Photo collage: MnIndy

“Don’t let them Palinize me!’ cries the subject line of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s email to supporters today. Laying claim to the Sean Hannity–bestowed title of “second most hated Republican woman,” Bachmann makes a pitch for cash: “With Governor Palin taking a well-deserved step out of the spotlight, it appears that I may be absorbing even more of the liberals’ scorn. And, I’d really appreciate your support so that I can defend myself against their attacks.”The Palin theme seems predicated not only on Hannity’s phrase but also on news yesterday that Bachmann’s son has joined Teach for America, part of the AmeriCorps program that she has publicly berated:

But just as they did with Sarah Palin, the more I talk about the issues, the more they attack with below-the-belt personal hits.  In fact, yesterday,  a Minnesota paper gave a full column to a hit piece on one of my kids!

Today’s “Bachmann Blast” (pdf) comes only a week after Palin gave Bachmann a shout-out on Facebook, seemingly signaling symbiosis between the two rightwing divas.

Making a verb with negative connotations out of Palin’s name is an unusual step for a fellow Republican.

It was no compliment, for example, when CNN’s Larry King blurted out former Sen. Norm Coleman’s name as a verb of derision during the heat of Coleman’s recount battle with Democrat Al Franken.

A negative definition of “Norm Coleman” even made the Urban Dictionary, a source Bachmann quotes directly at the end of her missive:

From the Urban Dictionary:

Palinize:

To smear or mock someone using falsehoods, baseless accusations or unsubstantiated character assassinations for the purpose of blocking them from achieving a goal.

To exaggerate the truth or lie by omission.

To attack a person for his or her conservative values by focusing an inordinate amount of attention on a single example of that person falling short (or being perceived as falling short) of the values they espouse.

The Urban Dictionary’s earliest “Al Franken” definition, from 2003, is more like a brief and very dated encyclopedia entry:

A former writer for Saturday Night Live, now better known as a liberal activist and comedy writer. Has incited the wrath of many a conservative mainly for cheerfully shoving their own slimeball tactics back in their face. Currently getting very rich off a stupid lawsuit filed by Fox News and dismissed by a very annoyed judge.

The usage example provided now might make a good proposition for a debating society to take up:

“The nice thing about Al Franken is that he doesn’t take himself anywhere near as seriously as Michael Moore.”

The second Franken entry, from 2006, has the phrase all in lower case and two definitions:

1. To succeed in becoming wealthy without talent or charisma
2. To hide a political agenda in the guise of lame comedy and to use large crowds as a cloak for cowardice.

The last “Al Franken” definition is failing the Urban Dictionary’s reputedly lax quality-control, with more down-votes than up-votes from readers:

An ugly frog-faced bastard. But that would be an insult to frogs.

But the single definition for “Norm Coleman” beats the three or four for “Al Franken” simply by being more current — so much so, in fact, that none other than CNN’s Larry King used “pull a Norm Coleman” on his cable TV show last week.

In that case, the Urban Dictionary was ahead of TV. An even newer example shows the interchange in reverse, with Miss California’s Sunday coinage of “opposite marriage” (a man and a woman) attracting more than 1,000 reader votes since Monday.