I keep staring at the Newsweek cover. Actually, it keeps staring at me: Michele Bachmann and the Crazy Eyes.
I am no Bachmann fan, but I think she was done wrong — and not just by the photo. The accompanying headline, “The Queen of Rage,” does her an equal disservice. Bachmann is misguided, in my view, about nearly everything. But she is not the Queen of Rage.
I saw Bachmann at the National Press Club a few weeks back, and the Minnesota congresswoman was smooth, without evident edginess or bristling. She was, in short, the un-Palin. She was, in between incoherent assertions about the debt ceiling, rather charming. Palin would have launched a jab at the lamestream media assembled to hear her. Bachmann began by saying it was a “humbling experience.”
When Newsweek showed Palin in skimpy running shorts, she unloaded. “The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now,” Palin sneered. “The media will do anything to draw attention — even if out of context.”
Bachmann, who had more reason to blast the magazine, opted not to engage. “We’re just not going to address that,” her press secretary, Alice Stewart, said. “We’re focused on what’s important, which is meeting with the people of Iowa in advance of the straw poll.”
Newsweek editor Tina Brown is a brilliant businesswoman. When was the last time we were all talking about a Newsweek cover? But good business does not necessarily equal good journalism.
It takes some effort to make the photogenic Bachmann look bad, and I suspect Brown & Co. knew exactly what they were doing.
In the end, the cover may be a win-win. Newsweek benefits from the buzz. And Bachmann benefits from the combination of public outrage and her above-the-fray stance. Not a bad deal for one unflattering photo.
