House INTELLIGENCE Committee?

I wasn't going to bother posting this Petition about Representative Michele Bachmann, "the Tea Party’s queen of crazy" - but then they reminded me about her ranting claims about the Ha-Ha Socialist, not to mention this corker: 

“The influence today of the Muslim Brotherhood at the highest levels, from the White House, to the Pentagon, to the FBI, even to our United States military, truly is breathless and people have to know about it.”

Yes, folks, they're "breathless" - can't you hear them panting as they come down your street, ready to steal your first-born, and defile your daughters, yelling to their evil God as they seize all the levers of power with cunning, ruthless help from their shadowy accomplices, from B.H. Obama on down?

CREDO is concerned enough about Bachmann to say, "what kind of a signal does it send that she's on the House Intelligence Committee where she has access to sensitive national security information?

"Bachmann has actually said that gay marriage is the biggest problem facing the nation, financial reform efforts equate with Mussolini-style fascism, and that President Obama is "anti-American" and "turning our country into a nation of slaves".

"Her loose association with the facts and her willingness to believe in all sorts of completely baseless conspiracy theories makes her one of the last people in Congress who should be entrusted with our nation’s secrets."

Personally, I'm not too concerned about the House Intelligence Committee and its "secrets".  We know most of the "secrets" are complete BS.  The only reason they're secret is to prevent the American people from knowing what is being done in their name.  But having an idiot like Bachmann anywhere near the decision-making process is enough to get my signature on a Petition, and CREDO make a persuasive case for their Petition, here.

Where I think the Mad Minnesotan Mama is really dangerous is in her McCarthyism.  This country has already seen what hysteria and paranoia can do to our democratic society.  At the LA Times Festival of Books I attended a panel on McCarthyism, with very cool, highly-informed speakers including KPFK and UC Irvine's Prof. Jon Wiener.  I asked the question which has always frustrated me about that ghastly time in America's shameful past:  why was there not a popular uprising against McCarthy's brazen theft of our due process and our Constitutional Rights?  The answer came back, "It was a time of fear".

Fear is the weapon of choice of the Bachmanns of the world, and it damn well works.

I'll blog soon about McCarthyism, as discussed in my Book Proposal, "The War On The 60s".