A potential GOP candidate getting flak from Fox News’ conservative anchors for criticizing President Obama? That was the case for Tim Pawlenty on Wednesday when the Fox and Friends new macho image isn’t sitting well with some of Fox News’ conservative anchors who called Pawlenty’s recent comments about President Obama, “inappropriate,” “out of hand” and possibly “bad for the country.” The Fox and Friends crew took Pawlenty to task on Wednesday after Pawlenty made a comment on Tuesday that Obama gets so scared by intelligence briefings that he soils himself.

Pawlenty told radio host Dennis Miller, “The intelligence people come in and brief him in the morning, he’s probably looking for a pair of Depends, and so I think he’s in over his head on a lot of levels and a lot of ways, and that’s reflective of how he thrashes about and in some ways almost reacts incoherently to these security situations.”

Brian Kilmeade said he thought it was “bad for the country.”

Gretchen Carlson saw it as Pawlenty trying to rebrand his “Minnesota nice” image. “You can see there is a strategy in play of Tim Pawlenty trying to get a little more tough tough now the question is is that acceptable in getting tough.”

A study last year by the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota found that Rep. Michele Bachmann appeared on cable news programs every nine days on average. Last week, she shattered those expectations by appearing on a cable news program at least once a day from Tuesday through Saturday making 14 national television or radio appearances.

Last week, Bachmann hired communications director Doug Sachtleben, a former spokesperson for the U.S. Senate campaign of Christine (“I am not a witch”) O’Donnell. That brings Bachmann’s communications staff to three people. Among what must have kept that staff busy last week: Six Fox News appearances. For comparison, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is preparing to promote his memoirs in anticipation of a presidential bid, did four national media interviews last week.

On Monday, Dec. 6, Bachmann appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show to denounce any extension of unemployment benefits.

“When you overspend you lose options,” she said. “We’re at a crucial tipping point and we can’t add an additional year of unemployment benefits because we need to put our economy on a footing where we can see real job creation.”

Tuesday brought Bachmann’s call for the defunding of Planned Parenthood to CNS News.

The same day, Bachmann was on Fox’s America Live with Megyn Kelly. “Extending the unemployment benefits for 13 months has a cost of about $54 billion dollars… It doesn’t appear that that is paid for,” she said. “That will add to the deficit going forward.”

Also on Tuesday, the 6th District Republican was on the Mark Levin radio show where she said President Obama lied in his press conference about the tax cut plan earlier that day.

“And he said that Republicans oppose various credits for the middle class. Those are flat out lies! And then he said that it is our ‘holy grail’ to be able to stand for tax cuts for the wealthy. So he is continually setting up ‘Marxist economics.’”

On Wednesday, as a guest on the Laura Ingraham radio show, Bachmann again criticized President Obama’s press conference, calling him “angry and bitter.”

“He made one false statement after another in this press conference,” she said. “He’s making thee wild unbased statements. He’s such a promoter of class warfare. I don’t think he did himself any favors with that press conference yesterday.”

On tax cuts for the wealthy and middle class, she said, “No one is getting a tax cut. This is preventing tax increases.”

Also on Wednesday, Bachmann was on Fox Business’ Bulls and Bears to again talk about the president’s tax cut plan.

She said she opposes the part of the plan to cut employees portion of the payroll tax saying it will cost Social Security $140 billion: “We are going to blow open in the Social Security trust fund.”

On whether she would vote for the tax-cut plan: “I haven’t made a final decision.”

Host Liz Claman pressed Bachmann on the GOP’s apparent about-face on tax cuts. “It’s stunning to see that Republicans who had pushed so hard for this now say, ‘Okay, maybe not,’” she said. “Do you guys even know what you want?”

Bachmann replied, “Our position has been we don’t want the massive tax increases that President Obama has been advocating.”

Bachmann departed a bit from talking tax cuts on Thursday, when she appeared on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network to promote her new classes on the Constitution, which will include controversial guest lecturers like David Barton.

“The Judeo-Christian heritage isn’t a belief,” she said. “It’s a fact of our nation’s history. It’s a fact…One thing we know from the Book of Isaiah is that Isaiah tells us that the government is on His shoulders. We can trust a holy, almighty God with our future and nothing is too big for Him.”

On Friday, Bachmann spoke with Fox News Live about the tax cut plan: “It’s interesting when people are allowed to keep their money that’s considered a deficit to government, because it’s less money for government. But it’s people keeping their own money which gets circulated in the economy. We want people to keep more of their own money.”

CNN’s American Morning also hosted Bachmann on Friday to talk about tax cuts. CNN host John Roberts challenged Bachmann about her opposition to unemployment benefits because they increase the deficit and her support for the Bush tax cuts which would have the same effect.

“Part of the reason it increases the deficit is because you are maintaining those marginal tax rates for all income levels,” Roberts said. Bachmann replied that she wants a change to the definition of “deficit.”

“Remember the definition… it’s a deficit to government but it’s not a deficit to people who get to keep their money,” she said. “So it’s how you frame it.”

She said, “I don’t think letting people keep their own money should be a deficit. You are right about that John it is to the government but think about what else we could do right now: cut spending.”

Meredith Viera of the Today Show was even more direct in her criticism of Bachmann’s shifting definitions on Friday, and Bachmann’s opposition to unemployment benefits; that conversation got tense.

VIEIRA: But how, how do you justify adding more money to the deficit? That much more?

BACHMANN: Well remember that money is, is, when people are allowed to keep their own money, that’s considered a deficit. I don’t, I don’t agree with that definition. When people keep their own money, that’s considered a deficit to government, but it’s not a deficit to your pocket or mine. And so I think it’s important that people can keep their money.

VIEIRA: Let me ask you about people who might be sitting there, watching this interview and they’re frustrated because they feel while the Republican-

BACHMANN: I don’t blame them.

VIEIRA: Well wait a minute! They feel the Republicans, they’re all for these tax cuts, even for multimillionaires but opposed to extending the unemployment benefits that are helping the people who are hurting the most. To them, this is mean spirited. Why are they wrong?

BACHMANN: But we’re not talking about millionaires sitting in leather chairs lighting their cigars with $100 bills. We’re talking about a carpet layer in Sheboygan, Wisconsin who employs his brother-in-law and his son. And they have $250,000 in gross sales. That’s what we’re talking about. Real people who aren’t living large.

VIEIRA: Well you’re talking about everybody. That and also people who are living large.

BACHMANN: But we’re talking about everyone and what, and remember those people who are the job providers, those are the people that won’t be able to provide more jobs. That’s what people want right now. They want jobs, they want paychecks. That’s the focus.

VIEIRA: But they also want their unemployment benefits Congresswoman. They also want that and you’re opposed to that.

BACHMANN: People want a paycheck, they want paychecks more than they want unemployment benefits. Right now unemployment is-

VIEIRA: If they don’t have a job they want unemployment benefits.

BACHMANN: That’s, that’s right and that’s what we want. We want people to have jobs. Right now it’s historic. People have unemployment benefits for two years. It isn’t just unemployment. It’s also food stamps it’s also housing assistance. It’s also all the other programs that go along with it. So the best thing we can do is grow the economy and to do that we need to keep rates low enough so that employers can hire more people.

On Friday, Bachmann also hit up the studio of Lou Dobbs for an impromptu interview about her Constitution classes.

“We are going to do what the NFL does and what the baseball teams do we are going to practice every week, if you will, our craft,” she said. “Justice Scalia has graciously agreed to kick off our class.”

In yet another interview on Friday, Bachmann appeared on Fox Business’ Freedom Watch to talk about the president’s tax cut plan. She said the Democrats will reject Obama’s plan because it does not increase taxes enough.

“They think that the tax compromise bill did not tax people enough,” she said. “That’s the bottom line. They want people taxed more than what Barack Obama has in this bill.”

In still another interview on Friday, Bachmann joined Gretchen Carlson for Fox’s Klimeade and Friends radio show, and on Saturday she was a guest on Fox’s Geraldo At Large.

Photo: Jonathunder, Wikipedia

Garrison Keillor rages from the battlements of the War on Christmas in his column this week, telling Unitarians and Jews and other heathens that “Christmas is a Christian holiday — if you’re not in the club, then buzz off.”

Unitarians (who Keillor regularly but good-naturedly ribs on his radio show) seem to have set him off with a modified Christmas carol:

If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write “Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah”? No, we didn’t.

There must be something in the water in Anoka, a hometown Keillor shares with U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, (who the other day called him a “genius“). In her first Christmas in Congress, Bachmann co-sponsored a  ”Christmas Bill” (it passed), which read in part:

[T]he House of Representatives recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world; expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide; acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith; acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization; rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

Update: Bachmann has a new Christmas Bill this year.

And another Anokan, “Fox and Friends” co-host Gretchen Carlson, who Bachmann once babysat, made the point more succinctly last Christmas season:

What’s changed is the whole politically correct environment that we live in. I’m all for people to have their rights of free speech. Just don’t choose December 25th to do it.

[Via The Daily Glean]

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

ST. PAUL: T-Paw references Goethe on Fox. Pawlenty called health care reform a shiny fishing lure and a Faustian bargain (hmm, is he familiar with those?). [Fox News via YouTube]

METRO AREA: Jets scrambled too late, says general. Military planes should have been in the air to protect the Twin Cities when an errant jet with preoccupied pilots passed by this month. [MPR News Cut]

MINNEAPOLIS: Fake folk? A local donor gave the Weisman Art Museum five paintings by folk artist Clementine Hunter that the FBI suspects are forgeries. [Associated Press]

WOODBURY: Dog bites man, hard. A retired cop lost an ear and much of his face. [Associated Press]

ST. CLOUD: Bridge open. The Granite City Crossing replaces the old DeSoto bridge found unsafe in post-I-35W collapse inspections. [St. Cloud Times]

STATEWIDE: Schools go begging. The 57 districts asking voters to approve new tax levies next week are among the 90 percent in Minnesota now levy-dependent to cover operating costs. [ECM Publishers]

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.”

Based on the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association numbers, federal funding has so far helped car owners replace 150 inefficient old cars, not two. That’s 2 percent of the 7,500 consumers who have signed on to participate in the program.

Carlson has a habit of drawing dubiously on her Minnesota roots — for example, citing her childhood experience of Christmas to advocate that free speech be suspended on that day, and claiming “the last time I checked, [former U.S. Sen.] Norm Coleman won the election after election night.”

Here’s today’s Fox News video clip:

CARLSON: By the way, I did my own crack research yesterday, spent a tremendous amount of time on this yesterday finding out information. In my home state of Minnesota, so far only two of these deals have actually been approved –

CO-HOST STEVE DOOCY: That’s all?

CARLSON: — by the government.

DOOCY: Wow.

CARLSON: Two in the entire state of Minnesota. And then you wonder about whether or not these dealers feel like they’re going to get their money from the government. Not so sure.

Washington state is ground zero for this year’s war after the government allowed a nativity scene on the Capitol grounds. The overtly Christian display led some atheists to request that their own sign be permitted, and the government relented. Then a Festivus fan wanted the traditional pole placed at the Capitol. But when Fred Phelps wanted to install a sign saying that Santa is a child molester who sends people to hell, Gov. Chris Gregoire said enough is enough and declared a moratorium on new religious (and areligious) displays until the matter could be reviewed.

When Chuck Norris heard of the flap, the actor planted his roundhouse kick firmly on the atheists he blames for starting the mess in the first place.

“Atheists from England to the West Coast of America are stepping up their efforts this year to make a bigger antagonistic splash on the Christmas scene,” said Chuck. “I am a patriot, and I believe that atheists are free to believe, speak and post whatever they want. This is America, and that’s their First Amendment right. But to do so with harassment and hatred under the guise of free speech is despicable. An anti-religious poster filled with spite is in no way equal to a religious symbol, such as a Nativity scene. Where are the political correctness police when religious followers are the victims?”

And while Chuck might believe in free speech, Gretchen Carlson, former Minnesota beauty queen and current Fox News “War on Christmas” correspondent, says not so much: “I’m all for free speech and free rights, just not on December 25th.”

Perpetually outraged William Donahue of the Catholic League weighed in: It’s the gay marriage supporters who are to blame.

“The root cause of the war on Christmas, which is conducted almost exclusively by well-educated white people in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia — the very same people who like gay marriage — has almost nothing to do with fidelity to law (the First Amendment in the U.S.): it has to do with ideology. The ideology is plainly an expression of left-wing secularism, and it is nothing if not anti-Western and anti-Christian. At its worst, it is driven by hatred; at its best, it is driven by a defensive posture, a deep sense of embarrassment over the legacy of Western civilization. There is no historical or moral justification for either. Moreover, those who are pushing this agenda generally lie about their work.”

Despite fingering white, educated seculars, Donahue in his next breath plays the Muslim card. “[T]his hatred of Christmas is not exclusive to the U.S. In England, Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary called Christmas ‘evil’ in a recent sermon.”

Choudary did warn Muslims not to celebrate Christmas. “Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of Christmas, because its observance will lead to hellfire. Protect your Paradise from being taken away – protect yourself and your family from Christmas,” he said.

While Donahue and Norris impart the wisdom of the founding fathers on Christmas, they missed an important part of history. The religious folk who began the American dream said roughly the same thing as the Muslim professor: Celebrating Christmas is the road to hell.

“The generality of Christmas-keepers observe that festival after such a manner as is highly dishonourable to the name of Christ,” said the Rev. Increase Mather in 1687. “How few are there comparatively that spend those holidays (as they are called) after an holy manner. But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in mad Mirth…”

In fact, conservative Christians banned Christmas in Massachusetts — the state that gave us gay marriage — until 1855.

Who will win the “War on Christmas”? If playing the Nazi card is an indication of having lost the debate, then the Minnesota Family Council may have put it out of play for the religious right.

“Some insist that singing a Christmas carol in a public school is a state endorsement of religion,” writes Family Council Communications Director Chuck Darrell. “Would the same people insist that reading Mien Kampf in social studies is a state endorsement of National Socialism (Nazis) as well? So tell me, what’s the difference?”

Over the past day, Gretchen Carlson, a co-host of “Fox & Friends” and the last Minnesotan to become Miss America (1989), invoked her local roots as part of a full-court press to put the issue – now an annual holiday tradition in its own right at Fox News — back on the national front burner. She started with a segment Wednesday morning on a controversy about a religious display at the Washington state Capitol. That night Bill O’Reilly, who has been working the latest wrinkles in this ratings-boosting war for at least a week, invited Carlson to appear on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Her gist: Freedom of speech is fine, but not on Christmas Day.

Transcript excerpts after the jump. Gretchen Carlson with Bill O’Reilly on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Dec. 10, 2008:

O’REILLY: So you were brought up in Minnesota, right?

CARLSON: Exactly.

O’REILLY: OK, now think back many, many years ago to when you were a child.

CARLSON: Thank you, Bill.

O’REILLY: I do that to everybody. None of this existed, correct?

CARLSON: No, my grandfather was a minister. So I have to – I’ll say that because I grew up spending a lot of time in the church.

O’REILLY: But none of it existed. There was no controversy over Christmas. …

CARLSON: We actually called it Christmas. …

O’REILLY: … What’s changed?

CARLSON: What’s changed is the whole politically correct environment that we live in. I’m all for people to have their rights of free speech. Just don’t choose December 25th to do it.

O’REILLY: Well, don’t be disrespectful. You can have freedom of speech without being disrespectful.

This morning, Carlson’s “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy picked up where O’Reilly left off in trying to talk her down.

DOOCY: We’ve got to be tolerant of people who celebrate holidays in December, like Ramadan [sic]. We’ve got to be tolerant. You’ve got to be tolerant of all people.

CARLSON: I am tolerant. I’m all for free speech and free rights, just not on December 25th.