O'Reilly and Bachmann, a perfect match

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Wrong again, Bill O'Reilly.

Michele Bachmann doesn't "drive the far left crazy" because she's "attractive," "good-looking." In fact, she doesn't drive the far left, or the left, or liberals, or progressive, or Democrats, or any of her other opponents "crazy." We laugh at her, you see, because all the evidence -- and she supplies it on a constant basis -- points to her being the crazy one, an embarrassment to the Republican Party and to anything and everything that calls itself conservative. And while we laugh, conservatives like O'Reilly fall all over themselves whenever a supposedly attractive woman enters the picture, be it Bachmann or Palin or Coulter or whomever. They swoon, you see, seduced by whatever sexual appeal these woman have. Which, I might add, they overstate to comic degree.

Really, Bachmann? Personally, when I look at her, all I see is insanity, paranoia, and fundamentalist fervour. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, and I'm sure O'Reilly beholds her differently, but she certainly doesn't drive me crazy. Nor does Coulter, who is simply repulsive. Nor even does Palin, whom I admit is fairly attractive. In her case, conservatives really did succumb to a sort of adolescent lust when she emerged on the national scene last year. The rest of us just thought she was stupid, or at least not remotely qualified for the national stage, not to mention a bit of a thug. If anything drives us crazy, it's that these women get more attention than they deserve, not just because conservatives lust after them but because the media do, too.