Move over Palin...Make way for Michelle Bachmann

I don’t usually mention U.S politics, except perhaps in passing as many of the well-known atheist blogs carry enough of that already. However I have to mention Michelle Bachmann’s bid to become the Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential election.

The thing is, I’m not sure whether I’m pleased, on the basis that no sane person would ever vote this bible thumping, homophobic tea bagger conservative wingnut into the White House. Or terrified because there just might be enough insane Republican voters to put her there.

Make no mistake about this; “President” Bachmann would make George Bush look like a ultra liberal “pinko”. If she were leader of the free world, not only would civil rights, free speech and rational government become a thing of the past in America, the de-facto theocracy she would attempt to impose would become one of the most destabilising influences in world politics imaginable.
If you were ever disturbed by Bush’s anti-intellectualism, try some of Bachmann’s quotes for size:

"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak that happened when Gerald Ford, a Republican, was president, April 28, 2009

"There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, Oct. 2006

"Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009

"Does that mean that someone's 13-year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus? That night, mom and dad are never the wiser." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on health care reform's potential to dupe parents, October 2009

If you trust the American people to find this rhetoric as absurd and abhorrent as I do, we have nothing to worry about and we can at least get another four years of Obama style centre politics (I won’t call him a liberal, all U.S politicians lean much further to the right than their equivalents in the U.K) and an administration that knows where the rest of the world is on a map. If on the other hand the Democrats over there don’t come out in force and vote, Bachmann’s God bothering, Christian nation brand of popularist conservatism could get her and the Tea Party Rethuglicans the power they crave. Then watch out!