A day after the GOP debate in New Hampshire, mainstream media awoke to Rep. Michele Bachmann's undeniable abilities and magnetism. Before June 13, this mummified lot had turned to Meghan McCain and Chris Matthews for information about the congresswoman from Minnesota.

Matthews' mock-Bachmann routine is almost as notorious as the carnal excitement the host of "Hardball" displays periodically over Barack Obama. By Slate.com's count, Rep. Bachmann, who is running for president, has been "discussed" – more like dissed – on 127 episodes of Matthews' MSNBC show. In January, he accused Ms. Bachmann of looking dazed, hypnotized and acting irrationally, all because she remained unrattled by the host's hectoring.

At the time, I blogged that "to Matthews, a fully engaged female is someone like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who talks up a storm in promoting statist schemes. Simpletons perceive a fulminating statist as 'good,' 'caring,' and certainly 'smart.'"

Bachmann's "rational, steely quality drives Chris crazy." After all, Matthews is the man who exposed himself to his viewers, having divulged that he had experienced something akin to a (daytime) "nocturnal emission" while thinking about Obama.

No better were establishment Republicans. They dubbed Bachmann a kook – strategist Mike Murphy said she "makes Sarah Palin look like Count Metternich." "The media scrum hates her with a purple passion," I concluded, which is why "one hears very little about Ms. Bachmann's intellectual aptitude."

Rep. Bachmann catapulted to fame late in 2008. Yet not a thing was said in the muckraking media – Republican included – about her background. Just imagine what publicity Wasserman Schultz (or Sarah Palin) would receive had she provided foster care to 23 children in addition to raising five of her own!

Bachmann, moreover, earned a Master of Laws in tax law from the William & Mary Law School. (Women lawyers tend to flock to the less-taxing field of family law.) Not that you'd know it from the way she has been portrayed, but Bachmann is very clever.

With a perfectly straight face, Lawrence O'Donnell, also of MSNBC (a fertile seedbed for mind-sapping stupidity), lapped up the sub-intelligent message issued by the "Snooki" of the commentariat: Michele Bachmann is "no better than a poor man's Sarah Palin," Meghan McCain announced. MORE>>>