At least she plays one on TV (Comparing Rep. Bachmann and Gov. Palin's records)

As a conservative activist in an area of the country largely believed to be a remote suburb of the Twin Cities, I am increasingly encountering a general assumption — at family gatherings, on the air, and in casual conversation — that I am a big supporter of Michelle Bachmann. I fully realize, of course, that I am supposed to be. I'm just not.

The problem with Tea Party-type Bachmann supporters is that they haven't been paying attention. You'll hear it said that, "At least, she's better than Barack Obama." So was John McCain. You'll hear it said that, "At least, she doesn't have all the negatives of a Palin candidacy." That's because she doesn't have Sarah's record, or her guts, either. If she did, Bachmann would never have been proffered an apology for merely being called a "flake." The former governor of Alaska is a conservative. Her would-be political clone only plays one on TV.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that Bachmann is insincere. Her voting history and her life story all indicate that she is. What I am saying is that, if you listen to her words and not the hype, you will easily perceive that Michelle's stock in trade is playing both sides of the Republican divide. Allow me to explain.

In scams, you have the role called, "cooling out the mark." It's kind of like the "good cop — bad cop" thing, where one person's job is to make sure that the person being scammed doesn't realize it, or at least doesn't try to do anything about it. This, by default or on purpose, has become the Bachmann role on the national Republican scene.

Whenever the GOP leadership decides to stab its base in the back, to let us down, to put political expediency above principle — and one could set one's clock by this phenomenon — it is Bachman who goes all over the airwaves making excuses for them. Listen for it. It will always be Michelle who is there to "cool out the" — well, "remark." I remember Bachmann being at the forefront, for example, of the "Repeal and Replace" groundswell that helped drive the huge Republican victories of last November. Now that that uproar has died down, her silence is as deafening as anybody else's.

On Hannity a while ago, Bachmann was touting herself as a "unifying" figure. There are Democrats and independents who approach her to express their support, she contended. The obvious question arises: Why? Why, at this extremely early stage in the game, would that be the case? Are they schizophrenic, or do they also perceive that she is not who she claims to be?

The only unity it is possible to achieve is the unity of a return to our national identity, based as it is on the Declaration and the Constitution, with their ineluctable recognition of the sovereignty of our Creator, God. The quixotic attempt to bridge the gap of the American political divide in any other way has already been attempted. Just ask Newt. The famous definition of stupidity as doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result, applies to conservatives as well as liberals.

As the primary season unfolds, I have diligently been trying to give Bachmann the benefit of the doubt, but in order to do that, there has to be some doubt there to work with. And as I say, I understand why people tend to assume that I back the bright, family-friendly, Palinesque-but-not-actually-Sarah-herself conservative activist from my own geographical region, who is ever ready to carry the Tea Party banner as far forward as serves her own political purposes.

Also, it wasn’t the first time she stirred up a hornet’s nest and walked away. She did the same thing on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which she only stayed on for 11 months after being appointed.

Get off the stage, you are acting like a jerk! You are acting very ignorant of the facts!

Sarah Palin saw a lot Republican officials involved in corruption in the oil and gas conservation commission, she especially saw corruption and violations involving Randy Ruedrich.

1.She complained to the ethics chief, he did nothing

2. She went to the Chief of Staff of Murkowski, he did nothing

3. She then sent a letter to the Governor himself and he did nothing and later on talked the Governor Murkowski about the matter and received a cold shoulder

She by law could not publicly discuss what was going on in the commission, but she was warning everybody in the Administration on what was going on and that the news agencies were asking questions

She then resigned in frustration that nothing was being done involving the violations and that the public wasn’t properly being notified of the corruption going on

The Daily News and KTUU-Channel 2 sued in February to force open the evidence. On April 6, while those lawsuits were pending, Palin’s lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, gave an ultimatum: move to a public resolution of the ethics case in 10 days or Palin would call a press conference “for the purpose of setting forth, publicly, what she knows about this entire matter and why she chose to resign from the Commission.”

State Sen. Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat and former prosecutor, had called for an independent investigation from the beginning. When the case was made public, French wasn’t satisfied

French said he came to respect Palin and got to know her as she attempted to bring forward the facts of the case.

“Sarah has been tortured by this for a long time,” French said. “I feel she has never had a chance to let her story out.”

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