From the first Morning Jolt in a week…

‘Are You a Flake?’ ‘That Depends… Are You?’
Perhaps, in the interest of fairness, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace could begin every forthcoming interview with, “Are you a flake?” Bonus points would go to the candidate who answered, deadpan, “yes.”
Double bonus if the candidate was Republican Senate candidate and longtime pork-fighting Rep. Jeff Flake.
Sam Stein of Huffington Post summarizes the exchange: “While Fox News Chris Wallace didn’t press the Minnesota Republican on any specific statement — whether it be that President Barack Obama was creating a gangster government, that anti-American sentiment existed in Congress, or that NATO air strikes had killed up to 30,000 civilians in Libya — he did touch on the broader point. “Are you a flake?” he asked. Bachmann seemed offended by the line of inquiry. “I think that would be insulting to say something like that because I’m a serious person,” she explained. She then went on to tout all the ways in which she was, indeed, serious.
“I’m 55 years old. I’ve been married 33 years,” she said. “I’m not only a lawyer, I have a post-doctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary. I’ve worked in serious scholarship … my husband and I have raised five kids, we’ve raised 23 foster children. We’ve applied ourselves to education reform. We started a charter school for at-risk kids. I’ve also been a state senator and member of the United States Congress for five years.’”
Wallace later apologized in a Fox News Sunday web video…
At Outside the Beltway Doug Mataconis says he sees nothing wrong with the original query: “Judge for yourself, but I don’t see what’s wrong with Wallace’s question. Given Bachmann’s history, it’s perfectly legitimate and, actually, I thought she handled the question well. Apparently, though, any perceived insult of a conservative, even on Fox, is now verboten. A wise man once said something that I think apples here — If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Tough questions are part of politics, and if you’re going to whine and complain every time one of your favored candidates gets asked a hard question then you really don’t belong in the arena.”
But “are you a flake?” isn’t really a tough question; it’s more of an insult in the guise of a question. (Unless, of course, every figure on the political scene gets that question.) At the very least, it’s an accusation, and net effect that is a variation of that “don’t think of an elephant” line from Inception. The more a person vehemently denies that they’re a flake, the more others wonder if there’s something to the accusation. No one believes that Barack Obama has an uncontrollable shoplifting habit; if he were to be accused of it relentlessly, at some point, some segment of the population would begin to suspect that he has a shoplifting habit. (Watch; inevitably, this accusation will now be popping up in e-mails forwarded to you by your nutty friends, and I’ll be accused of spreading another scandalous, shameless lie about the president.)
But as Jonah pointed out, Joe Biden has uttered so many otherworldly comments over the course of his career that if he replied to a question on Meet the Press, “Get these squirrels off of me!” and everyone would either shrug or nod and smile. For some candidates, statements that seem off-kilter or inaccurate or just plain wacky (“57 states!”) get shrugged off as garden-variety slips of the tongue; for other figures in politics, their gaffes define them. Most conservatives just don’t buy the notion that the defined-by-gaffes phenomenon is random. Otherwise, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy would be forever defined by the “Stockpile Stewardess Program.”
Is Bachmann flaky? Compared to whom?

Bachmann’s record on ethanol subsidies is sufficiently divided to avoid any “corn flake” references.

I remember after Dick Cheney’s “big time” concurring comment about the er, disagreeable nature of a New York Times reporter, he was urged to make Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time” his campaign song. Perhaps Bachmann could use Jack Johnson’s “Flake” for a few laughs.