Michele's headaches

Michele Bachmann suffers from migraine headache, sometimes very severe ones. She's now being hounded by the press, who follow her asking if she ever missed a floor vote due to a migraine, and other "vital" questions. Commentators comment that she might, if elected president, be incapacitated at times. There's a media frenzy building among folks who obviously do NOT suffer migraines and know nothing about them or their treatment. And her fitness for the presidency is being called into question because of these headaches.

I am no fan of Michele Bachmann. I don't think she and I could disagree more, but I think this attack based on her migraines is disgusting. She's in good company. There are stories that Abraham Lincoln suffered from these cursed spells on top of his depression. I don't doubt it. Other distinguished sufferers include Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Jefferson. Yet all three of these MEN did their jobs despite their headaches, and I am sure Bachmann does, too. She joins Alfred Nobel, Sigmund Freud, George Eliot, Alexander Graham Bell, George Bernard Shaw, and scores and scores of other high functioning, high achievers who did what they did despite that hemi-cranium pain that we've come to call migraine. And she joins me.

Attack Michele Bachmann on her voting record, on her speeches, on her positions, on her ideology. Do not stoop to attack by saying she might be incapacitated at times, that she is not physically fit for the presidency. I rarely hear these kinds of things said of male migraine sufferers. If John F. Kennedy's health did not keep him from doing his job, then migraines wouldn't stop Michele Bachmann.

I strongly dislike Michele Bachmann and disagree with her on almost everything. But I will fight her on the issues, on her ideology, not on her headaches. I know how she suffers. On that, I feel compassion.