Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann courted controversy today by claiming that falafel and other “jihadi foods” should be banned from school lunches in the United States. In an interview with local television station KSTP in Minneapolis, Bachmann explained that after visiting a local elementary school she was shocked to find that falafel - a fried vegetable patty popular in the Arab world - was being served as a option on the vegetarian menu…. [F]alafel is a gateway food,” responded Bachmann, “It starts with falafel, then the kids move on to shawarma. After a while they say ‘hey this tastes good, I wonder what else comes from Arabia?’ “…. “Before you know it our children are listening to Muslim music, reading the Koran, and plotting attacks against the homeland.”…. “We need to stop these terror cakes now, before they infiltrate any further.”
It’s a sad commentary on the current state of the American body politic that it took me a minute or two before I realized that this is satire…and it wasn’t until I got to “terror cakes” that it dawned on me. You can choose to call me stupid, but the fact that it took me a bit to distinguish Bachmann’s feverish, ignorant rants from satire should be an indication of just how thoroughly wacked out she is. Michele Bachmann is Louie Gohmert (“The dumbest person in Congress”) in a cheap skirt, and the fact that she was for a time a serious Presidential candidate should scare the Hell out of any lucid American.
For my part, I’m endlessly embarrassed by Bachmann. She represents the district I went to high school in, and I struggle to accept the reality that people I went to high school with are the ones who elected her to represent Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. I have nothing against Bachmann’s religion, but I deplore her desire to force her beliefs upon all Americans and turn America into a Dominionist Theocracy. Truth be told, Bachmann has proved to be a rich source of material for comedians; Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert built their comic empire in large part by exploiting her barely-medicated bigotry and hatefulness. Outside of her value as a never-ending source of comic relief (see her riff on the HPV vaccine causing mental retardation), there’s the reality that she’s deadly serious about her beliefs and her xenophobic, Christocratic intolerance. It ceases being humorous when her beliefs and policy positions are something that would result in a majority of Americans losing the very thing she purports to stand for- freedom and liberty.
Frankly, I’m surprised Bachmann can distinguish “falafel” from “fellation.”
