I feel a certain sympathy for Michele Bachmann and if it came out that she ordered Ed Rollins to launch that premtive strike against Sarah Palin (or at least agree to it, I wouldnt blame her.

The fact that Ed Rollins is leading her campaign is evidence that Bachmann is serious about making a go for the nomination. Up until this point Palin is still relying on sycophantic amateurs for serious political advice.  There is no certainty that Palin is even running yet (although I'm thinking she will). 

If I were Michele Bachmann, I would be very resentful of Palin's game (the bus tour that isn't a campaign tour, whether she will get in or not). I would be downright furious about Sarah Palin being considered the face of the tea party. Did Sarah Palin stick her political neck out to give a separate tea party response to President Obama's State of the Union Address, drawing the ire of GOP leadership? 

No. Michele did. 

Yet it's Michele who probably has to look at  this when she surfs the far right wing websites: 

Sarah Palin, as Rollins correctly pointed out, had the vice presidential position handed to her in a cynical move to try to boost a failing presidential campaign. The McCain campaign barely even vetted her. 

After that campaign, she returned home and, as Rollins reminded us, left the governorship, likely because she wanted to cash in on her celebrity (losing control of the Alaskan Legislature and being buried under ethics investigation after investigation probably did not help). Granted she has campaigned for fellow Republicans, including Bachmann. She also serves as a Fox News “news analyst,” but this pretty much involves just showing up on Greta Van Susteren’s show every now and then to answer beyond slow-pitch softball questions from the former attorney.

Yet she has not displayed any significant advance in either her political knowledge or her intellectual gravitas. Sarah Palin simply is not interested in applying herself to anything except promoting the Sarah Palin brand. She wrote couple of books. She starred in a reality TV show. She does the occasional speech when she feels like showing up.  Despite all of this, the media that she so despises still touts her name as a contender for the 2012 Republican nomination.

And then there is poor Michelle. Bachmann is the three-time incumbent from the Minnesota 6^th Congressional District. It was she who not only went against GOP leadership wishes with her response to the State of the Union address, but also hosted the first Tea Party Caucus and served as one of the founders of the House Tea Party Caucus. This year she sponsored 7 bills in the House of Representatives (including the very wonderfully named “Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act”) and cosponsored 83 bills.

And Bachmann can do goofy just as well as the former beauty queen from Wasilla. Remember her suggestion to Chris Matthews that the American Media should investigate to see if there were anti-Americans in Congress? What about her heaping praise upon New Hampshire for the battles of Lexington and Concord, both of which occurred in Massachusetts? Or the Founding Fathers of our great land working "tirelessly" until they abolished slavery?

Yet for all this, she is considered a second rate Palin, even though Bachmann has done more for the Tea Party movement than Palin ever will.

It makes no sense at all.