Politics and Some Old Fashioned Values

Michele Bachmann’s politics might not be my cup of tea, but at least she seems to have the credentials of someone who has served the public for many years. She also appears to be no slouch when it comes to intellect, though I would question some of her conclusions.

What I don’t understand, however, is why politicians like her always insist they are not politicians? More curiously, why do so many voters swallow their swill?

The other day, when announcing her candidacy during an Iowa stopover, Bachmann asserted, “People are tired of politicians.” Okay, if that’s the case, why is she running? She is a professional politician. Anyone who is a three-term congresswoman is a professional politician. How can anyone who knows her think she is not a politician?

Michael Bloomberg was not a politician when he first ran for mayor of New York City. Now in his third term, Mayor Mike is definitely a politician. Rand Paul was not a politician when he ran for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky last year. If he seeks re-election in 2016, or heaven help us higher office, he no longer should be able to claim the mantle of an outsider.

Bachmann appears to be as scripted as they come. She’s chock full of sound bites, an impressive quality in this era of fly-by news coverage and casual listening by the electorate. That’s why it was all the more humorous when she misspoke at her Waterloo, Iowa, campaign launch by saying both she and John Wayne hailed from that small Iowa town. In case you haven’t heard, she got the wrong John Wayne mixed up with the conservative, Hollywood icon. John Wayne the actor was from a different Iowa community, Winterset. John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer, was from home town of Waterloo. Perhaps she'll turn her faux pas into a clever retort by saying she will serially kill government, program by program.

Oh well, in any campaign there are bound to be gaffes, like when Sarah Palin couldn’t remember the name of any newspapers she read, or lauded her foreign affairs expertise because she could see Russia from her porch.

Palin is the protagonist of a new documentary premiered Tuesday in Iowa designed to right the wrongs that have besmirched her political career. The Undefeated is said to portray her two and a half years as governor as among the most fulfilling of any full-term chief executive of Alaska. I haven’t seen the film, which Palin did not commission. But you have to wonder why the documentarian chose the name The Undefeated. Palin, did, after all, lose her last election in 2008.

According to Human Events, a conservative Web site, filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon “said he titled the film The Undefeated in part because Palin fights for 'the values that she stands for and represents -- the American spirit that is found on the frontier -- and those values cannot be defeated.’”

I’ve seen lots of Westerns in my time, many starring John Wayne. While they deified individual accomplishment, self-reliance and a refusal to give in, they also contained some themes that were decidedly un-Republican: bankers often were shady characters; land- and cattle barons along with railroad tycoons were selfish aggrandizers, willing to pay hired guns to do their dirty work; to get ahead, homesteaders and townspeople often had to band together in a sort of collective socialism; prostitution was an accepted, at least tolerated, social norm; a good lawman was one who enforced gun control over the citizenry. No one declared their Second Amendment rights when Marshal Dillon or Wyatt Earp demanded they put down their side arms.