Yes, Michele Bachmann is a ding-dong

"Look at me! Please! Look at me!
I'll say anything!"

It's sad to see a would-be national political figure flailing about mindlessly in vain, thoughtless (literally) attempts to get attention. But that is what forlorn Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is doing, and doing it harder every day.

First up: "Bachmann: Media, Not Voters, Picking Winners"

Michele Bachmann just weighed in on "Debategate," telling Whispers that the media is trying to pick the Republican presidential winner, cutting voters out of the process.

"There's always a suspicion of maybe a bias and I guess this just confirmed it," she said of a CBS memo before Saturday's debate, which suggested that the Minnesota Republican congresswoman would be ignored during the foreign policy chatfest.

The memo, she said, "demonstrates that the media wants to choose who our nominee will be and who the next president of the United States will be."

Well, you know how it is.

Okay, you have to say that aloud to get it, I guess.

Yes, Michele, the media are going to do everything they can to sway the election the way they want it to go. It's called the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Get used to it. And it's been going on since, oh, John Adam's administration.

Exhibit 2: Bachmann wants to make Iraq pay "millions of dollars" for each American life lost toppling Saddam and stabilizing the country.

"I believe that Iraq should reimburse the United States fully for the amount of money that we have spent to liberate these people. They're not a poor country. They're a wealthy country."

That comes to more than $700 billion, plus, she said, "millions of dollars" for each life lost (troops who were merely gravely wounded apparently get no consideration from her). This is just nitwittery. I mean, I think Great Britain should pay us for burning the White House in the War of 1812 and Japan should pay us for the hundreds of thousands of Americans killed and wounded kicking their Shinto government out.

And pray, Ms. Michele, just how do you propose to make the Iraqis do that? Her answer? Click here (but come back!).

There is no way to do it. She has proposed a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, offered an answer to a question no one is asking. This isn't policy, it's not analysis, it's certainly not political conviction. It's just straw grasping on national TV trying to get campaign traction from a headline - and failing.

Good night, Rep. Bachmann. You are the only Republican woman I can think of in the national media who makes Sarah Palin look good. It's lights-out time for your campaign now. And it was lights out for your potential for national leadership quite a long time ago.