The Bachmann Legacy

Washington, DC. With the surprise announcement that Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) will be retiring after her current term expires, pundits, Tea Party members and comedians have been deeply concerned that there would be no one left to bring the guano with the same elan and predictability.

Of course the Republican Party has an embarrassment of riches in this area when it comes to their male representatives in both Houses, with people like Louis Gohmert, Ted Cruz, Steve Stockman, Rand Paul and, well just about all of them. But there is something special about a woman representative ventilating a hysterically unhinged point of view on the national stage over and over and over.

Do not fear. Ready to enter the breach and don the mantle Ms. Bachmann unceremoniously dropped is Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn. With the visage and personality of a demon-possessed kewpie doll, the complete lack of anything resembling morals and an apparently life-threatening allergy to the truth, Blackburn is more than capable of delivering the full-Bachmann.

Evidence of this surfaced only this week, when Ms. Blackburn, appearing on Meet the Press, chided former White House advisor David Axelrod for having the temerity to suggest that women need a law assuring them of equal pay for equal work.

"They don’t want the decisions made in Washington. They want to be able to have the power and the control and the ability to make those decisions for themselves" the Congresswoman stated with certainty.

And this is not mere theater. Ms. Blackburn stands by her principles, as she proved when she voted against the Lily Ledbetter Act.

Of course this is just one issue. On abortion, gay rights, gun control, healthcare, energy, the economy, etc., Marsha Blackburn will keep the Bachmann legacy alive by ignoring the facts, reaching new heights of hyperbole and stoking the fears of the dangerously benighted and ill-informed.

So Americans can stop fretting that politics as a frighteningly deranged absurdist theater is at an end. It is not. Michele Bachmann's legacy will live on. We have Eisenhower Republicans, Goldwater Republicans and Reagan Republicans. Some day, in institutions for the criminally insane all over this great land, people will be referring to themselves as Bachmann Republicans. And if Marsha Blackburn has her way, Blackburn Republicans.

©2013 Kona Lowell