PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

MICHELE BACHMANN’S PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDACY: D.O.A.

Although she has an appealing personality and appearance, Michele Bachmann has an insurmountable problem in trying to become president of the United States. She can’t control her mouth. Or, maybe it is her brain. Whatever. It is not possible, even in these wild and unsteady times, for someone to go from being a member of the House of Representatives to president with such a huge weight dragging her down. Most presidential candidates come from governors or senators, or people who have served in those high offices and then done other government service before running. No one in living memory has gone directly from the House to the presidency (Gerald Ford came closest, being appointed as vice-president under Nixon before Nixon resigned, but Ford was never elected to the office in his own right).

Bachmann has become well known in tea pot and Republican circles by popping off, saying things that might get attention on some obscure, slanted cable news program, but which are way out of line for someone who wants to have the most powerful office in the world. She has not learned to moderate what comes out of her mouth since she became a candidate. Suggesting that HPV vaccine might cause mental retardation was a final insult that even some of her most ardent supporters couldn’t take.

What’s the problem? It is impossible to say whether the difficulty springs from some inherent intellectual weakness (does she really believe these things?) or whether she just lacks a certain amount of verbal control. Does it really matter? Whatever the roots of the problem, a president can cause wars by being loose of tongue and every word coming from the person who holds that office is combed over by news agencies and governments around the world.  Speaking carefully, hoping to sound wise, is one of the number one job descriptions for any president of any party.

Bachmann’s inability to stop herself from saying just anything that floats into her mind suggests that her thinking itself is somehow deeply flawed. Maybe she just never learned to be careful about what she thinks and how she thinks it, so the verbal overflow is a product of a weirdly distorted mind. That would be the worse interpretation of her problem and one that seems most likely to me. Some people can dance, some people can sing, very few do both really well.

In any case, she can’t be president and she won’t be, because the more reasonable heads in the Republican party know that she would be too big a risk to take, even if she could win. As for those who are putting high hopes on the idea that a woman will soon be president, Bachmann’s candidacy, along with Palin’s flirtations with running and the frequent mention of Hillary Clinton as a fill-in for a shaky Obama mean that we have, or are, moving beyond the time when the idea of a woman president is too far out to consider. My guess is we will see a woman in the Commander-in-Chief role soon, maybe in 2016 or 2020. Once you get over the idea of a woman in the White House as something radical, it is only matter of time until it happens. Bachmann is all but finished and might have to withdraw soon.

Doug Terry

9.22.11 

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