In which the pond discovers the Neanderthal in all of us, and quite possibly in Michele Bachmann and the commentariat ...

(Above: only the cheapest satirical flourishes will do when it comes to Michele Bachmann).

It seems, according to Elizabeth Kolbert's piece Sleeping with the Enemy for The New Yorker (sorry, it's inside the paywall) that interbreeding is a long and noble tradition:

Even now, at least thirty thousand years after the fact, the signal is discernible: all non-Africans, from the New Guineans to the French to the Han Chinese, carry somewhere between one and four per cent Neanderthal DNA.

Steady. There's no reason to expect a cheap joke about the Neanderthal DNA of the commentariat.

But it does produce cognitive dissonance to read in the very same issue Ryan Lizza's portrait of Michele Bachmann, in Leap of Faith (happily outside the paywall), and be reminded that creationism lurks just below the surface.

Heck, sometimes it floats to the top and leaves a ring mark like suds in a bathtub:

Today, one of the leading proponents of (Francis) Schaeffer’s version of Dominionism is Nancy Pearcey, a former student of his and a prominent creationist. Her 2004 book, “Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity,” teaches readers how to implement Schaeffer’s idea that a Biblical world view should suffuse every aspect of one’s life. She tells her readers to be extremely cautious with ideas from non-Christians. There may “be occasions when Christians are mistaken on some point while nonbelievers get it right,” she writes in “Total Truth.” “Nevertheless, the overall systems of thought constructed by nonbelievers will be false—for if the system is not built on Biblical truth, then it will be built on some other ultimate principle. Even individual truths will be seen through the distorting lens of a false world view.”

When, in 2005, the Minneapolis Star Tribune asked Bachmann what books she had read recently, she mentioned two: Ann Coulter’s “Treason,” a jeremiad that accuses liberals of lacking patriotism, and Pearcey’s “Total Truth,” which Bachmann told me was a “wonderful” book.

When did the party of Lincoln become the party of the dumb, or perhaps more poetically the blind leading the blind?

And strangely the rhetorical flourishes in this circle are exactly the same as deployed by the commentariat down under:

In 1981, three years before he died, Schaeffer published “A Christian Manifesto,” a guide for Christian activism, in which he argues for the violent overthrow of the government if Roe v. Wade isn’t reversed. In his movie, Schaeffer warned that America’s descent into tyranny would not look like Hitler’s or Stalin’s; it would probably be guided stealthily, by “a manipulative, authoritarian élite.

Ah yes, that sinister inner urban latte sipping elite, the wretches designed to torture Paul Sheehan, Gerard Henderson, Janet Albrechtsen, and all other right-thinking types.

But why go on a foreign tour today and mention insightful coverage of the weird fundamentalist world from which Bachmann emerged?

Well in a new leap into the void, The Australian today offers up Kathleen Parker's It's time to give Bachmann a break.

And why should Bachmann be given a break?

Well the question and the answer is of breath-taking triviality - though it takes almost five hundred words to get there - and concerns hair-do, make-up, lighting and tardiness, and a cheap shot at Obama as the wrap-up.

Is it fair to criticise Bachmann for tardiness? Sure, but it takes longer to put on lipstick than it did to make the leap from late to diva.

Bachmann offers plenty to critique, from her policy positions to her too-pat answers to complicated questions. But being late or making sure she puts on her best game face is hardly cause for the current pile-on. Other than "divo", which only Italians use, what's the equivalent for a male diva? Wait, wait, don't tell me: Obama.

If you want a reason why American politics is completely surreal, and at the same time routinely verging on the infantile, look no further than The Australian channeling Kathleen Parker explaining why Michele Bachmann deserves a break ...

Give me a break, bring on that paywall now ...

Meanwhile, if you want a hearty dose of stifling American exceptionalism and paranoia, you could do no better than read Micah Halpern's The wake-up call no one wanted, also courtesy of the lizard Oz.

Not a word of the 100,000 plus civilians (or more) killed by military adventurism in Iraq (who knows what the total tally in terms of casualties of the Iraq war) or the thousands killed in Afghanistan (Afghanistan civilian casualties), yet all Halpern can blather is rhetorical nonsense:

Before 9/11, Americans were blithely and innocently unaware about how they were perceived and what they represented to the non-Western world. Proud and chauvinistic, they could not even imagine that a large part of the world did not share their convictions about freedoms and democracy.

It's as if Graham Green had never written The Quiet American back in 1955, as if on a grander scale the Vietnam war had never happened, as if history was a blank before 9/11 so blithely and innocently unaware were Americans...

Actually a large part of the world doesn't share current American attitudes to deregulation and the holiness of the marketplace (the "I believe in god and free markets" routine), and the virtues of Christian fundamentalism and the joys of believing in creationism, but you wouldn't know any of that from Halpern.

That's why it's always a pleasure to stumble across a contrary message from the United States

Sadly, you'll have to head behind the Harper's Magazine to read Thomas Frank's amusingly savage tearing up of another anniversary in The Age of Enron.

It begins thus:

This summer will mark ten years since the series of disclosures that led to the sudden bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation of Houston. The collapse of the gas-and-power leviathan, then one of the largest companies in the nation, was the starting gun for the modern age of neoliberal scandal, the corporate crime that set the pattern. It was not the first episode to feature grotesque bonuses for insiders, or a fawning press, or bought politicians, or average people being fleeced by scheming predators. But it was the first in recent memory to bring together all those elements in one glorious fireball of fraud ...

And it ends thus:

Or perhaps I've just misunderstood. Maybe what we're so agitated about is the possibility that some law-and-order killjoy might bring the Age of Enron to a close. Maybe, for all our fond talk of the untainted republic of the Founders, the Texas of Ken Lay is where we really long to be. So let the next scandal ruin your neighbour, let it black out entire regions of the country, let it throw millions out of work - as long as we get a chance for our turn at the trough.

Uh huh. It surely makes for a different kind of rhetorical flourish to that delivered by Halpern:

In 2001, Americans felt that the values of freedom, women's equality, equality among all races, agreeing to disagree on issues of religion, recognising that differences make for a more exciting dynamic and productive society, were universally held.

Ten years later, Americans still hold true to those beliefs, but now they understand that their Western beliefs are not universally held. They know they must fight for their beliefs and they are up for the challenge.

Americans collectively believed all that?

Yep, America must stay on a jingoistic war-mongering path, to defend the values of freedom and creationism, to assert women's equality and the right of Michele Bachmann to be submissive to her husband, to insist on equality among all the races, excluding Hispanics, especially those in Arizona (oh and maybe some blacks here and there), and to agree that secular liberals have the right to go to hell, but perhaps not before they first experience hell on earth at the hands of righteous Xians and cultists.

Yada yada, so on and so forth ...

The United States remains a dynamic place in terms of writing and ideas, but damned if you know it by what they reprint in The Australian.

But maybe that's the point, since their brethren at Fox News have so adeptly assisted in the dumbing down of America, and now the process seems to have extended to Australia.

It's almost impossible to generate any sympathy for Anthony Albanese at the pond - a man who has ably done nothing about Sydney's infrastructure issues - but the sight of a man abusing him as a gutless loser almost succeeded, or at last produced the desire to shout at the gentleman that he was a loser with a very large gut ...

If times are so hard, perhaps said gentleman should lay off the snacks from the supermarket.

Oh dear, that's how it goes in these tea party times, frothing and foaming at the mouth, idle abuse and Michele Bachmann as a credible politician who deserves a break ...

Just time then for one last absurdity, and trust the cult of Scientology - an apple pie, all American product - to deliver. You can read about it here in Scientologists vs. New Yorker: Parody Hits Out At Lawrence Wright.

It seems the cultists finally decided to do something about Lawrence Wright's story about Paul Haggis leaving the "church", as featured some time ago in The New Yorker under the header The Apostate Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology.

No doubt Micah Halpern can explain how cults make for a more dynamic and productive society, but all the pond can do is contemplate the absurdities of the cult and the abysmal films of Haggis (can there be a more confused, sentimental, or irritating film than Crash?)

And then come up with this deep insight, perhaps delivered with a shrug of a cheese-eating surrender monkey's shoulders.

Only in America.

The only discernible upside in all this?

Well it's another day not thinking about Australian politics, reading the ranting and ravings of the local commentariat, contemplating the Malaysian solution, or brooding on the dismal prospect that Telstra will make out like a bandit under the agrarian socialist coalition, and broadband will continue to be fucked in this country under an Abbott government.

Yep, suddenly The Australian has discovered the ineffable stupidity of some of Tony Abbott's policy positions, as you can read in Telstra's $6bn windfall if NBN scrapped.

Telstra stands to make a $6 billion gain if the Coalition wins power in 2013 and dumps the National Broadband Network, according to a high-level report that creates a new dilemma for the opposition over its plans to scrap Labor's flagship project.

Big Mal was last seen ducking under a hedge and heading for the hills.

Only in Australia, and with that, remember the welcome relief of the weekend is nigh ...

(Below: the cult of Scientology at work producing a more dynamic and productive society with satirical wit and skill, way up there with a class of ten year olds. Do they have any idea how the result suggests the cult is run by refugees from Mad magazine? What, Alfred E. still rulez?)