Dakota Beacon

Rudyard Kipling:  “A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty.”

Charlotte Bronte [in a letter to William Smith Williams]: “I am neither a man nor a woman but an author.”
 
Peruse the following list:
Julia Gillard (Australia), Lidia Gueiler-Pejada (Bolivia), Margaret Thatcher (United Kingdom), Corazon Aquino (Philippines), Indira Ghandi (India), Gold Meir (Israel), Mary Robinson (Ireland), Yingluk Shinwatra (Thailand), Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan), Kim Campbell (Canada), Angela Merkel (Germany), Elisabeth Domitien (Central African Republic), Isabel Perron (Argentina), Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway), Ertha Pascal-Trouillot (Haiti), Kazimira Prunskeine (Lithuania), Violetta Chamorro (Nicaragua), Edith Cresson (France), Hanna Suchocka (Poland), Tansu Ciller (Turkey), Yulia Tymoshenko (Ukraine), Reneta Inszhgova (Bulgaria), Portia Simpson-Miller (Jamaica), Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Agathe Uwilingiyimana (Rwanda), Sylvie Kinigi (Burundi), Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sirimavo Bandanaike (Sri Lanka), Ruth Perry (Liberia), Jenny Shipley, Helen Clark
(New Zealand), Janet Jagan (Guyana), Mireya Moscoso (Panama).
 
What do these distinguished ladies have in common?  Each has been elected to serve as head of state of her country within the 20th and 21st Centuries – most, if not all, within our own lifetimes.  They are from every corner of Planet Earth, every continent, every complexion, language, culture, age, creed, political philosophy, economic status.  Their politics are as varied as their biographies and their geography.  They have one more thing in common:  they are not Americans.  This is not to endorse the politics or
policies of any of these women.  We simply endeavor here to acknowledge the fact that people, throughout the world, even in the most repressive societies, have accepted women as leaders.

By way of contrast, we have the example last week of FOX News’ Chris Wallace in his interview with Conservative Congressman Michelle Bachmann, a leading contender for her party’s nomination for President:  “Are you a flake?”  Wallace’s rude and hollow question/insult begged for a harsher rejoinder than the uber-polite, Minnesota-nice Bachmann delivered.  One wishes her answer had been something like this:
Well, Chris, I don’t know.  It depends on your definition of “flake”.  For example, is it “flaky”   for our government to buy the best late model used cars, well-maintained, and blow up their engines?  Is it “flaky” for a head of state to admonish the rest of us to stay home, conserve gas, turn down our thermostats in order to shrink our “carbon footprint” and then fly in a personal 747 to see the world?  Would you be a “flake” if you banned drilling for our own oil in the Gulf of Mexico, depriving thousands of Americans their employment and then turned around and provided financial support to
Brazil to drill off their coast and promise that we will “become their best customer”?  Would a “flake”, in fact, embrace the now-exposed and intellectually embarrassing junk science of the climate change lobby?  Maybe a “flake” would then call for the bankrupting of our coal companies too.  Is it the decision of a “flake” to wage war against Islamic theocracy in Afghanistan and support and encourage it to overthrow established governments in Egypt and Libya?  Would a “flake probably take on costly and bloody wars in six or seven different countries across the globe in which no outcome could be in our own national interest?  Perhaps only a “flake” would suggest that Congress pass a life-altering healthcare bill over 2,000 pages in length without reading it – or be a “flake” to vote for a bill you haven’t read?  Is one a “flake” if he is unable to produce, after three years a convincing, unaltered, legitimate, non-photo-shopped birth certificate?  Is it “flaky to continue to funnel money to the current incarnation of ACORN?  Does a “flake tell us there’s no inflation when our own eyes tell us there is every time we go to the grocery store?  Is it “flaky” to denigrate those who simply ask whether a bill is authorized under the Constitution?  Does a “flake” authorize sending $42 billion in “aid” to the “government” of Somalia, when we are ourselves bankrupt?  Maybe it takes a “flake” to ask a question like this on national television when our country is in peril of losing its very sovereignty due to insolvency while our people are staggering under worsening inflation, plummeting home values and soaring, record unemployment.  So, are YOU a “flake”, Chris?

Michelle Bachmann, more than any other leader on our stage in 2011, has shown the courage and the vision required of our next President.  There are many good Conservatives speaking out right now, but none whose voice has been as consistent and outspoken as Bachmann’s. We are grateful for the wealth of strong Conservative leaders, many of them freshmen in our national government – people like Allen West, Marco Rubio and those we’ve heard over the years, like Tom McClintock of California, Gary Johnson of New Mexico, and business leaders like Herman Cain.  But Bachmann has shown what she’s really made of.  She has refused to be bought off or intimidated.  Her personal and professional life have been above reproach.  It is not acceptable to refer to Bachmann as a “flake”. 

Whether she will be our next presidential nominee remains to be seen – she has competition from the Left as well as from others labeled “Conservative”.  At this point, however, she is a very strong contender, which brings us to the next question:  can she be elected?  Those commentators who fall back on the tired political “wisdom” of the 1970’s or 1980’s and who have suggested that she is unelectable are shortchanging her – and us.  As recently as last week, no less distinguished a commentator than Brit Hume offered his opinion that Bachmann was looking good for the nomination, advancing in the polls and raising a good deal of campaign money, but that if she were nominated it would be a disaster to the Republicans because she “could not be elected” President.  Could not be elected because . . . why? 

Because she is a Conservative?  Because if this is his reasoning, let’s recall a few non-Conservative Republican offerings:  Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, and John McCain.  (One might think that George W. Bush was an exception, but remember that he was packaged as a “Conservative”.)  There is absolutely no reason to believe that a liberal or “moderate” Republican candidate can be elected and a “Conservative” can’t.  The polls and the state of our nation suggest otherwise.  It becomes apparent that what we need – and what the voters will come to demand – is just that:  A Conservative Republican.

It has been repeated (by this writer, for one) that the Republican Party really should stand for something.  It is self-evident that the two-party system requires two points of view and political parties that represent them.  It is a mindless mantra that we need to “compromise”, “meet the other party halfway”, “cross the aisle”.  What we need are two distinct parties representing two distinct approaches to governing.  We already have a party that stands for bigger government doing more and more “for” us and spending more and more of our money and giving away the farm – our sovereignty to other nations and international entities and our civil rights to various agencies. 

What we need, then, is the OTHER party – the one that OPPOSES this, the one that supports the United States Constitution against all comers, whether it be from within or outside our borders – oh, and by the way, one that supports our HAVING borders!

Michelle Bachman, although not the only one out there, is the de facto leader of this party, whether or not in name.  She is the leader who has insisted that her party stand for something, and she has courageously set forth what those views and values are.  She has been willing and unafraid to confront the leadership of her own party as well as the other party.

On the other hand, was Hume’s comment related to the fact that Bachmann is a woman, and therefore “unelectable”?  Is America too backward to elect a woman?  Is gender reason enough for the American voter to stay home - or vote Democrat?  Can we even use the word “reason” in this context?  Or is a better word “bigotry”?  We broke the racial barrier in 2008.  In fact, it is highly unlikely that Obama, given his  resume, could have been elected had he not been Black.  It was clear that race trumped gender in the 2008 election.  But had it not been a factor, had Obama been Caucasian, it would have been all but impossible for him to have ousted Hilary Clinton as the Democrat-crowned nominee.

In the same election campaign the Republican Party elite allowed – even facilitated – abuse of their own Vice Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin – who, by the way, has far more ready answers than her “betters” in the Party hierarchy.  The Republican Party has historically not been as supportive nor enjoyed as many female political leaders as its Democrat counterpart.  Democrats have promoted women earlier and allowed them to advance farther up the ladder.  Various reasons have been put forward as to why women tend to vote Democrat more often than Republican.  Could it be that therefore Democrats simply have a wider field of women from which to choose, or could it be that they are less phobic about women as leaders?

Will the Republican Party honestly reassess this unwelcoming atmosphere towards women?  If they are not ready to do this they will find that they are denying some of their best and brightest.  The people – the grassroots – respond warmly to the leadership of both Palin and Bachmann.  Perhaps they know something the Party elitists and the network pundits don’t.  Maybe it is time to listen to and accept the leadership of women as well as men.  We should not support Michelle Bachman “because she is a woman”.  We should support her for a good reason – because she is a Conservative with a better vision for America, better solutions, and because she is a leader we can respect.  Is there any logical reason that anyone can advance why a woman can lead in the polls or win in a primary, and achieve the nomination of her political party, and that woman cannot win a general election?  Go back to the beginning of this article.  Take another look at the women who have, in our own times, been elected to lead their countries.  Are we so benighted in America that we refuse to elect a woman?  Are we so well-off in America in 2011 that we can afford to discard one of our best and most outspoken and committed political leaders – simply because she is a woman?

Shame on the Republican Party if it allows airheaded commentators spouting hackneyed bromides to mindlessly bash Bachmann and hijack our choices.  We can’t afford to overlook the substantial talents, good sense, experience and ability that this woman brings to the debate.  It is frivolous to suggest that we can: frivolous and potentially fatal to the Republican Party and to the nation to accede to this old-hat political humbug.
 
Sally Morris is a member of Americans for Constitutional Government and the Executive Committee of the Valley Tea Party Conservative Coalition.