Washington Sketch: Milbank on Michele Bachman, More

Post columnist Dana Milbank serves as the capital's foremost critic of political theater.

He was online Friday, Nov. 6 at Noon ET to take your questions and comments about the things politicians say -- and the absurd ways they find to say them.

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Dana Milbank:

Good afternoon, Freedom Fighters, patriots and Sketchreaders.

Let us talk about Michele Bachmann and the House of Rothschild's use of President Obama to summon the antichrist.

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Washington, DC : Thanks for your column today - did it occur to Michele Bachmann that "storming the Capitol" on Nov. 5 (Guy Fawkes Day) might not have been great timing, or am I just too much of a history-dweeb-smartypants?

Dana Milbank:

I am as ever indebted to the erudite Sketchreaders. I didn't realize it was Guy Fawkes Day, or I surely would have worked in the poem:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring. (Holla*)

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

And what should we do with him? Burn him!

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Brooklyn, NY: You noted in your piece that the pair of inane, 5x8-foot "Dachau" banners were held aloft just a few rows into the crowd. House Minority Leader John Boehner addressed this rally, yet his spokesman told Glenn Thrush of Politico the following: "Leader Boehner did not see any such sign. Obviously, it would be grossly inappropriate."

Based on your observations, is it remotely possible that Boehner could have avoided seeing the sign? Do you feel that he and his Republican colleagues will be pressed on their association with such incendiary imagery?

Dana Milbank:

It would have been impossible for Boehner and the others to miss the poster of Obama in whiteface/Joker makeup, because it was just a few feet behind and above the cameras they were talking into. I also think they couldn't have missed the Rothschild sign. The Dachau one, while near the front, was further along the line so could have been out of Boehner's view. But obviously the members working the line with handshakes and autographs would have seen it.

The larger point is that Boehner et al were well aware of the element they had invited to the Capitol, regardless of what signs they saw. They are making a calculated risk that it's more important to rile up the base than to demonstrate to moderates and independents that they can appeal to a broad section of the population. I think it's a serious miscalculation.

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Atlanta: Did you break out the video camera yesterday for one of those Sketch videos with Akira Hakuta?

Dana Milbank: No, but it would have been a good day for it. Akira has been promoted to management, and my other video person, Gaby Bruna, has retired to Costa Rica. But maybe we could bring Akira out of retirement if enough of you sent him a note at akira.hakuta@wpost.com.

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Austin, Tex.: Are Michele Bachman and Katherine Harris really the same person?

Dana Milbank: Not exactly. Michele Bachmann is Katherine Harris without the horse.

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Washington, DC: Dana, I attended the rally with some friends who are more ardent than I. I agree that some of the signs (a small minority) were tasteless and offensive, but some were funny and clever. Overall, I was impressed with the event and with the patriotic sentiments. You had a totally different take-away. You found the people revolting, tasteless, disgusting. You relished the irony of someone having a heart attack, privileging your opportunity to use it as a literary tool over common decency. You noticed only those signs that tended to diminish the meaning of the protest, and you ignored any virtue that might undergird the movement.

Who is wrong? You or me? I'll give you the last word--so please, educate me. Please make your response as short and clever as possible, and please diminish me as a person in your quixotic response.

Dana Milbank: Not as many of this type of question as I expected, but I do want to address some of these things.

Yes, I bet 90% of the people there were normal and decent folks whose message had nothing to do with racism, anti-Semitism and genocide. This is probably the same proportion as at any political event, left or right. The difference here is that this was an official, sanctioned event, hosted and attended by House Republican leaders and a majority of their caucus. When I see Members of Congress embracing the ugliest elements of our culture, I have a problem with it.

The guy who had the heart attack, and the various others who requited the Capitol physician's care? I made no attempt to publish (or even learn) their names, so it's really not a "decency" question. I believe the situation pointed to a flaw in the anti-government argument of the rally: We're opposed to government intervention (in this case, health care) until we need it.

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New Haven: How long until Michele Bachman is in the House leadership?

Dana Milbank:

Evidently she's already in charge. "We want Michele!" was the chant from the crowd when the lawmakers walked down the Capitol steps.

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Confused: So let me if if I've got this right: To summon the antichrist, I have to work for health care reform, reducing global climate change, and so on? I don't see any of that in my instruction manual. Is there a new edition I may have missed?

Dana Milbank: Yes the new edition is in French.

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Alexandria,: but you have to admit that Michelle Bachman is kind of ...well, hot. Is that part of her appeal on cable? Virginia Foxx... not so much.

Dana Milbank: Actually I have a bit of a crush on Virginia Foxx. Yes, she says wacky things, but it sounds so much better because of her grandmotherly bearing.

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Vriginia: Is Eric Cantor down with the theory that Obama is a tool of the world-wide Jewish conspiracy? May make it a litle tricky around his shaboss table.

Dana Milbank:

Dunno how he deals with that. I really think Cantor (and, to a lesser extent, Boehner), are privately mainstream guys who are a bit uncomfortable with the Tea Party crowd. I have a fairly high bar before I start throwing around charges of racism and anti-semitism, but the event yesterday had no problem clearing the bar.

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Omaha, NE: I think most of the rhetoric the protesters used was deplorable (the Holocaust? really?) But I rather like the term "Weasel Queen." In fact, I plan on calling several of my coworkers "Weasel Queens" before the day's end.

Dana Milbank: Great name for a band.

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Insa, NE: Hey Dana,

You've been around a long time -- enough to see plenty of loopy things on Capitol Hill. Have you ever seen a member of Congress pull a stunt like this before?

Dana Milbank: Not since, well, last week, when Pelosi et al had a pep rally in the same spot and walked out to inappropriate U2 music. Difference was the invite list: they kept theirs rather small, thus avoiding the type of displays yesterday.

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Alexandria, Va.: 5,000 Tea-party regulars and antiabortion activists - really?

You know, this burns me up. I used to work for the Washington Post. And I generally like your columns, Mr. Milbank. But this piece is just a joke.

I went to this event yesterday. Yeah, the holocaust banner was over the top. (I think there were two, actually.) But seriously. There were somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000 people there, depending on who did the counting. And 99.99 percent of them had positive, run-of-the-mill, well-intentioned political protest banners and signs. And yet you choose to paint ALL of them with the same, denigrating, dismissive brush?

Are you being intentionally dishonest, or are just too lazy to have really dug into this story at all? People from all over the country - like you (maybe?), like me, like all of our neighbors, walked and drove and flew to this event to work for change - change that a whole big part of the country can believe in. Maybe it's not the same change as what the party in power wants, but our views, our reasonable and peaceful efforts to share our views and change the course of government ought to be respected just as much as those of any party, interest group, or other organization. And ALL Americans deserve to have the media -- I'm looking at you, Mr. Milbank -- treat all of our efforts equally and honestly. Which you have absolutely and totally failed to do here, sir.

For the record, I've NEVER been to a political protest before. Ever. I'm not a tea party attendee. I'm not an antiabortion activist. I'm just a guy who thinks the Constitution -- means -- something, has meant something for all these years, and that it should be respected by the people and by our leaders.

But apparently in your eyes that makes me some kind of non-thinking, hateful jerk, is that what I'm supposed to take away from your piece?

Dana Milbank:

Sounds like you're in the 90 percent of decent folks who were there. Too bad one of you didn't slug the guys with the Dachau banner and send them off to the Capitol physician.

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Pittsburgh: Who do you anticipate will become this generation's Joseph Welch, asking the equivalent of "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Which journalist(s) do you think will become this generation's Ed Murrow, providing reporting that ultimately discredits the Tea Party, Palin/Bachmann, Rush/Beck/Dobbs crowd -- who seem like nothing more than this decade's version of McCarthyites?

Dana Milbank: Wolf Blitzer.

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Too nit-picky?: I understand the stresses of being a contrary blowhard, but is it too much to ask the a member of the Legislative Branch, as enumerated in Article I (i.e., right near the front) of the Constitution, not confuse his primary governing prescript with the Declaration of Independence?

Dana Milbank:

I had held these truths to be self evident, but no longer. If you look at the footage, Boehner is holding his copy of the Constitution in the air but actually reading from a text (of the Declaration) on the lectern.

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The Medical Reform Terrorist Party: It is estimated that 195,000 deaths each year are the result of preventable medical errors. Ergo, if more people are given access to health care, the number of deaths will increase. Health care reformers are terrorists.

Dana Milbank: Exactly what Virginia Foxx was getting at, I think. This may also be what the pastor, before the closing prayer yesterday, meant when he revived the Death Panel allegation.

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Demonstrations: One of the favorite arguments of the current objectors is that similar tasteless rallies were directed against President Bush. As a longtime Washington political observer, would you say that the rallies against President Obama's policies (and him personally) are more vitrolic or about the same?

Dana Milbank: Always tricky to judge this. I have in the past written about the anti-Semitic strain on the far left. I'd also argued, earlier this year, that the left seemed more angry than the right. But things have changed in the last few months.

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re: 90%: Can you explain to me why health-care reform is unconstitutional?

Dana Milbank:

Because it was written by the House of Rothschild.

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Pastor and death panels: Did he also call down God's wrath on insurance companies, since they deny claims and even disallow some people from being covered, thus acting as death panels?

Dana Milbank: For your reading pleasure, here is a rough transcript of Pastor Broden's benediction yesterday:

AS WE PREPARE TO PRAY, WE REPRESENT MANY IN AMERICA WHO ARE CONCERNED ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON HERE IN AMERICA. AND THERE ARE FOUR THINGS THAT WE ARE DEEPLY CONCERNED ABOUT, WHICH BRINGS US TO THIS MOMENT. WE ARE CONCERNED THAT THERE'S END OF LIFE COUNSELING AND DEATH PANELS INSIDE THIS DEATH CARE, AND WE BELIEVE THAT IS AGAINST THE LAW OF NATURE AND OF NATURE'S GOD. WE BELIEVE THAT RATIONING IS IN THIS DEATH CARE BASED UPON ECONOMIC VIABILITY. WE BELIEVE THAT'S AGAINST THE JUDEO CHRISTIAN ETHIC THAT THIS NATION WAS BUILT UPON. WE BELIEVE THAT THE PUBLIC OPTION IS IN THIS HEALTH CARE. IT IS TYRANNY. IT IS SOCIALISM. IT IS ANTI-CONSTITUTION. AND FINALLY, WE BELIEVE ABORTION IS IN THIS HEALTH CARE, AND ABORTION IS ANTI-CHRIST. LET US PRAY. ETERNAL GOD, AS WE STAND IN THIS NATION'S CAPITAL, WE COME RECOGNIZING THAT THIS GOVERNMENT WAS ESTABLISHED FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE. THAT THESE WHO ARE HERE WHO REPRESENT US REPRESENT US AND OUR CONSENT. AND IF THEY ARE NOT FOLLOWING WHAT WE CONSENT TO, THEN IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS WE THE PEOPLE TO GET RID OF THEM. AND SO FATHER, WE PRAY THAT YOU WOULD EMBOLDEN US, STRENGTHEN US, ENCOURAGE US TO TAKE ON THE TASK THAT IS BEFORE US AND TO BE EVER VIGILANT IN OUR STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY, FOR RIGHTS AND FOR FREEDOM. IT IS IN THE NAME OF CHRIST THAT WE PRAY AND GOD'S PEOPLE SAID. AMEN.

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5,000 to 20,000 depending on who's doing the counting: Protest organizers and participants have nearly always overestimated the numbers present. During the larger protest a few weeks ago, some posters said there were over a million marchers, rivaling MLK's March on Washington. One quoted ABC News as saying there were 700,000 people present (ABC News did no such thing). Is it only men who overstimate size (of protests, of course)?

Dana Milbank:

I climbed the Capitol steps just before the event started so that I could get a good view of the whole crowd. I divided it into sections and counted. That's where I came up with 5,000. It's possible more came after I did my count, but nothing near 10,000.

Still, that's a pretty good crowd for a weekday morning on little notice.

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Chicago: Mark Levin denounced Obama yesterday for destroying the banking system. Does he think people are too stupid to remember the banks collapsing under Bush and Bush bailing them out with as few strings as possible?

Dana Milbank:

Actually it was the Rothschilds.

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Arlington, VA: Lets not pretend like the right-wing has a monopoly on crazy. ANSWER has had numerous anti-war rally with support for NK, Iran and Hezbollah prominently displayed. Code Pink does some pretty crazy things.

Dana Milbank: Yes, crazy is universal. Thank God. Keeps me in business.

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Bellingham, Wash.: Dana,

Does John Boehner use a bronzing agent with a high SPF rating or is he secretly counting on Obamacare to deal with any future issues caused by too much time in the tanning booth?

Dana Milbank:

Because of the orange hue, I'm going with spray on. But unfortunately his cigarettes are real.

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benediction: A benediction (Latin: bene, well + dicere, to speak) is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance. The pastoral rant that you shared with us seems to have a lot more of the dicere than the bene in it.

Dana Milbank: Well, we began with Guy Fawkes and ended with a Latin lesson. I am continually overwhelmed by the intellectual quality of the Sketchreader. I am not worthy.

Now keep your gunpowder dry, and we'll chat again next week.

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