Much About Not So Much

Sometimes message discipline in politics can turn a candidate who would otherwise be an easy target into a well-aimed smart bullet.  That's the case with Michele Bachmann and the latest media invented non-grievance.  Vin Weber's misogynistic gaffe about Bachmann's "sex appeal" may have been a ploy to draw the secondrunner out and distract her from her message.   If so, Bachmann is wise to blow it off, accept his apology and move on to her real opponents, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. 

According to the Fox News article linked above, Weber and Pawlenty both apologized for the gaffe.  If it was an attempt to make Pawlenty relevant by having him stick up for the lady victim, the ploy probably fell flat with Bachmann's loyal supporters.  She has proven already that she is a person of substance for whom such silliness is deserving of being ignored in favor of actual policy issues.

Bachmann doesn't do victimhood well.  She may be like Palin in many ways, but in this, she seems to have a strength of character that motivates her to stay on message and not allow her gender or her resume to be the issue.  If Romney campaigns as ruthlessly and as unethically as he did in the 2008 contest, she will need to be one who not only blows off silly media criticisms about her skills as an historian or her competitors attempts to objectify her -- she will need to be able to forcefully but gracefully demonstrate just how shallow Mitt Romney is when his billion dollar barrage of attack ads begins to flow from the political bilge pump.

Watching her for the past few years, Quiverdadddy has come to see her as formidable not only for her ability to let personal attacks go, but for her skill at clearly and succinctly pouring correction on media and political foes who become detached from fact.  Sarah Palin has proven to be a magnet for such ruthless and withering attacks.  Both Palin and Bachmann are equipped with the spine necessary to compete in this brutal business.  Bachmann sets herself apart by knowing when to pick a fight and when to let an opponent pick a fight with himself.

It is this skill that could see her through to the GOP nomination a year from now.  Media critics are now joined by Tim Pawlenty and his hapless advisor in finding a handy corner to engage in slapping themselves for want of a better target.  Bachmann has proven this time she is more bullet than target.