Bachmann's Disease: a condition nobody understands at all

[the_archfiend]

I have no idea why Kommandant B. pulled this stunt a few days ago. None. At all. "What stunt?", you may ask. well, ask no more:

Late last month, an outrageous pro-Bachmann attack ad helped Jim Graves raise $8,000. Then, last week, her appearance at a Lakeview, Illinois synagogue caused a 400 percent week-over-week increase in Chicago-area contributions to her opponent's campaign, according to Adam Graves, Jim's son and campaign manager.

Bachmann's appearance at the synagogue came on the eve of Yom Kippur and during a service "celebrating Israel's openness to the gay and lesbian community," the Chicago Tribune reports. So, as you'd expect, worshipers were less than thrilled to see one of America's most notorious gay rights opponents in their midst. (The Tribune contacted Bachmann's campaign and congressional office to try and figure out why she was at the synagogue, but never heard back.)

The temptation to just go "uh...what?" and walk away from this little chunk of Weird is there, of course, but I'm not really inclined to do that; consider this nugget from Mike the Mad Biologist instead:

The only thing that makes sense is that she (or her staff) read that Anshe Emet is affiliated with the Conservative movement (which has nothing to do with conservative politics, and most Conservative congregations tilt left, sometimes strongly so).

Well, yeah. Perhaps. My own guess is a bit different, though: considering that Bachmann is still desperate to curry favor with Jewish voters through her usual "Obama is a S3kr1Tt MUSL1M!!1!!" nonsense (a recent example can be found here), this odd little spectacle of her showing up at a synagogue at a really, really inappropriate time (not so much because of the the holiday. of course; the theme of the service is a different story) was probably a desperate attempt to carry on with that "mission".

Or maybe she really is nuts.

Take your pick.