She's Got Her Priorities in Order

There's no such thing as a slow news week for Michele Bachmann these days. She started off with a profile in the Star Tribune called "The Messenger," recounting her recent rise in profile. That piece was followed by this letter to the editor from Thomas Geng of Shorewood:

"The Messenger" shows Rep. Michele Bachmann is serious neither about policy nor legislation. Instead, her bombastic and divisive rhetoric is calculated only to attract the attention and money necessary to keep her firmly entrenched in Washington.

As a former congressional staffer for six years, I know the difference between a conscientious legislator and a headline hunter. The fact that Bachmann devotes three staff positions to "communications" speaks volumes about her real priorities. What a waste of staff resources, not to mention taxpayer dollars!

If Bachmann were serious about advancing public policy and achieving legislative results, she would convert at least two of those "communications" team members into substantive staff assistants. Bachmann's constituents, Minnesota and the nation would be better served either by a change in her priorities or by a change in representation of the Sixth District.

Three staff for a very junior representative... that's probably about 25 percent of her staff budget. Good point, Thomas!

Then yesterday came her latest screed, this time against AmeriCorps. Over the weekend, local website Dump Michele Bachmann picked up Michele talking on the conservative radio station KTLK, saying the White House thinks of AmeriCorps as:

re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward.... then [the young people] have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.

The story was picked up by The Minnesota Independent, and it has now appeared on the Huffington Post and lots of other outlets.

Dump Michele Bachmann has been publicizing Michele's output for years, and was constantly frustrated at the way her outrageous statements were completely ignored by the maintream press.

But now that Michele has three communications staff members, I guess she's getting her message out!