A little over twelve hours ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Freakshit, Minn.) appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and declared that the media should investigate the anti-Americans in the US Congress, a delirium furthered as part of the delusion the McLame campaign has suffered from: the one that variously questions Barack Obama's patriotism.
As a result of Bachmann's grinning McCarthy-like hate-filled spew, we "goonbats in the liberal blogosphere" began publicizing her wingnut asshattery. Which resulted in online contributions to Bachmann's Democratic opponent, the one and only Elwyn Tinklenberg, of nearly $100,000 as of this posting. See update below.
What this says about the infrastructure of the modern progressive movement is nothing short of amazing to me.
A scant four years ago, John Kerry was paralyzed as this same line of Swift Boats attacked his honor. The media did not effectively push back against the lies, and there certainly was no coordinated response from Kerry's supporters, online or off.
To be certain, Kerry himself should have fought back harder. But Barack Obama and his campaign has had nothing to do with the Bachmann matter; this has been an instant reaction to the rantings of lunatic Republican in favor of her obscure Democratic challenger in the form of cold, hard cash from the netroots.
Matthews challenged Bachmann's ludicrous assertions straight away; Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow followed up on their subsequent MSNBC programs, and Daily Kos advanced the response by picking up the YouTubes of Bachmann's playing kissyface with Bush, then denouncing him more recently as his popularity withered. The left's leading blog also found and posted Tinklenberg's site and publicly called for donations. The rest of us spread the message on Democratic Underground and elsewhere around the blogosphere.
If you went out to dinner last night, you missed the whole thing. On Friday, October 17, the twenty-first century progressive movement hit fifth gear, and trust me, it is zooming like a Porsche.
Update (10/19): $488,000 in 24 hours, with almost 250K of that coming online.
