Michele Bachmann Is No Smalley Hoot

Happy Friday, all! I may just designate this day Michele Bachmann Hilarity day every week, but…she’s really too much gift for only one day. Regardless, here’s some more herstory (shout out to the Feminazis in the house) to get you ready for the weekend.

For each historical inaccuracy now, drink!

In case you didn’t spot ’em, here they are:

1. It’s Smoot-Hawley.

2. It was passed in 1930. FDR hadn’t been elected yet.

3. It was repealed by FDR in 1934.

4. It was written by Republicans. It’s actually quite famous. Really, it’s one of the cornerstones of conservative thinking from that era, and is a frequent example in any Economics 101 class (although I’m betting Olbermann joins me in first hearing about it from Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).

Go back again now and watch. And drink. And again. And again.

Bill O’Reilly Stalks Women To Tell Them How Important Their Safety Is To Him

This is really…Hypocritical? Hilarious? Terrifyingly creepy?

After some poor female blogger pointed out that Bill O’Reilly’s upcoming speech at a rape victims’ convention is kind of odd, considering his notable history of calling a rape victim “stupid,” he had one of his goons accost said blogger on the street. That didn’t sate his appetite for womyn’s rights, though, so he had some people follow her on vacation to deMAND she apologize to victims of…well, stalking and rape.

– The Stalking: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours. Looking back, my friend and I remember seeing their tan SUV following us for much of the trip…

– The Evasion: I said that it was inappropriate for O’Reilly to imply that just because a woman may be drunk and/or dressed in a certain way, she should expect to be raped. Watters asked me whether I had listened to the interview (which I had) and claimed that O’Reilly had made the comments in the context of a commentary on Mel Gibson/drunkenness…

The blogger asked why Think Progress was being targeted here (and got the hilarious answer that it’s because they’re part of the “smear machine” that is after poor ol’ Billy Boy), but I think that’s beside the point. Keith Olbermann is part of that same machine, and he’s been harping on this bit o’ hypocrisy for a good while now. Why, then, did they target this woman?

This is part of a trend with O’Reilly. In the footage I’ve seen of his producers accosting people, I have only seen his people accost those with vaginas in private, intimate settings (at home or on vacation, rather than on the street or on a bus). One might say this behavior is…erm, predatory and plays on these women’s fears of being attacked (and might, therefore, help the producer’s elicit an apology from said woman).

Then again, just look at what Cynthia Tucker was wearing while at home checking her mail. She was totes asking for it.

Is Glenn Beck…Erm, OK?

Punditry seems to entail a certain degree of losing one’s mind on the air (unless you’re Rachel Maddow).  Say what you will, but ranting “like a man who saves his own urine gets viewers. With that in mind, I figured Glenn Beck was a bit quirky with his opening-night creepy eye cam. Fine. It got noticed. And now this:

It’s one thing to pull stunts to get you noticed because you want viewers to hear your content (O’Reilly, Olbermann, Matthews, Hannity…they all do it), but doing things to get noticed in spite and/or to the detriment of your content (since they make you seem creepy at best and totally unhinged at worst) is just nuts. Which is why I pose the question to members of Glenn Beck’s inner circle: Is he OK? Has he run out of medications? Does he need a quick trip to the hospital for “exhaustion”? Is he mocking Hillary Clinton’s waterworks over the same subject? What in blazes is going on in his noggin???