5 worst right-wing moments of the week -- Michele Bachmann belongs with these lunatics

The former congresswoman blames Obama for Brussels, while Trump reminds us he's not just playing a lout on TV

Published March 28, 2016 4:15PM (EDT)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

AlterNet No one wants to think about Ted Cruz having sex. People also do not want to think about Donald Trump’s penis. And yet, both of these visions have been injected into our national psyche. Can a traumatized nation ever recover from these disturbing images? Probably not.

In the scheme of things, the week’s manufactured sex scandal was pretty tame; sliming some far-right Christian candidate’s sex life is just good, old-fashioned, dirty American politics, after all. And though it obviously upset Ted Cruz, it barely cracks the top 100 shittiest things Trump has ever done (or in this case is supposed to have done). Trump did bring his own uniquely low-brow sensibilities to the whole wife-measuring contest this week, but that is merely par for his nightmarishly insane misogynistic course.

These are the days when the insanity of Trump keeps outpacing the ability of even the most nimble-minded pundit to wrap one’s head around it all. But we will persevere. In that spirit, here are the most vile and ridiculous right-wing moments in the week that was.

1. Trump’s insane, free-associating musings with the Washington Post.

Probably more disturbing than the wife-measuring contest, or the pseudo-or-real-whatever sex scandal, was Trump’s interview with the Washington Post this week.

In the transcript for instance, there was this exchange:

Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan asked Trump if, as president, he would consider going against the Islamic State. Trump replied something along the lines of not being an instigator of hostilities, but being "a counter-puncher."

"Remember, one thing that everybody has said, I’m a counter-puncher," Trump said. "Rubio hit me. Bush hit me. When I said low energy, he’s a low-energy individual, he hit me first. He spent, by the way—he spent $18 million worth of negative ads on me. That’s putting...."

Ryan tried to get him back on track by helpfully pointing out that the question was about the Islamic State and nuclear weapons.

Trump replied: "I’ll tell you one thing, this is a very good-looking group of people here. Could I just go around so I know who the hell I’m talking to?"

This happened. It is not a sitcom.

And by the way, the nuclear question came after Trump’s several-minutes-long rambling defense of the size of his hands and the parts of the body people might think are related to hand size.

Where oh where are the men in white coats? We miss them so.

One thing we know, there will never be a release of the secret “Trump Unfiltered” tapes. He is always unfiltered. There is no filter. There is just dangerously hot air rushing out of every orifice.

2. Giuliani manages to be an even bigger a**hole than Trump.

Rudy Giuliani. The mere thought of him gets the stomach bile flowing. But his pal Bill O’Reilly (more stomach bile) invited him on the show Wednesday night to comment on the Brussels terrorism attack, we suppose because of Giuliani’s pseudo-911 national security credentials.

Windbag Giuliani took full advantage of the microphone, blaming Hillary Clinton for creating ISIL.

“She helped create ISIS,” Giuliani said. “Hillary Clinton could be considered a founding member of ISIS.”

Okay, now we are losing our lunch.

O’Reilly, posing as the more reasonable of the two, asked for clarification.

“By being part of an administration that withdrew from Iraq,” Giuliani elaborated. “By being part of an administration that let [former Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki run Iraq into the ground, so you forced the Shiites to make a choice. By not intervening in Syria at the proper time. By being part of an administration that drew 12 lines in the sand and made a joke out of it.”

Note he was in no way making the somewhat reasonable point that our interventions in the Middle East has arguably led to disastrous and unforeseen consequences. Rather he was arguing the opposite.

What should Clinton have done, O’Reilly wondered. Resign?

Yeupp, said Giuliani, because that “is what a patriot does.”

Ah. So that is what a patriot does.

3. Bill O’Reilly capitalized on Brussels to score points.

Everything that happens in the world that is bad is President Obama’s fault. Once you are fully on board with that premise, you can get a job at Fox News, maybe even rise all the way up in the ranks like Papa Bear Bill.

O’Reilly’s all too predictable commentary on the tragedy in Brussels was essentially trotting out the old refugee-hating saw, calling for more phone-tapping, fewer civil rights and less humane behavior in general.

In Belgium, where the bombers struck this week, intelligence agents cannot tap telephones nor can they look into computers, O’Reilly lamented. “It's against Belgian law. And police are restrained from raiding private homes from 9pm to 5am. No matter what you do. They can't come in and get you. And Belgium wonders why it's a terror target? The incredible laxity on immigration and the ultra-liberal policing have made Europe the easiest target in the world for ISIS and every other terror group.”

O’Reilly left his viewers with this, errr, thought?

Vive the American way of spying on all your citizens!

4. Glenn Beck agrees with Ted Cruz’s father that Ted is “divinely anointed” to be president.

It is not enough for Glenn Beck just to endorse Ted Cruz. It is not enough for him just to agree with Cruz’s far-right Christian agenda, his dangerous Islamaphobic and anti-government positions, and to speak out against that philistine Donald Trump. For Beck, there has to be an element of the divine in all of this, and hallelujah, he has found it.

The Lord has come, Beck told his listeners on Friday, and he has anointed Ted Cruz, who was “raised from birth” to save this nation to lead us out of the darkness.

Turns out a certain Baylor professor by the name of Thomas Kidd has argued that Ted Cruz is not the divinely anointed alternative to Trump.

Sacre bleu!

Not so, Dr. Kidd, Beck responded with great emotion. He knows, because he has prayed about it, alone, with his family and with his staff. And Beck has this rhetorical question for Kidd and other doubters of Cruz’ divine anointment: “Are we that inconsequential? Are we really not important enough for Him to raise someone up, at this critical juncture?”

Not a dry eye in the listening audience.

5. Michele Bachmann still believes everything happens for a reason.

Life outside of the United States Congress has done nothing to dim Michele Bachmann’s biblical and political passions. In her new career as an End Times prophet, she speculated this week that maybe God ordered the Brussels terrorist attack. Why would God do something like that? To humiliate Obama, she supposes.

She, like other insane right-wingers, was very upset about the president’s trip to Cuba, and speculated that the timing of the terrorist attack might not be a coincidence. Because there is no such thing as a coincidence and everything fits into a pattern, said the crazy person. According to Right Wing Watch, Bachmann was upset that Obama skipped out on the annual AIPAC propaganda fest, and distracted the press from that important event in favor of his work in Cuba.

“Maybe our president’s humiliation comes in a manner so devastating it makes one wonder whether the creator of humankind isn’t reminding this world of the inferiority of foolishness in the face of wisdom,” Bachmann said in WorldNetDaily.

Then she turned her attention to spouting deeply Islamophobic mythology and hatred, a real strongsuit for her.


By Janet Allon

MORE FROM Janet Allon


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Alternet Donald Trump Michele Bachmann Rudy Giuliani Ted Cruz