.

And then polls would show Bachmann gaining popularity after proving she's "tough".

I don't think I could stand it.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Unless the audience knows history and the Constitution, victory will go to the more experienced politician. The ability to work a crowd has been shown to beat out a command of the facts.

[saganth.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think a politician engaging in that behavior toward a minor during a public debate would likely draw the *worst* attention toward said politician. Oh I'm sure there'd be a number of screwed-up people who would just assume bad things of a 10th-grader, but it would still be a very bad move on Bachmann's part. Most likely, however, the debate won't happen at all.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Since November 2010, I no longer have faith in the American people to have the sense to not vote for Trump/Palin, or Greg Stillson, or a six foot steaming pile of shit...no matter how stupid, evil, or dangerously unhinged they appear in public.

Case in point: Bachmann herself has been re-elected three times. In Minnesota, not Florida or Texas.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I wonder if she'll call the student a fascist when she asks difficult questions, like when Gingrich got asked about his affairs.

Kind of hard to whine "gotcha" questions from someone who is probably not old enough to drive.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the laugh Tom. It's been a rough week. My buddy kitty was diagnosed with diabetes yesterday and I was devastated. Twelve years ago I lost another cat to that disease. I won't go into the details. But reading this was a good pick me up. (Also according to the vet, there's been a lot of progress made in that area in the past 10 years.)

Now if everyone would eat the expensive food I had to buy.

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

She also tends to stay away from people who have ACTUAL facts. A 10th grader would fry her.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

My money would be on the kid...

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

In my universe (I recently moved to the near-future) the debate already happened, and the kid won. Also, the crazy right-wingers alienated enough of the 60+ voting bloc to totally lose both houses in 2012, the dems have a 2/3ds majority in the house and senate, Obama got reelected by a landslide against Sarah Palin, 5 conservative Supreme Court justices retired at the same time, and the Tea Party folded after none of their candidates got any votes at all from anyone. Also, there is finally peace in the middle east after aliens with superior technology invaded and destroyed all of humanity's weapons.

That's the future I moved to. Unfortunately, there are others. But I choose not to live in those neighborhoods.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Question: In your dream scenario, who did the Democrats manage to capitulate to?

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

A radical leftist grassroots organization, kind of like a Bizarro-world tea party, who are gaining power and popularity and are on the cover of Time magazine.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I think saganth has the right thought here. It's a no-win situation for Bachmann, because if she does run circles around the 10th grader, you'll have the liberals screaming, "How could you do that to her?"

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Gee, I wish I knew insulting somebody's weight, clothes and complexion constituted "running circles "around somebody" when it came to expressing one's knowledge of civics and the U.S. Constitution. It'd have made all those tests I had to take in social studies class a helluva lot easier.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I'm talking about the Constitution. Ms. Bachmann proves that she does know more about the Constitution than this 10th grader, and as I said, you have the pundits screaming that Bachmann is a bully for beating up on this poor little girl. Figuratively speaking, of course.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

You're talking about a woman who insisted the Founding Fathers didn't believe in slavery & so abolished it, and then when confronted with the facts (including slavery being enshrined in the Constitution) responded with profanity & a refusal to acknowledge she was wrong.

I question her ability to succeed.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

I Facebooked about this yesterday after catching the story on Yahoo News.
The comments from self declared Republicans/Taebaggers/conservatives/Bachmann supporters were appalling.

They all insisted this was "clearly" a plant, as no REAL high school student could (or would) write this, so she was clearly acting for her liberal/democrat/socialist parents or teachers (or both), or that she was a "whole clothe" (sic) fiction created by a "communist agitater" (sic).

Furthermore there was a lot of insistence that Bachmann would win because she knows and believes in the "real" Constitution (the one written by the Founding Fathers who didn't believe in slavery & who thusly freed the slaves, I guess?) whereas this girl would only know the "liberal lie" version of the Constitution as it's been falsely taught to be a "living document" in our schools for too long. (I won't even go in to the comments about how if she debated Bachmann she'd need to be searched for radio gear her "puppet masters" would use to feed her messages.)

One example that was given for why Bachmann knows the "real" Constitution and this girl doesn't is that the "original intent" was never for the First Amendment to apply to the states, only to the federal government, and so accordingly states kept official state religions & the Founder's intent was that they SHOULD be able to enforce them.

Of course the guy who said that conveniently left out any mention of the 14th amendment, which caused the BoR to effectively apply to state laws as well, and moreover the REASON for the 14th amendment, which was tat states deciding to ignore laws, instead picking and choosing what they wanted to use in the name of "state's rights" (especially that one about keeping people of certain colors as property) led to a SMALL conflict that caused the 14th to be created.

So not only did he ignore one of the reasons the Founders made the Constitution strong & adaptable (as opposed to the earlier, weaker, and state-centric Articles of Confederation) and advance a ONE POINT note about what the fedgov shouldn't be able to enforce (he's fine with states imposing religion, I bet he'd scream if they banned guns!) but in skipping over the 14th he ignores proof that the Constitution IS a living document designed to grow & change with time. Arguments about the judiciary (which he excoriates as "black robed fascists") aside, since they were clearly intended to interpret the laws, the very existence of the 14th and the amendment process which created it gives the lie to his entire position that the Constitution was EVER intended to be a fixed immutable thing locked solely in to an unknowable "intent" that generally only surfaces in the same manner as "biblical intent," which is to say when someone wants to cherry-pick parts from it to impose Draconian sanctions on others.

Sadly, there were far too many such comments, and many with very high ratings. It seems most of said commentators failed to receive a level of education about government and civics that matches Amy's, and so have fallen prey to the vicious lies and distortions of Bachmann's ilk. Worse, their voices dominate the public spectrum and more of them vote. So Amy's voice gives me hope, but the responses frighten me.