Michelle Bachmann ... Just say No

If you make a mistake, take responsibility for it. If you are an elected representative, or are seeking to become one, don’t treat your political rivals like enemies since they are just people who have a different vision and are people you might have to work with to really solve problems. These are simple rules and we should demand that our elected representatives abide by them. If they don’t, we shouldn’t vote for them. Michelle Bachmann is not abiding by these rules, so we shouldn’t vote for her. Every time she makes a mistake, she seems to be looking for someone to blame (the press, her rivals, the circumstances). She also has a habit of treating those with views that are different from her own as different on a fundamental level … as less American and less hard working and ordinary. Her response to her John Wayne/John Wayne Gacy gaffe epitomizes this problem. In an appearance on Fox News, she pointed at all the gaffes made by her “enemy” President Obama. So, her response to making a mistake was to say that someone else had made more. This is hardly taking responsibility. She also labeled her rival as the “enemy.” The President of the United States is not an enemy. He may have views quite different from your own. He may be doing a bad job. He isn’t an enemy. That kind of thinking almost by definition rules out cooperation and compromise. If the other side is the enemy and you never make mistakes, where is the place for compromise? The answer is that there isn’t a place for it … and there shouldn’t be a place for people like Michele Bachmann in our government.