The Anti-Bachmann

In Star Trek physics, matter and antimatter cannot touch or the universe will be destroyed. Something like that. For all we know it might be true, which is why you never see Michelle Bachmann and Keith Ellison shake hands. Bachman is loathed on the left – she’s an idiot! Pint-sized Palin! – but I’m not sure the right loathes Ellison; he’s just another one of those predictable liberals, with a multiculti sheen to make the base feel extra-good about voting for him, because George Bush hated Muslims and wanted a war on Islam.

A small newspaper devoted to my neighborhood ran an interview with Ellison, presuming perhaps that everyone around here is a supporter. Probably the case. If so, my shoulders slump at the thought that my dear neighbors believe as he does. First of all, the November elections came as a surprise:

“I was actually surprised we lost the House,” Ellison said. “I was thinking we were going to lose some seats, because every year since 1930 the part in power would lose seats during the midterm election.”

Except for FDR in ’32 and ’34, Clinton in ’98, and Bush in ’02. But Michelle Bachman is stupid! He blamed the loss on the usual reasons: the base didn’t turn out, the base didn’t think the Obama administration had made much progress, the administration did a bad job of communicating its successes, and death-rays beaming from the eyes of a 900-foot-tall Karl Rove carved voters in half until the streets ran red with the blood of the innocent. (I made that up.)

He’s worried that the election will ruin the prospects of high-speed rail between Minneapolis and Chicago:

“(The Republicans) don’t like rail, they want to build more roads and they want more cars on the road. These people don’t believe global warming exists at all.”

Pretty much, yeah, but you say this like it’s an insult. A note on rail: they built a 41-mile commuter rail line in Minnesota, and I actually supported it; commuter rail to the far-flung suburbs is not necessarily a bad idea, especially when the people face 90-minute commutes on busy roads. It’s a year old. Ridership is running 20% below projections. Well, live and learn.

Here’s the meat of the pith of the gist, though: he’s asked about extending all the tax cuts, permanently.

“We simply can’t afford to do that. We just don’t have the money. If we just extended the middle-class cat cuts and let the rich people’s tax cuts expire, that would still cost us $700 billion. We don’t have $700 billion.”

Unless it’s for high-speed rail.

Ellison may actually believe this. Ellison may believe tax cuts require the government to borrow $700 billion to give to people. Now, we do borrow money to give to people, but that’s called Social Security and the rest of the entitlements. If keeping tax cuts in place “costs” the government money, then driving past a motel without stopping and checking in “costs” Holiday Inn.

Maybe he’s saying this because it’s how they want to phrase the debate, and make the credulous think Uncle Sam is walking up to gold-plated mansions, holes in his shoes, weak from hunger, pushing a wheelbarrow full of money for the rich folk. And they make him use the servant entrance, too!

So he believes it, or he’s just saying it. A fool or a liar: your choice.

To which is supporters might respond: But Michelle Bachmann is an idiot!