Bachmann Scores as Scourge of Dems

And she's the authentic voice of the GOP base
By Caroline Miller,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 24, 2009 7:40 AM CDT
Bachmann Scores as Scourge of Dems
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., gestures as she speaks at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008.   (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

George Will shows the love (and shovels on the metaphors) to Michele Bachmann in today's column, lauding her for being an effective "burr under Democrats' saddles," even though she 
is also a "petite pistol that occasionally goes off half-cocked." Will recounts Bachmann's impulsive decision to run for state senator, despite a houseful of foster kids, as well as four of her own, and her two congressional victories—the last one nearly scuttled by her casual remark 18 days before the election that Obama's views are "anti-American."

He notes approvingly one of the comments that earned her opprobrium from the left—that the Obama administration's takeover of GM was "gangster government." And he calls her "an authentic representative of the Republican base." She's a social conservative in the Sarah Palin mold, "but she knows that economic hardship and government elephantiasis now trump other issues." (More Michele Bachmann stories.)

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