Can we just agree to wind up the Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum presidential runs now?
They're going nowhere of any great consequence and most of the country already knows it. They may even know it themselves.
Why am I impatient to see the back of them? Because they're raging fundamentalists posing as populists. Because they represent the most backward bigoted echoes of the past. Because the list of Americans they don't like is already too long.
And worst of all, because their social agenda is dragging the GOP into the past not the future.
Both Bachmann and Santorum last week signed the controversial 'pledge' pushed by conservative crackpot Bob Vander Plaats, of the Iowa based group The Family Leader.
The 'pledge' requires candidates to oppose same sex marriage, infidelity, pornography and for good measure Sharia law (which is a hot topic in Des Moines, apparently).
It wouldn't be a social conservative document if there wasn't also a swing at African Americans and sure enough Vander Plaats 'pledge' contained a section which said African American families were better off under slavery.
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'Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President.'
Nice, eh? This week Mitt Romney said he would not sign the 'pledge.' Andrea Saul told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Romney 'strongly supports traditional marriage,' but that the oath circulated last week by The Family Leader 'contained references and provisions that were undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign.'
Meanwhile another controversy surrounding Bachmann's candidacy has emerged. At her husband's counseling center, Bachmann & Associates, he is an enthusiastic practitioner of the completely discredited practice of ex-gay 'reparative' therapy. Gays, Bachmann has stated, are a part of Satan and should be opposed with Christian quack 'therapy.'
As Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson put it at the weekend, the 'pledge' Bachmann and Santorum signed is odious because it condemn gays, single parents, divorcees, Muslims, women who choose to have abortions 'and everyone else who doesn’t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting.'
These candidates have no chance, but we should oppose them all the more for selling their divisive snake oil (and in the case of the Bachmann's receiving government funding to do so) to the American public.
They're going nowhere of any great consequence and most of the country already knows it. They may even know it themselves.
Why am I impatient to see the back of them? Because they're raging fundamentalists posing as populists. Because they represent the most backward bigoted echoes of the past. Because the list of Americans they don't like is already too long.
And worst of all, because their social agenda is dragging the GOP into the past not the future.
Both Bachmann and Santorum last week signed the controversial 'pledge' pushed by conservative crackpot Bob Vander Plaats, of the Iowa based group The Family Leader.
The 'pledge' requires candidates to oppose same sex marriage, infidelity, pornography and for good measure Sharia law (which is a hot topic in Des Moines, apparently).
It wouldn't be a social conservative document if there wasn't also a swing at African Americans and sure enough Vander Plaats 'pledge' contained a section which said African American families were better off under slavery.
-----------------
READ MORE:
Michele Bachmann and the killer clown comparison
Bill Maher - Sarah Palin could 'absolutely' win presidential race - VIDEO
Irish grandmother an ‘icon and legend’ as driving force of Chicago
-----------------
'Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President.'
Nice, eh? This week Mitt Romney said he would not sign the 'pledge.' Andrea Saul told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Romney 'strongly supports traditional marriage,' but that the oath circulated last week by The Family Leader 'contained references and provisions that were undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign.'
Meanwhile another controversy surrounding Bachmann's candidacy has emerged. At her husband's counseling center, Bachmann & Associates, he is an enthusiastic practitioner of the completely discredited practice of ex-gay 'reparative' therapy. Gays, Bachmann has stated, are a part of Satan and should be opposed with Christian quack 'therapy.'
As Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson put it at the weekend, the 'pledge' Bachmann and Santorum signed is odious because it condemn gays, single parents, divorcees, Muslims, women who choose to have abortions 'and everyone else who doesn’t fit in a Norman Rockwell painting.'
These candidates have no chance, but we should oppose them all the more for selling their divisive snake oil (and in the case of the Bachmann's receiving government funding to do so) to the American public.
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