Quote of the Day: Michele Bachmann on herself

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Her fundraising pitch:

Don't let them Palinize me!

Actually, she doesn't need any help. She may well be the craziest Republican in national politics.

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What exactly does "Palinize" mean? She explains:

To smear or mock someone using falsehoods, baseless accusations or unsubstantiated character assassinations for the purpose of blocking them from achieving a goal.

To exaggerate the truth or lie by omission.

To attack a person for his or her conservative values by focusing an inordinate amount of attention on a single example of that person falling short (or being perceived as falling short) of the values they espouse.

Right, sure, whatever... As Charles Lemos puts it at MyDD: "Sarah Palin is a beacon of sanity compared to Michele Bachmann. That such insanity and ignorance graces the halls of Congress is a sheer travesty."

I encourage all of you to incorporate "Palinize" and "Bachmannize" into your vocabulary. Just make sure to turn the definitions around:

-- To "Palinize" something is to spin it for the sake of personal political gain and to exaggerate one's sense of long-term victimization at the hands of some nefarious, if vaguely defined, elite.

-- To "Bachmannize" something is to distort the meaning of it so radically, within the context of paranoid right-wing ideology, as to render it largely incomprehensible.

Have fun. And remember that we've alread introduced "glennbeckery" and related words to the language.