Yesterday, I received yet another visit from Harry Priapus, the notorious Capitol Hill go-between, whose services are, as everyone here Inside the Beltway knows, for sale to the highest bidder – for any reason, at any time, anywhere there’s a four-star hotel, a five-star restaurant and a tasteful selection of escort services. Today, as the vicissitudes of his profession would have it, he was working for the Michele Bachmann presidential campaign, and, as usual, he was all business.
“No point in kidding ourselves, Collins,” he declared in a matter-of-fact tone as he plunked down on my office couch and took out a huge Cohiba Habanos Behike 200 × 25 millimeter limited edition Exquisito Diez Años Anejo “Castro Grande” Bay of Pigs Victory 50th Year Commemorative cigar – a stout Palestinian cedar box of which he gave me as part of the payment for our consultation, BTW, “that Bachmann [expletive] is crazy as a mattress full of whorehouse bedbugs. And damned if I know where she gets the money,” he paused with a lighter poised an inch from the cigar tip, “but she pays out like a [expletive] Vegas casino whale.” With that, he touched flame to tobacco and imbibed a lingering puff. “I guess those Holy Rollers out in the Heartland must be some kind of authentic True Believers to load a nutcase like her up with that kind of money.”
“My intuition,” I posited, “runs more in the direction of the Koch brothers, but I must admit, I can’t… prove it… in any legally binding sense… at the moment, anyway.”
“Well,” my guest allowed, “whoever’s behind her, they want her over there…” he glanced behind his shoulder out the picture window at the White House, “even more than Bebe Rebozo wanted to teabag Nixon. Listen, Collins, the reason I’m here is that the Bachmann camp is madder than a flock of scalded chickens at Rick Perry.”
“About what, specifically?” I inquired.
“Well, hell,” he grunted, “she came in first in the Iowa Republican Straw Poll and expected to make some hay out of that for a couple of weeks at least. But no sooner does Rick Perry declare his candidacy than the press starts fawning all over him like he [expletive] vanilla ice cream or something. What’s more, Perry’s running an average of fourteen points ahead of Bachmann in the polls at the moment. All her best and brightest are totally stumped.”
“You mean,” I asked, “Keith Nahigigan, who worked for John McCain – he’s stumped?”
“Yup.”
“Brett O’Donnell, who worked for McCain, George W. Bush and Sarah Palin – he’s stumped?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Ed Rollins – the Ed Rollins – who worked for George H. W. Bush, H. Ross Perot and Ronald Reagan – he’s stumped?”
“Each and every one of them,” Harry assured me, “is as stumped as a baby-boomer with an X-box.”
“And therefore,” I presumed, “they hired you to solve the mystery and figure out Rick Perry’s secret formula?”
“Pretty much,” he nodded. “And the obvious thing any Washington insider would do in a situation like that is ask you. Which of course is what I’m doing right now. So – what’s up with Rick Perry?”
“Well,” I cautioned, “once you hear it, you’re going to be amazed at how simple the answer is.”
“No problem,” he assured me as he slowly blew a series of concentric smoke rings in the air above his head. “I’ll kick myself in the [expletive] all the way to the [expletive] bank.”
“Okay. Perry does it,” I explained, “by being more outrageous than Bachmann. No sooner did he declare his candidacy than he started playing a game of one-upsmanship with her.”
Harry’s eyebrows went up quizzically. “Really? How so?”
“Look at the facts,” I recommended. “What’s practically the very first thing Perry said? That the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is a traitor, whom Perry and his buddies in Texas would deal with appropriately if given the opportunity. So, let’s read between the lines – Ben Bernanke is Aldrich Ames; he’s Robert Hanssen, he’s Nidal Malik Hassan, he’s John Walker, he’s Julius Rosenberg, he’s Benedict Arnold – and he ought to die, and Rick Perry offered to kill him, if somebody will just lure Bernanke down to Texas where they know how to deal with traitors properly. That’s not just a badly thought out, ill-conceived, off-the-cuff inflammatory remark; not merely some hostile, half-witted nattering; it’s certainly no easily-dismissed bit of violence-tinged, rabble-rousing soap box speech rhetoric – no, absolutely not! It’s a completely paranoid psychotic rave wherein the incumbent governor of US state calls for the murder of a duly appointed federal official, brilliantly reduced to an easily televised sound bite. And what was the effect? It didn’t just make liberals angry, it didn’t just make Democrats angry, it didn’t even just make the few remaining sane Republicans angry – no, it did far better than that! It made Karl Rove angry – so angry, he denounced Perry,thus escalating the story profile to maximum overdrive. You see? That’s the kind of material Bachmann’s going to have to deal with.”
“Well now, hold on there a minute,” Harry gently protested as he carefully rolled the first inch of ash off his cigar into the oversized alabaster ash tray on the coffee table in front of the couch, “I’d hardly say that Bachmann’s a slouch in the nutty talk department. She said that it’s ‘an interesting coincidence’ that swine flu broke out during the Obama and Carter administrations. You have to admit, that’s pretty Looney Tunes, right there – implying some kind of causal relationship between Democratic presidents and swine flu. Plus, of course, she was dead wrong about Carter – the swine flu outbreak happened when Gerald Ford was President. So besides it being a damned stupid thing to say in the first place, she also showed off some truly exceptional world-class ignorance on multiple levels. And hell, remember when she said, ‘There are hundreds and hundreds of Nobel Prize scientists who believe in Intelligent Design,’ and that there’s no need for Nancy Pelosi or anyone else to save the planet from global warming, because Jesus saved us from everything bad two thousand years ago? Didn’t the media give her national headline coverage when she made those statements? Seems to me that proves she can attract plenty of attention by running her mouth without putting her brain in gear first.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” I clarified, “I have utmost respect for Michele Bachmann’s ignorance, stupidity and cocksure lack of tact. It’s just that Perry has put the whole game in another league.”
“Oh, Bachmann’s major league, too, all right,” Harry assured me, “don’t you worry about that. You don’t go around claiming that the people who wrote the Constitution all worked tirelessly to eliminate slavery unless you can talk out your [expletive] with the best of them. And how about when she said, ‘If we took away the minimum wage, if it was, conceivably, gone – we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level,’ huh? Is that world-class obtuseness or not?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “that’s pretty obtuse, but…”
“And how about,” he interrupted, “when she said carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant because it’s natural and it’s safe to breath? Or when she said, ‘Not all cultures are equal’ in response to a reporter’s question about cultural diversity? I mean, is that an example of needlessly provocative bigotry or what? Come on, Tom, admit it – that’s about as good as race-baiting can get, this side of just shouting ‘[expletive], [expletive], [expletive]’ in front of the cameras.”
“I’m not saying Bachmann isn’t a talented conservative demagogue,” I carefully demurred, “with all of the qualifications necessary for effective appeal to every vile and base instinct of atavistic prejudice, it’s just that…”
“Hey,” Harry interjected, “remember when she claimed that gay people have a secret organization with a program of ‘desensitization’ in which they use propaganda to make normal people accustomed to them and their lifestyle and then cited The Lion King as an example? Remember when she said that the theme for that movie was written by a gay man, and then said that when children hear that, they get a message that ‘I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.’ Then she said, ‘If gay marriage goes through, children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal, natural and perhaps they should try it.’ Plus, there was that gem about the gay community being after ‘our children,’ as she put it, in order to molest them and turn them queer. And, what’s more, when it comes to irrational nonsense, Bachmann’s got real range – she’s not just limited to ridiculous unfounded claims about minorities, not by a long shot – that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She can make ridiculous, unfounded claims about anything under the sun. She said that Obama’s trip to India was costing the American taxpayers two hundred million dollars a day! She said that global warming is a New World Order conspiracy and a liberal hoax! She said the Democrats are turning the United States into a nation of slaves! Bottom line, it seems to me, that when it comes to spouting insane, irresponsible, half-baked, totally demented blithering bull-[expletive], Michele Bachmann doesn’t have to take a back seat to anyone!”
“You are aware,” I flatly stated, “that the pundits are already starting to write Bachmann off? Not only are they touting Sarah Palin and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as being ‘ahead’ of Bachmann – even though neither of them has even formally declared their candidacy – they’re also saying the smart money has it that Bachmann’s going to tank in New Hampshire.”
“I know,” Harry nodded as he tapped another inch of fine white ash from his cigar. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. If she wants to keep in the media spotlight, Bachmann needs to start saying things just as crazy as Perry does.”
“And not,” I cautioned, “one right after the other. She’s got to pace herself – say something crazy, wait for the reaction, respond, use the media attention judiciously to get her message across to the electorate – then drop her next lunacy bomb and repeat the process.”
“Got it,” Harry replied as he produced a notebook from within his briefcase and began to write. “Lob one out there, milk it for everything it’s worth for a while, and then fire another one. Okay. So, what should she say?”
“As a fundamentalist,” I began, “Bachmann interprets what St. Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans that the gathering of the Jews into Israel is an essential element for the Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, she should say that Obama’s policy on Israel proves he’s anti-Christ.”
“Proves he’s the Antichrist?” Harry exclaimed. “Is that what you just told me she should say?”
“No,” I clarified, “she shouldn’t say his Israel policy proves Obama is the Antichrist, she should say it proves he’s anti… Christ, get it? Don’t worry, half the media will report it as ‘the Antichrist,’ which will give Bachmann even more speech and photo opportunities where she can decry an incident where the press made a serious error, not her, and claim it proves they’re biased.”
“Brilliant!” Harry murmured as he furiously puffed and scribbled.
“It’s also well known,” I observed, “that Bachmann is a follower of Francis Schaffer, who contributed significantly to Dominionism, a fundamentalist philosophy based on the twenty-sixth verse of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, the one where God gives man, “dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth…’ So, she should say that not only is America a Christian country, it should also have a Christian government.”
“Isn’t that going to [expletive] off the Jews?” Harry inquired with more than a trace of trepidation.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “I’m sure it will. And it will draw howls of protest from the Moslems, the Buddhists and the Hindus, not to mention the atheists and the ACLU. All of which will cause a media reverberation that will last for weeks. So she better save that one for when the campaign needs a one-two punch at a crucial time. What she’ll say in reply, of course, is that Christians are very tolerant people, because Jesus preached tolerance. Therefore a Christian US government would never exclude people from office on the basis of their religion – the Constitution prohibits that, of course. What she is calling for is a US government built on Biblical Truth, that’s all. Then she can stand back and watch the talking heads mention her name over and over again as they debate what in blue blazes she meant by that.”
“Excellent,” Harry cooed, rolling another inch of ash from his cigar. “What else you got?”
“Bachmann’s a follower of David A. Noebel, Director General of Summit Ministries, legendary proponent of American Christian culture and founding member of the John Birch Society. He’s the author of the famous John Birch pamphlet, Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles, which warned Americans that the Beatles were a Communist front using techniques based on hypnotism to infiltrate the minds of American youth with Soviet propaganda. Since the Obamas invited Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., the rapper who goes by the name ‘Common,’ to perform at the White House, Bachmann should claim that rap music is a leftist plot to brainwash American youth with subliminal Socialist indoctrination.”
“Okay,” Harry acquiesced, “but I’m concerned – how should she reply to the inevitable uproar about a statement like that?”
“Predict that the rappers themselves will prove her right,” I told him confidently. “And believe me, they won’t be able to control themselves – rappers will be falling all over each other, trying to come out with songs that denounce Bachmann. And just think of all the free publicity that’s going to provide!”
“All right, now I understand,” Harry grunted with satisfaction, puffing excitedly on his cigar. “Turn the Democrats’ own weapons back on them – very subtle, indeed. Next?”
“Claim that the Democrats are in favor of implanted mind-control microchips broadcasting subconscious commands from UN headquarters.”
“Mind-control microchips, check.”
“Call for the impeachment of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Maria Sotomayor on the grounds of judicial incompetence.”
“Impeach liberal Supreme Court justices, check.”
“Demand construction of a monument to Barry Goldwater in Washington – to balance the Martin Luther King monument.”
“Goldwater monument in Washington, check.”
“Then demand another one for George Wallace.”
“Wallace memorial, check.”
“Promise to replace Thomas Crawford’s statue of Freedom on top of the US Capitol with a statue of Jesus.”
“Jesus statue on top of the US Capitol, check.”
“Then promise to make Easter and Pentecost national holidays.”
“Right,” Harry concurred as he flicked cigar ash once more, “she can declare that Christmas just isn’t enough – and never has been.”
“Good embellishment there, Harry. Okay, next, she should play off the Civil War sesquicentennial by selecting an appropriate commemorative ceremony below the Mason-Dixon line to say that the war wasn’t about slavery, it was about atheist liberals attacking pious Southern Christians.”
“The Civil War was a religious conflict, check.”
“She should announce that, if elected, she will push through a Constitutional amendment to fix the debt ceiling so it can never be raised, ever again.”
“Fixed debt ceiling, check. Okay,” Harry chortled with a smile, regarding his cigar butt with satisfaction before stubbing it out and packing up his notebook. “Spend my remaining time for this consultation writing up a list with some more stuff like that. It looks like,” he mused, glancing at his platinum Rolex Yachtmaster Custom, “if I leave now I’ll have time to stop by the Citronelle Lounge for a snack before I have to catch a plane at National Airport and fly down to South Carolina.”
“Certainly,” I responded as I rose to shake his hand in farewell. “Try the Nebraska rib eye steak in mushroom sauce.”