# The Congresswoman with the crazy eyes, part II, crazy in the head **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 1, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420 "2011-05-01T23:36:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/521 "2012-07-21T00:48:35Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You know, we’ve gotten to the point where someone should say something nice about her. Somebody really should. Some scientific studies have claimed that crazy people are better in bed than sane people. So there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![Sudden\_Kestrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecd19e/32.png) [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/522 "2012-07-21T01:29:49Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Michelle, dear? That’s my Congressman, I voted for him. He’ll do, no great shakes. But a radical Muslim? Yeah, sure, and Garrison Keillor is a pimp. You have to admit, Keith Ellison _is_ a Muslim, and he _is_ a brutha, so it only follows that he’s a Muslim Brotherhood operative—at least in the Happy Terror Joy Land that passes for Bachmann’s reality. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/523 "2012-07-21T01:45:24Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#): > > Some scientific studies have claimed that crazy people are better in bed than sane people. So there’s that. Or at least they **think** they are . . . ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/524 "2012-07-21T01:47:06Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Arizona, Texas, Georgia and… Florida. _hangs head_ It’s like a smorgasbord of crazy states. It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/525 "2012-07-21T02:00:02Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Arizona, Texas, Georgia and… Florida. _hangs head_ It’s like a smorgasbord of crazy states. Damn, I didn’t know about Georgia. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/526 "2012-07-21T02:47:34Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > It seems to be kinda like some strange version of a Lovecraftian New England. There’s probably some major unknown Old One buried under St. Cloud or something like that. Not just St. Cloud but Elk River, Anoka, and even Stillwater have their idiocy fans. I live in a different district but it is conservative as well. Just not as far out there as Bachmann’s district. There’s still \*some \*common sense floating around the south metro. ---
**Author:** ![imthjckaz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/imthjckaz/32/3223_2.png) [@imthjckaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/imthjckaz)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/527 "2012-07-21T02:55:30Z")
Let the record show that although I live in St Cloud, I’m not from the area. I have not been infected by the crazy gene. I was born and raised in Southern California, so I have my own issues to deal with. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/528 "2012-07-21T03:08:30Z")
> [@carnut](#): > > Not just St. Cloud but Elk River, Anoka, and even Stillwater have their idiocy fans. > > I live in a different district but it is conservative as well. Just not as far out there as Bachmann’s district. There’s still \*some \*common sense floating around the south metro. If you’re at all into Lovecraft, find the recent story _Old Virginia_ by Laird Barron. It’s in New Cthulhu: The Recent Wierd. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/529 "2012-07-21T06:36:18Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > “See, Hill, according to _sharia_ law, if your husband cheats on you with a chubby young slut, you can cut his nuts off…” That’s not true, though. Skimmed the letter. 1. Do they have cites for these claims of connections to the Muslim Brotherhood? 2. If so, so what? I’d love it if other countries’ governments used ties to the US GOP as reason to drum various persons out of office, but pragmatically, a major political party is going to have connections all over the place. 3. Are they really suggesting that we shouldn’t recognize Egypt’s democracy because the major party right now is a religious center-right party? ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/530 "2012-07-21T07:24:56Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > \ > 3) Are they really suggesting that we shouldn’t recognize Egypt’s democracy because the major party right now is a religious center-right party? Especially considering that the Republican party seems to have become an extremely far-right religious party. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/531 "2012-07-21T16:27:15Z")
[Superb post](http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/07/un-american-activities-more-things.html) over at Stonekettle Station, looking at what happened with McCarthyism and how the lessons of that time of madness apply today, especially to Ms. Bachmann’s disgusting attacks. If you haven’t made the acquaintance of Jim Wright yet (retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer and lucidly passionate writer), you are in for a treat. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/532 "2012-07-21T18:49:29Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > [Superb post](http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/07/un-american-activities-more-things.html) over at Stonekettle Station, looking at what happened with McCarthyism and how the lessons of that time of madness apply today, especially to Ms. Bachmann’s disgusting attacks. > > If you haven’t made the acquaintance of Jim Wright yet (retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer and lucidly passionate writer), you are in for a treat. Thanks for linking that; it was excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/533 "2012-07-21T19:42:48Z")
I think I’ve figured out why other Republicans are so pissy about the whole thing. [ > [@](#): > > The Muslim Brotherhood was helped in its efforts to achieve information dominance over the George W. Bush administration, thanks to collaboration between a top Muslim Brotherhood operative, Abdurahman Alamoudi, and **anti-tax activist Grover Norquist**. ]([http://muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com/key-findings/](http://muslimbrotherhoodinamerica.com/key-findings/)) ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/534 "2012-07-22T03:06:31Z")
Thanks ETF, that is an excellent post. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/535 "2012-07-22T03:18:45Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > 1. Are they really suggesting that we shouldn’t recognize Egypt’s democracy because the major party right now is a religious center-right party? The really sad part, in case anyone missed it, was how much trouble this whole thing caused when SecState Clinton recently went to Egypt. Paranoid societies like that pay attention to the ravings of our lunatics and take it seriously. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/536 "2012-07-22T15:47:14Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Paranoid societies like that pay attention to the ravings of our lunatics and take it seriously. But enough about the Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/537 "2012-07-22T16:36:14Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > [Superb post](http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/07/un-american-activities-more-things.html) over at Stonekettle Station, looking at what happened with McCarthyism and how the lessons of that time of madness apply today, especially to Ms. Bachmann’s disgusting attacks. > > If you haven’t made the acquaintance of Jim Wright yet (retired US Navy Chief Warrant Officer and lucidly passionate writer), you are in for a treat. Guess we have different definitions of “treat”. He simply tries to tap into the emotions by tying Bachman (who I have no particular use for) to the boogeyman: McCarthyism. But it appears that Mr. Wright has a skewed, if not common, view of history. First, he makes the common mistake of attempting to somehow hold McCarthy responsible for the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. McCarthy didn’t come on to the scene until 1950. HUAC was instituted in 1945. Second, he omits the fact that McCarthy was correct in the vast amount of his allegations. This is not surprising, since McCarthy had access, via Hoover, to some decrypted Soviet communications. He couldn’t point to the evidence because it would have tipped off the Soviets that we had cracked their code. But much more information had come to light over the years. In 1997, Senator Patrick Moynihan’s (D) bipartisan Commission on Government Secrecy issued a final report. The commission’s unanimous report concluded: > [@](#): > > “A balanced history of this period is now beginning to appear; the Venona messages will surely supply a great cache of facts to bring the matter to some closure. But at the time, the American Government, much less the American public, was confronted with possibilities and charges, at once baffling and terrifying.” > > \ > > But for every accusation there was a denial. … For all who could agree there were Communists in government, there were as many who saw the Government as contriving fantastic accusations against innocent persons. A balanced history of this period is now beginning to appear; the VENONA messages will surely supply a great cache of facts to bring the matter to some closure… > The first fact is that a significant Communist conspiracy was in place in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles, but in the main those involved systematically denied their involvement. Some specifics, from [here:](http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/moynihan/appa7.html) > [@](#): > > We have seen that the Soviet attack in the area of intelligence commenced just after the First World War, and was hugely successful during the Second World War. The Soviets even infiltrated the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), established in June 1942. It would, for example, appear from the VENONA messages that Duncan Chaplin Lee, Special Assistant to OSS Director William J. Donovan, was a Soviet agent. > > Lee, of the Lee family of Virginia, was a 1935 graduate of Yale University. He then spent three years as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford–dangerous years–returning to Yale for law school. Thereafter he joined Donovan’s law firm in New York, and in July 1942 joined the OSS. He appears regularly in the KGB cables that began to be intercepted in 1943, and thereafter were decrypted by those involved in the VENONA project. > > The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled. As does that of Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department. White, the closest advisor to Secretary Henry J. Morgenthau and later Assistant Secretary, headed the American delegation to the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, which shaped postwar financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. > > And so to an irony that only now begins to emerge. It would appear that by the onset of the Cold War the Soviet attack in the area of espionage and subversion had been blunted and turned back. There would be episodic successes in the years to come, but none equal to earlier feats. New York of the 1930s. Los Alamos. Some unions. The State Department. The Treasury Depart-ment. By the close of the 1940s, Communism was a defeated ideology in the United States, with its influence in steep and steady decline, and the KGB reduced to recruiting thieves as spies. > > \ > > By the Second World War it had begun to deal with espionage, in that case of the Axis powers. In November 1945 Elizabeth Bentley informed the FBI of her activities as a Soviet courier, which in turn led to renewed interest in [Whittaker] Chambers. In late August or early September 1947, the FBI was informed that the Army Security Agency had begun to break into Soviet espionage messages. The FBI proceeded to identify the cover names used in the Soviet dispatches. Thus, Theodore A. Hall, a 19-year old Harvard physicist at Los Alamos in 1944, was code named “MLAD,” Russian for “youngster.” By 1950, the FBI, working with the Army, knew Hall to be the “MLAD” identified in the VENONA messages. > > \ > > Now we encounter further examples of what could legitimately be called learning. Faced with the facts of espionage and treason, this time the American Government did not lose its head. The Communist Party of the United States of America was there. Its leaders and many of its members were guilty of all manner of misfeasance and violence. The incitement to hysteria was considerable indeed. Palmer Raids, internment camps, deportations, ethnic demonizing (anti-Semitism not least), a general shredding of civil rights–all those were possible during the Cold War. Each had forebears. Virtually none actually happened. > > This may appear a provocative judgment. By the late 1940s there was a great agitation in the land about Communists and “comsymps.” As early as January 1947 the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned of infiltration in a publication Communists Within the Government: The Facts and the Program (not all the facts within which were wrong). Next came Congressional investigations, notably those associated with Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Careers were damaged, of this there is no doubt. But compared to the earlier outrages, the society, notably the Government, responded with comparative restraint. Again, there were casualties, but compared to the provocation. . .? > > In 1948 former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, now a presidential candidate, announced that he would name Harry Dexter White as his Secretary of the Treasury. (White died of a heart attack before the election and one week after denying any espionage activities before the House Un-American Activities Committee.) Wallace lost the election; President Truman did not send him to prison. > > \ > > A more striking contrast can be seen in the treatment of atomic spies. As noted, in January 1950, in the United Kingdom, Klaus Fuchs confessed to espionage while part of the British team at Los Alamos; his activities had turned up in the VENONA files. He implicated Harry Gold as his courier. Gold in turn implicated David Greenglass, who implicated his brother-in-law Julius Rosenberg, formerly of the Army Security Agency. The Rosenberg prosecution, including that of Julius’ wife Ethel, now commenced. > > But at this time our attention again is drawn to 19-year old Theodore A. Hall. As noted earlier, by 1950 both the Army and the FBI knew that Hall was the “MLAD” referenced in several VENONA messages. It is hard to know with certainty exactly what happened next; most of the FBI files remain classified. It appears that Hall denied any illegal activity during questioning by the FBI. In any event, even assuming that a court case could have been built against Hall, the Government was evidently unwilling to pursue one if it would have meant revealing the existence of the VENONA project. > > Espionage can present profound dilemmas as regards prosecution. In this period, anything told to a jury would be learned by the KGB, at a time when large issues turned on preventing the KGB from knowing what we knew. This dilemma was doubly so when dealing with an Allied government. In October 1949, the British spy Kim Philby arrived in Washington as British intelligence liaison to the U.S. intelligence community. Part of his responsibilities involved receiving VENONA material which the U.S. was providing to the U.K. In April 1951, a decoded VENONA message showed that Donald MacLean, who had served as Second Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington in 1944 and 1945 (and returned in 1947 to work on atomic energy issues), was “HOMER,” a Soviet spy. Surveillance of MacLean commenced in order to obtain evidence independent of VENONA, as the U.S. and U.K. did not want to reveal publicly the existence of the project, but MacLean defected to Moscow with Guy Burgess in May 1951. Albeit the U.S. Government knew that Weisband had passed on this information more than two years earlier! > > \ > > Very well, what about the newly created Central Intelligence Agency? New, yes, but, again, by common understanding successor to the Office of Strategic Services.106 How many associates might Duncan Chaplin Lee have had? Of these how many might have made the transition to the successor organization? Was it worth the risk? Evidently not. As best as these events can be reconstructed, it would appear that the Army took a good long look before it decided it could trust the Central Intelligence Agency with secrets about Soviet espionage. > > The Army may be assumed to have another problem in sharing its secrets. It is entirely reasonable to conjecture that at this time in the United States a good many persons just would not have believed them anyway. Part of this was plain innocence. As remarked, most Americans had no encounter with Communists or Communism. Further, this was manifestly the case with many of the more prominent anti-Communists of the time. There was a cultural conflict: anti-Communists were perceived by some as elitists protecting bastions of corrupt privilege, and by others as vulgarians hurling groundless accusations. It is well also to keep in mind that the United States Army itself was under attack. Most notably, as when Senator McCarthy accused George C. Marshall of treason.107 > > Just as the period of a serious Communist “attack” ended precipitously in the late 1940s, so did the period of domestic agitation and alarm. The Rosenbergs were executed in Sing Sing Prison on June 19, 1953. There was a harsh injustice here. Ethel Rosenberg was an accomplice, not a principal. Still, the Government had not asked for a death sentence; a Federal judge took it on his own to impose it. > > \ > > Looking back, however, we see more clearly the dilemma of secrecy in Government. By 1950, when it was learned that Weisband had revealed the existence of the VENONA project to the Soviets, the United States Government possessed information which the American public desperately needed to know: proof that there had been a serious attack on American security by the Soviet Union, with considerable assistance from what was, indeed, an “enemy within.” The fact that we knew this was now known to, or sufficiently surmised by, the Soviet authorities. Only the American public was denied this information. > > The circumstances were surely extenuating. The Government knew some parts of the story: what did it not know? If innocent persons were being harassed and worse by a political mob-- and many were–so might equally innocent persons be devastated by the release of government information that incriminated a good many persons, not all of whom were guilty, and for certain not found guilty by a jury? > > Anyone knowledgeable of the Communist apparat could have predicted that the Government “secrets” would be attacked as spurious and contrived. The dilemma was awful, save that none of the principals involved seems ever to have doubted the wisdom of withholding the secrets. Much remains classified to this day. The Soviet Union has ceased to exist, but some of the divisions in the American polity from that encounter remain, and the new revelations brought a measure of recognition still very much needed. For a quick take on of what McCarthy did and didn’t to, and the veracity of his allegations: [here is a quick article.](http://www.wnd.com/2000/02/4020/) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/538 "2012-07-22T16:41:56Z")
You really ought to include some sort of warning before you offer a link to World Net Daily. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/539 "2012-07-22T16:46:13Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You really ought to include some sort of warning before you offer a link to World Net Daily. Wing Nut Daily, you mean. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420/540 "2012-07-22T16:48:45Z")
From your own cite: > [@](#): > > If innocent persons were being harassed and worse by a political mob-- and many were–so might equally innocent persons be devastated by the release of government information that incriminated a good many persons, not all of whom were guilty, and for certain not found guilty by a jury? But “Tail Gunner (not really) Joe” was “correct in the vast amount of his allegations” – including Eisenhower? SRSLY? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-congresswoman-with-the-crazy-eyes-part-ii-crazy-in-the-head/580420.md?page=28)