Michele Bachmann for President

Morals, real morals, have no place in Republican politics. A whole lot of other Republicans who made similar statements about her incompetence also have recanted out of fear of her take-no-prisoners supporters.

Anyone seriously trying to understand the Bachmann phenomenon –- we’ll leave the almost as illegitimate Sarah Palin out of this for now –- has to ask why the national “news” media have created it.

The short answer is this: Today’s journalists are an ignorant, pop-culture-addled bunch who lack an understanding, let alone acceptance, of professional ethics. The owners of big newspapers and broadcast outlets stand to profit handsomely from the election of easily controlled ideologues such as Bachmann. A Bachmann, like a major flood or a tornado, is sure-fire attention grabber and very easy to cover, since the coverage follows a simple formula; any new journalism school grad can do it and get great play without straining a single mental muscle. Looka me! I are a journalist!

So now the stuff will start to fly in my direction. One aspect of the Bachmann style of Christianity is that it’s adherents (not sure we can say practioners) brook no criticism. They demand not just respect but bowing-and-scraping humility from everyone else.

Even mild criticism is an excuse for them to claim victimhood, although they control 99 percent of the stories told about them in the corporate media, and the great majority of American politicians live in fear of crossing them.

At the same time, they go out of their way -– often far out -– to be disrespectful to and, indeed, to abuse people who do not swallow every nugget of their nonsense.

But here’s a generally unacknowledged truth: If you don’t give a rat’s behind what they think, they can’t get to you.

Pity more politicians haven’t the guts to recognize that and act on it.

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A note to Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Kevin Diaz and his bosses: Your recent story about Bachmann at the top of page one, headlined “An outsider from the start” and with the subhead reading “Michele Bachmann’s hard-hitting conservatism has put her on the cusp of a Republican presidential bid” is a shameful piece of promotional crap, starting with that sub-head and going downhill from there.