Play-ah.

Mark McKinnon:

The world is flat. We know it is. It’s what we were taught—in the Dark Ages. Michele Bachmann is a “delusional, paranoid zealot,” a “flake.” We know she is. That’s what we’ve been told—by a mainlining media.

Conservative women in politics run a punishing gauntlet. They endure psychological evaluations and near-gynecological exams their male and liberal counterparts do not. The public is force-fed only their gaffes in 10-second fixes, while similar misstatements by the current president are forgiven as momentary lapses.

Bachmann is not crazy, but the media are if they continue to view her as such.

Ranked the top fundraiser in the House during the 2010 election cycle, Rep. Bachmann was also the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota, in 2006. Prior to serving in Congress, in 2000 she was elected to the Minnesota state Senate, where she championed a taxpayers' bill of rights, drawing from her professional experience as a federal tax-litigation attorney. But her first introduction to politics came out of her frustration as a foster parent with inadequate curriculum standards set by state government, standards she was later successful in repealing in the state legislature.
...
She will be challenged, as every candidate ought to be: Is her vision of America inclusive enough? Is her experience in the House deep enough? Will her ideas lead the nation out of the economic morass we are experiencing? And the all-important question: as she competes with Herman Cain and possibly Gov. Rick Perry for the same social and economic conservative voters in the GOP primary, can she also win against Barack Obama in the general election?

She’s not my kind of candidate. And no one I know supports her. But I know enough to know I shouldn’t judge American voters and candidates by my own distorted circle. She is a rock star with the Tea Party set and social conservatives. And I also know enough to know that Michele Bachmann has been underestimated and treated unfairly by the mainstream press.

She is now a frontrunner in Iowa. And will likely do well in South Carolina.

She’s gonna be a playah.

ADDED:
Liberal political strategist Susan Estrich, who plays a journalist on Fox tv, thinks the "flake" question asked of Bachmann actually proves something, so twisted is Estrich's logic. (Remember, this is the Estrich who early on in her legal career was noted as being "the first woman to head the Harvard Law Review." She then became a law professor and an unsuccessful political advisor to such liberal candidates as Ted Kennedy and Michael Dukakis in their failed presidential bids.)

For a Democrat, it's too good to be true. Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney running neck and neck in Iowa. Romney having to worry about the one in five who won't vote for a Mormon, and Bachmann hiring a cadre of top Republican consultants, starting with Ed Rollins and Ed Goeas.

Is the sun shining on Barack Obama or what? This is better than Donald Trump. At least he could lay some claim to business expertise, even if many of his projects were too big — not too successful — to fail. As for Bachmann, she is better known as a cable television staple than as someone who has accomplished anything at all in Congress, apart from the Congressional Tea Party Caucus. No legislative experience, no executive experience, no business experience. Perfect — for the Iowa caucuses anyway. [Ed. note: Her tax-attorney experience counts for nada, eh Susan? And "family organizer" is just not the same as short-time "Community Organizer", eh? Why not just compare results.]

I know there's someone out there saying: But what about Obama? So let's get that out of the way at the outset. Obama had serious credentials from his years in the Senate and, before that, in the Illinois Senate. He was known as a man of ideas. Agree or not with those ideas, no one was asking if he was a "flake." It's just not a word that you connect with Obama. [Ed. note: Take a minute, people, and just consider that logic. Breathtaking really.] I was a Hillary supporter, but not for a minute did I doubt that Obama was extraordinary.

Eh, still no doubts, eh? She must be in that minority demographic: not-unemployed; not-at-all affected by the negative economy and high gas prices; happy with the ongoing, always-girded, warrior foreign policy that Obama inherited from his predecessor that is working so well, he is continuing in the same stream...

Bachmann? The Christine O'Donnell of campaign 2012. Remember how that caused Republicans to lose a Senate seat they were counting on. That's what happens when it's all ideology and no competence.

Sounds like you can count on the Estrich vote anyway, President Obama, come what may. In fact, I think she's volunteering to run a witch-hunt for you, if you're interested in pursuing that line of political campaigning. Still, look at the track record* and evaluate rationally...

And be careful of overreaching: pretty soon, it's going to seem like the liberal ladies think ALL the conservative women candidates are weirdos, witches, or otherwise unelectable. Despite the real-world experience and competence that proves otherwise to all those out here in the real world, with our eyes open to the actual facts on the ground.

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* Is Susan Estrich the one responsible for putting Dukakis in the tank?, I always wondered when I read her career highlights, after that ground-breaking Harvard Law Review editorship and all that...