Rep. Michele Bachmann — from one of those midwestern states, Minnesota, I think — is one of those extreme right, religious, anti-everything-any-Democrat-says-or-believes kind of Republicans.

So, naturally, she is opposed to health care reform. She even backed Sarah Palin up on the death panels thing, along with other stalwart Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Charles Grassley, who, incidentally, is supposed to be one of the moderate Republicans working on a bipartisan “compromise.”

You may remember Bachmann as the congresswoman who jumped out and gave GW a big sloppy kiss as he entered the House chamber for a State of the Union address a few years back. Or you may remember her as the congresswoman who suggested that Congress should be thoroughly investigated for un-American, un-patriotic beliefs, like opposing the war in Iraq and opposing illegal wiretaps on American citizens and torture and stuff.

And, naturally, she opposes the usual liberal policies, like equal rights for GLBTQ citizens, diplomacy before war, health insurance for children and, of course, abortion.
Why, then, would she appear on the television broadcast of that great American, Sean Hannity, and say this:

That’s why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions.

“Under no circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions.”

I see. Now, put aside for the moment that nothing in the health care reform plan gives the government control over anyone’s body or health care decisions, and let the delicious irony wash over you.

I’m very tempted to think that, while she will not allow the government to control her body, it’s perfectly all right for the government to control everyone else’s.

But this band of Republicans never really appreciates the irony of their statements, do they? That Bachmann should use the exact phrase that pro-choicers use to oppose bans on abortion to oppose health care reform is just over her head, in the same way that it’s over Sen. Jon Kyl’s head when he says that “No Republican will vote for a more than $1 trillion bill” when they certainly had no problem doing so for GW’s tax breaks for the rich. Or, for that matter, continued support for a war nobody wants.

And yet, here we are. My colleagues aren’t helping matters, of course, as they continue to present Republican opposition — the whacked out parts, which is pretty much all they’re presenting — as legitimate, often failing to note their own reporting debunking the bullshit.

There’s plenty of room for conservative thought in American politics. In fact, we could use some rational conservative thought on a lot of issues, but that’s not what we’re getting. Instead, we’re getting wild ideas that have no basis in reality and a newly empowered fringe element ready to stop progress by force.

How do you negotiate when your negotiating partners won’t listen to reason, when their talking points are based on lies or when their most extremist faction is openly flaunting its determination to use violence against anything they don’t like?

It’s not possible. But then, this batch of Republicans have made clear what their priority is — to win back power in 2010 and beyond. And the way to do that is to make sure this Democratic administration fails, by any means necessary.

A lot of us on the left have seen this coming for some time. And recently, every now and then, something comes along to prove we’ve been right all along. Like Tom Ridge, now letting us know that he stopped the Bush administration from raising the terror alert for political reasons. At least he did that one time, before the 2004 election.

But we knew that was going on. It was pretty damn obvious when they’d raise the terror alert while telling us they didn’t have any corroborated threat. Just a precaution, I guess? Or just to scare people a little more.

The way they’re scaring people now. Only now they’re not in charge so they really have to depend on the crazier of their members to press the point. Or not — Grassley is supposedly one of the better ones.

And it’s working, to some extent, just like it always has. The appeal is to the emotions, stir ‘em up, fire ‘em up, rile ‘em up, doesn’t even need to be with the truth because the Republicans have a ready-made base that won’t believe the truth if it slaps ‘em in the face.

I was involved in a little problem with city government where I live some years ago. Doesn’t matter what it was — but there was a paper trail. Nothing was circumstantial. It was all down in black and white — actual facts. And yet a sizable portion of the community wouldnt’ recognize those facts. In fact, one man said that he didn’t actual “deal in facts,” he preferred to go by feelings.

Well, feelings can be wrong. Sure, they’re real — they’re what you feel, and emotions are very real things. But they can be based on false information. Or they can come straight out of what you want to believe rather than what’s true.

The Republicans have beaten us time and again with this tactic. It’s time that stopped. So when they try to say that health care costs are gonna rise under this plan, we can say, yeah, well probably. But they’re gonna go up a whole lot more without it.

When they say this plan is gonna kill grandma, tell ‘em, no, it’s not. But grandma is likely to get priced out of the market if we don’t do real reform.

And when they say it’s socialism, tell ‘em so what? So’s Medicare, so are the roads you drive on. There are some things that government should be doing. And helping its citizens live healthier lives is one of them.

And tell Michele Bachmann she finally said something that made sense.