Christian Life Resources and Michele Bachmann

Christian Life Resources (CLR) has presented Rep. Michele Bachmann as a sort of role model for the Christian politician (see the September/October issue of their "Clearly Caring" magazine).  In that interview, she spoke hardly at all about life issues but a whole lot about the typical right-wing banalities of anti-tax, small government, states rights, blah blah blah. She is certainly entitled to whatever political beliefs she holds but I'm not sure why Christian Life Resources has to give her a forum to express these views.

The website Politifact.org has rated 13 of Michele Bachmann's public statements over the past couple of years.  Politifact classifies statements made by politicians into the following categories: True;  Mostly True;  Half True;  Barely True;  False;  and Pants on Fire.  Of Rep. Bachmann's statements, seven were ruled False and the other six were ruled Pants on Fire.  Christian Life Resources has cited these types of websites (FactCheck.org is also excellent and fair) when it serves its own purposes, so I thought it only fair to point out how Rep. Bachmann stacks up with the truth.

In "Clearly Caring" (3rd quarter 2009) Robert Fleischmann, CLR's national director, wrote an article entitled "Save Us from the Zealots".  The article contains the following sentences:

Today’s fanatic is reckless with the truth, merciless with those holding contrary opinions and articulate in appealing to the intellect and emotions. The fanatic thrives on the ignorance of others and is convinced and convincing that there are no lasting moral absolutes. As time changes, they argue, so do the moral boundaries. Like the emperor who thinks he is modeling his royal garments that don’t exist, so also do the fanatics espouse convictions that have no substance.

Obviously, he was mostly referring to people with whom he disagrees, but it's also a pretty good description of Michele Bachmann, or at least many of her public statements.  Apparently, as long as someone agrees with CLR on the "important" issues, they are free to be as reckless as they want on other issues without being held to account.