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About the Author
Steven Heller is the cofounder and the cochair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts. He writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review and the Graphic Content blog for T-Style; is editor of AIGA Voice; and is a contributor to Design Observer. He is the author, coauthor, and/or editor of more than 120 books on design and popular culture, including the forthcoming New Ornamental Type (Thames and Hudson). More information can be found at his homepage.
 
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Michele Bachmann, Living Doll

by Steven Heller
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Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has attracted national cable media attention for suggesting that President Obama is "anti-American." Yesterday she was on the stump as a spokesperson advocating defeat of the current health care bill. For all her daffy deeds, she's just been named as Ms. November in the Conservative Women's 2010 calendar. Congratulations! But she's also achieved another level of celebrity status in the form of her own designer action figure. Is the bobble-head next? (It would be appropriate.)

The Connecticut-based toy company Herobuilders released the doll last fall, but it's taken this long for me to find one. The $39.95 Bachmann action figure shares the Herobuilders catalog with Rod Blagojevich (a $149.95 limited-edition figure) and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (sporting a t-shirt that reads "Let them eat yellow cake").

Do you have a favorite political action figure? My faves are the ones below by Jailbreak Toys.
 

Reader Comments
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Your snipe about the bobble head being appropriate for Bachmann and "for all of her daffy deeds" makes me wonder if free speech is only allowed to liberals. Is no one allowed to question any part of Obama's plans?
By artbymichael  November 06, 2009 
I agree with artbymichael. Bachmann rightly stumps for the defeat of BO's monstrous health care bill and you have the audacity to call HER daffy, Stephen? As for bobbleheads, I'd like to see Pelosi and Reid immortalized. Oh wait, they already ARE.
By jimincoto  November 06, 2009 
Artbymichael, Help me understand this concept. Obama has a health care program. He is criticized as "anti-American" for it and other transgressions. I take a snipe at Congresswoman Bachmann, who has the national media reporting what she says, and I as a "liberal" am questioned for not allowing anyone to question Obama's plans? Hmmmm. I thought the exchange of views is a conversation, whether that exchange is serious, sarcastic, satiric (and even uninformed). I, for one, have not prevented Ms. Bachmann from speaking (although I think most of what she has to say is indeed uninformed). And it was the "liberal" NY Times that reported on her speech at yesterday's rally (and winning Ms. November too). So where does critiquing her "daffy deeds" become the prohibition of free speech? Please Ms. Bachmann write to us in the reader's comments.
By Steven Heller  November 06, 2009 
Although I worry that more comments feed the attention-machine that is Michele Bachmann, I needed to respond as someone who lives in the Congressional District she represents. With all due respect to the comments from artbymichael and jimincoto, free speech is something in which Bachmann has absolutely no interest. I have attempted to share my opinions with her as a constituent, and she has said quite openly that she isn't concerned with people who have my "liberal" point of view. She has a well-earned reputation for nuttiness in our area, so those of you who think the bobble head doll is an inappropriate fit for this woman, PLEASE do your homework!
By sjwolfewood  November 10, 2009 
Although I worry that more comments feed the attention-machine that is Michele Bachmann, I needed to respond as someone who lives in the Congressional District she represents. With all due respect to the comments from artbymichael and jimincoto, free speech is something in which Bachmann has absolutely no interest. I have attempted to share my opinions with her as a constituent, and she has said quite openly that she isn't concerned with people who have my "liberal" point of view. She has a well-earned reputation for nuttiness in our area, so those of you who think the bobble head doll is an inappropriate fit for this woman, PLEASE do your homework!
By sjwolfewood  November 10, 2009 
Dear sjwolfewood; sorry, I don't live in Bachmann's Congressional District, so could you please supply, or direct me to, an example where Bachmann specifically told YOU she "isn't concerned with people who have your 'liberal' point of view," or doesn't believe in free speech? Explain to me how someone that "nutty" was elected in the first place. Is she nutty because she opposes saddling our country with such staggering debt we can never recover? From the shameful way Pelosi, Reid and Co. have been behaving like kids with their hands in the cookie jar, I would say it's they who don't want to hear from anyone who doesn't share their liberal point of view, especially Conservative Republican members of Congress.
By jimincoto  November 11, 2009 
Good lord, they made Blago an action figure? As someone from Illinois, this annoys me beyond reason. That man thinks WAY too much of himself (and his damn hair).
By Kirvi_Inci  November 18, 2009 
Okay enough about Blago... What amusse me te most is that they probably made her doll out of the same parts as they make the Obama ones. :D Think about that.
By Kirvi_Inci  November 18, 2009 
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