Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Randi Rhodes: Double Fail

Michele Bachmann is spreading stories that the HPV vaccinations cause “mental retardation.” She’s basically daring anyone to challenge her… and daring anyone to make the obvious Bachmann jokes there. We must be strong. Bachmann claims she was told by a woman after the debate on Monday that the woman’s daughter became mentally retarded after being given the HPV vaccine. Is that where members of Congress get their information these days? Do they gather rumors from random strangers? If you ever wondered how Michele Bachmann manages to stay so uninformed, there is your answer.

I already knew that Michele Bachmann would say anything. I didn’t realize that she would believe anything. When Sean Hannity asked Bachmann if the claims about mental retardation were true, Bachmann said “I have no idea.” Yes, but she just thought she’d use her standing as a member of Congress to pass it along. Michele Bachmann actually scored points against Rick Perry by bringing up the vaccine in the first place. Then she went and blew it all by… well, by being Michele Bachmann.

Classic—Rick Perry did something horrible by mandating a vaccination for girls in Texas based solely on the money he was getting from and his crony connections to a drug company, and the reason the rightwing is upset by it is that they don’t think the government should have anything to do with public health. Rick Perry did something completely wrong, and conservatives object to it for completely wrong reasons. Conservatives would be upset over this vaccination if it worked perfectly. In fact, whether or not it works is completely irrelevant to them. Oh, and old-school pro-business Republicans would still be all for this vaccine even if it did cause mental retardation, as long as it made money.

Michele Bachmann would not have approved this vaccine. She doesn’t care about curing cancer. She and her husband are too busy curing gayness. But if there was a vaccine that guarded against being gay, you can be absolutely sure that Michele Bachmann would sign an executive order making it mandatory for everyone. And Marcus would get the first shot.

Today’s Homework | Discuss

Stephen Colbert took a moment last night to weigh in on the death lust that's been on display at the GOP debates...


No comments: