'Lovable Little Fuzzball' Michele Bachmann: 'I'm Not Afraid of the Left'

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is a Capitolist favorite. Not only does she generate buckets of emotion from the left and the right, she says things that make a writer's day, like "Get your hands off my health care!"

So imagine our delight when a new Q&A with la Bachmann popped up in our Google news alert this morning. In it, Minnesota Post writer Michael Bonafield says he was warned by friends that Bachmann would be "an idiot," "a right-wing nut job," "a buffoon" and "a moron."

But when he interviewed her in a Minnesota coffee shop, Bonafield found the congresswoman to be "passionate about her beliefs . . . straightforward, intelligent, humble and gregarious."

A few highlights:

On why she elicits so much rage from liberals: "I don't know. I'm a lovable little fuzzball! I have no idea what they would have to fear. I guess you would have to ask them; they would have the better answer to your question. I am doing my job. That's what I was elected to do. I don't fear the left, and maybe that's part of the loathing that they feel toward me."

On the health care bill: "The president said to us that he would prefer to be a one-term president and achieve his agenda rather than being a two-term president and not achieving his agenda. I think he recognized that there may be a very high political price to pay [for health-care reform], but I don't think he cares. This will be the federal government taking over 18 percent of the economy."

On what she reads: "I read varied books, and I read a lot. The book I'm reading right now I just adore. It's my second time through it. It's Gov. [William] Bradford's journal, 'Of Plymouth Plantation.' It's a marvelous book. They came to these shores in 1620, and he wrote the book in about 1650 or thereabouts. He wrote literally in the King James English. So it's very difficult to read, but it's . . . spellbinding."

Read the entire interview at the Minnesota Post HERE.