Department of GIRL NO

Not a wartime correspondent:

Bachmann then began to talk about her role as Representative at the nation’s Capitol. Explaining the resources available at her U.S. House website which enable her to communicate what is happening in D.C. to the public, such as her Bachmann Bulletin, Bachmann Blog, and links to her Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace pages, the Congresswoman said, "I’m a foreign correspondent on enemy lines and I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington."

Let me be blunt here. I know, because I usually beat around the bush, but: Bachmann here isn't risking shit. She has by all accounts a pretty cushy job from which she Twitters back craziness to the people who elected her, and at no time is she in mortal danger of anything other than saying something stupid on TV.

Not so, Uma Singh:

About 15 unidentified people attacked Uma Singh, a 27-year-old print and radio reporter, in her home in the southeastern district of Dhanusa in the Janakpur zone in the south of Nepal near the border with India, according to local and international news reports. Singh died of multiple stab wounds to the head and upper body while being transferred from a local hospital to a larger one later that evening.

Some journalists and civil society groups said they believe local Maoists may have been involved in the murder. Among other suggested motives, Nepal's National Human Rights Commission suspects she was silenced by Maoist workers, who Singh blamed for the abduction and murder of her father and brother in 2006, according to the My Republica news Web site.

Mark Bench with the World Press Freedom Committee visited Janakpur in early February as part of an International Media Support mission looking into Singh's murder. He told CPJ by e-mail that the district police superintendent he interviewed believed her role as a journalist was a likely cause of her death. "She was known for her naming names and for blaming the Maoists for the murder of two family murders," he wrote. "We spoke with 11 female journalists from Janakpur. All spoke of her forthrightness that likely got her killed."

Not so, Francis Nyaruri:

Prior to his disappearance, Nyaruri had written a series of articles that exposed local police corruption, local journalists told CPJ. The journalists said Nyaruri had told them police officers had threatened him in response to articles he had written in the Weekly Citizen.

Before the body was found, local police did not broadcast information about the reporter's disappearance despite repeated requests by his family, according to local journalists and relatives.

Not so, 125 men and women all over the world:

About 13 percent of jailed journalists face no formal charge at all. The tactic is used by countries as diverse as Eritrea, Israel, Iran, the United States, and Uzbekistan, where journalists are being held in open-ended detentions without due process. At least 16 journalists worldwide are being held in secret locations. Among them is Gambian journalist "Chief" Ebrima Manneh, whose whereabouts, legal status, and health have been kept secret since his arrest in July 2006. From the U.S. Senate to the West African human rights court, international observers have called on authorities to free Manneh, who was jailed for trying to publish a critical report about Gambian President Yahya Jammeh.

We like to make a lot of fun of wingnuts' inflated self-importance, the way they describe themselves as Strike Forces and talk about themselves in the florid language of the resistance movement. The truth is, there are people every day who live the kind of lives Michelle Bachmann and her ilk like to talk about, who go out every day and do the job Michelle only pretends to do. That's why this kind of thing isn't funny and it isn't cute and it isn't harmless hyperbole. She's presuming, and she shouldn't.

To the actual foreign correspondents working every day — under conditions which would send the 101st Fighting Keyboarders screaming for their mommies — to their memory, to their families, and to everyone who knows or knew them, Bachmann should apologize.

Via Shakesville.

A.

Comments

[virgotex]

yep, some ugly shit. She wants her constituents "armed and dangerous."

The ugly chorus joined today also by Tammy Bruce's saying that the Obamas were "trash in the White House."

Ugly. Also, stupid.

[pansypoo]

roxanna in iran too.

bachman need to be whopped by a stupid stick.

[paulo]

Living in Washington pretending that "they" aren't American enough and even that in fact your fellow Americans there are the enemy all the while your real people back home are making less and less every decade in real wages and are losing their own jobs because of your "philisophy" and of course while you grab a massive by most standards (outside of TARP) salary, a lifetime pension, and let's not forget a gold-plated health insurance plan that's way too good for measely auto workers.

Yeah it's a wonderful conceit.

[Interrobang]

A Canadian journalist by the name of Khadija Abdul Qahaar (born Beverly Giesbrech) is being held by the Taliban somewhere in Afghanistan/Pakistan border. The Taliban have threatened to behead her if their ransom demands aren't met. Unfortunately, she's a convert to Islam (post-9/11) and runs a politically-unpopular pro-Islamic website, so it's really hard to say what will happen. I would expect better from my country generally, but we've really had a very poor record of timely location of and negotiation for Muslim detainees in foreign countries...

[The Other Sarah]

So, Michelle:

Living in Washington pretending that "they" aren't American enough and even that in fact your fellow Americans there are the enemy all the while your real people back home are making less and less every decade in real wages and are losing their own jobs because of your "philisophy" and of course while you grab a massive by most standards (outside of TARP) salary, a lifetime pension, and let's not forget a gold-plated health insurance plan that's way too good for measely auto workers

how's that humble country girl shtick working out for you, Ms. Bachmann?

Foreign correspondent my tired old white Aunt Fanny.

[MapleStreet]

Part of the conservative methodology of drumming up the base is to show that they are standing in the gap, protecting you, the little guy. Then to make it bigger, that there is a global cosmic war of their righteousness against evil (defined as anyone else).

[missy]

I heard on Malloy last night that Bachmann has 2 dozen foster children.

Suffer the little children, indeed.

[pansypoo]

not much of a mother.