My Washington Independent profile of WorldNetDaily made the case that the conservative website, which opinion-makers brush off as a conspiracy hub, is actually incredibly influential on the right. Here’s some evidence for that argument.

For months — really since it was announced at the How to Take Back America Conference — WND has backed a campaign to send “pink slips” to members of Congress. Upon the sending of the five millionth pink slip, WND held a press conference yesterday on Capitol Hill, drawing actual GOP members of Congress, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). A photo of Bachmann (above) and Gohmert (below) with WND Editor Joseph Farah, one of the driving forces of the “birther” movement.

Image: fcc.gov

As the holidays approach, prices are falling on flat-screen TVs like the ones that Gov. Pawlenty had removed from the civil-commitment facility for sex offenders at Moose Lake. Which suggests a dilemma: at what price point can the state ethically buy 50-inch TVs for sex offenders?

At $1,500 each, plus mounting costs, purchasing 50-inch plasma TVs for common areas where sex-crime ex-cons are confined indefinitely was a “bonehead decision,” T-Paw said at the time.

But now, you can get the same size TVs for $1,000. That’s a 33-percent drop, considerably better than the 400 percent hike in what it costs the state to run its Sex Offender Program since 2003, Pawlenty’s first year in office.

Every man has his price. What do salespeople have to do so that T-Paw leaves with a brand-new flat-screen TV for the sex offenders at Moose Lake?

“You look at Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann,” she told King. “They are relentlessly torn down by the liberal media. I mean, they’re wonderful women, they’re intelligent, they’re great mothers. They’re brilliant. And yet there’s a double standard that conservative women are fair game to be attacked and it’s not right and it needs to stop.”

King replied, “Doesn’t the conservative media tear down liberal policiticans?”

“Not to the extent that liberals do to conservative women,” she answered. “I think they get away with it.”

But what really ruffled Prejean’s feathers was King’s question about why she agreed to settle lawsuits with the Miss California USA pageant. The pageant sued her for breach of contract and Prejean, whose answer to a Miss USA pageant question that revealed her to be ardently anti-gay marriage endeared her to rightwing conservatives, countersued. On Nov. 3, all suits were dropped; CNN had reported that a source claimed the reason for the settlement was that “extremely graphic” videos involving Prejean has surfaced. When King prodded Prejean about the reason behind the settlement, she repeatedly called his line of questioning “inappropriate” and attempted to walk off the set.

Yesterday’s installment, “Where is Michele Bachmann headed?” apparently earned reporter Rebecca Sinderbrand an audience with Bachmann herself. The fruits of that appeared at the top of the CNN.com main page today. In a nutshell:

In many ways, Michele Bachmann is the ideal political creature of the Tea Party era. Her path to power doesn’t lie in moving up the GOP leadership ladder, but in ignoring it entirely, drawing her power more from cable TV hits than committee assignments.

Coming in at 12th dumbest, our Senate race (dubbed “Land of a Thousand Recounts”) is illustrated by the spoof pharmaceutical ad, which asks, “When the time comes to concede, will you be ready?”

The copy continues:

If you’ve already tried futile legal challenges and angry calls for recounts, yet continue to suffer from an inadequate vote tally, Democra-cialis may be right for you. Losing candidates who have used Democra-cialis have seen a marked reduction in electile dysfunction, leaving their opponents victorious and satisfied.

Also making the list are Illinois’ Rod Blagojevich (#15), corporate bailouts (#9), and “Angry Town Hall Meetings” (#6, “Birthers, deathers and other rightwing morons stopped any intelligent discussions about healthcare reform”).

The full ad, via NBC Chicago:

It’s not the first faux pharmaceutical ad created on behalf of Coleman. In April, Tildology came up with one for Dragra, an “oral argument for electile dysfunction.”

Media Matters has a rundown of Fox’s past video trickery.

Here is Hannity’s original Fox News segment about Bachmann’s rally:

Update: On Wednesday’s show, Hannity acknowledged that Fox used the wrong footage.

Talk of Palin in the White House opened the door for media discussion of Bachmann’s own presidential prospects, which otherwise might’ve seemed far-out.

In March, she disavowed interest in becoming leader of the free world, but a Fox News profile at the time envisioned her in the governor’s mansion or the U.S. Senate.

Then in August, World Net Daily asked Bachmann if she would “one day run for the presidency.” Her reply:

If I felt that’s what the Lord was calling me to do, I would do it. When I have sensed that the Lord is calling me to do something, I’ve said yes to it. But I will not seek a higher office if God is not calling me to do it. That’s really my standard.

In September, she told conservative radio host Mike Gallagher:

Also with women politicians, they want to make sure no women, no woman becomes president before a Democrat woman, and so they’re doing everything they can to, I think, sabotage women like Sarah Palin, perhaps women like myself, or similarly situated women, to make sure that we don’t have a prominent national voice.

CNN’s story today, days after her high-profile rally on the U.S. Capitol steps, relies on that statement from September to answer (in part) the question posed in its headline. But she doesn’t need to say it anymore because, as CNN tells it:

The overall scope of the outreach effort is unusual for a second-term member and has sparked speculation that Bachmann could be laying the foundation for higher office.

But Bachmann’s effort to stay in her current post will be one of the top 10 races (of any kind) to watch in 2010, according a new listing by Politico, where yesterday she drew mention as an exception to “The GOP’s women problem.”

Photo: Graham Moomaw, The Washington Independent

There’s word that “Stunning” Steve King, congressman from Iowa, wants a Saturday reprise of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “Superbowl of Freedom” rally against health care reform. Before a second “House Call” protest blurs memories of the original, here is a sampling of reportage from a pair of eyewitnesses to Bachmann’s achievement on Thursday.

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein sought to mix freely with the folks Bachmann brought out, but he found his reporter’s notebook — and eventually, his sought-after business cards — gave him away:

On Thursday, I ventured down to Capitol Hill with a professional death wish. I was going to mingle with a group of tea partiers to get a sense of what, exactly, keeps their clocks ticking. For two-and-a-half hours, I got the Glenn Beck treatment — accused of, among other things, subverting freedom, working for a communist propaganda outlet, and having a soulless devotion to slander and scandal.

One woman picked up her items and moved away — taking her family with her — after I settled down on the Capitol’s front lawn. At another point a man, who seemed generally concerned about my safety, whispered in my ear: “You’re a sheep amidst the wolves in this crowd, son.”

And yet, a funny thing happened on the way to Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) “Super Bowl of freedom.” I was adopted — in a way — by a group of tea baggers. Sure, the politics they spoke seemed dripped in abject paranoia. But there was, at the very least, a sense of mutual respect. How else, after all, should one feel about people so devoted to a cause that they would skip work and travel hundreds of miles for a milquetoast protest?

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank asked if it didn’t “send the wrong message for House Republicans to hold an event on the Capitol grounds full of hateful and gruesome words and images,” noting in any case that it wasn’t technically a rally.

Technically, Thursday’s GOP-sponsored rally at the Capitol was a “press conference” (a Capitol Police spokeswoman explained that the lawmakers didn’t have a permit for a demonstration). The speakers took no questions at this news conference, instead calling, at least a dozen times, for the Pelosi bill’s death.

But, as with a similar rally by Democrats a week before, unpredictable things tend to happen in the wide-open spaces of the Capitol’s West Front. Minutes into the rally, a breeze toppled the American flag from the stage.

More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician’s office — an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care — rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip. This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone. “Join us in defeating Pelosi care!” he exhorted. A few members stole a glance at the stretcher.

Click on the image below to see the full-sized version of PiM’s chart in all its glory:

PiM is also home to a less visually stunning but still very handy chart listing gubernatorial candidates of both parties.

The man that the current mob of contenders hopes to replace, retiring Gov. Tim Pawlenty, is the subject of another great graphical-political achievement: Minnesota Public Radio’s “Governor’s Travels” map, which charts T-Paw’s itinerary as he criss-crosses the country in pursuit of the presidency. Here is MPR’s current map (green for official travel on state business, red for personal travel):

I can attest from personal experience that it’s not as easy as it looks. Here’s a graph showing how donations to former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman went up and down in relation (or not) to milestones in his recount-challenge effort:

Click to enlarge

Will got credit (and teasing) from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann for his revelation, but back in 2007 the Star Tribune’s Kim Ode included it as a fun fact at the end of her own fawning profile of Bachmann.

A year ago Bachmann got this greeting from Carlson when she appeared on “Fox & Friends”:

Congresswoman Bachmann joins us live now from St. Paul. Good morning to you! I feel like I can call you Michele, because — as people may or may not remember — you were my babysitter growing up! Good to see you again. And look at where you are now!

The two women are 10 years apart in age, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Will has Bachmann as a Humphrey Democrat in those days, while Carlson has waxed nostalgic about a pre-politically correct childhood.

Whatever their differences then, Bachmann and Carlson have by now converged on a kind of kooky, just-say-it conservatism that seems to work like catnip on cable-TV viewers of either political camp.

But what people can’t see is the sometimes fraught, sometimes idolatrous relationship of babysitter and babysat, as perhaps best expressed in Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes comics, and folksinger Dar Williams tear-jerker, “The Babysitter’s Here.”