For now Michele Bachmann is the main show in the race for the Republican candidacy. Bachmann is the only fascinating candidate in a field that is otherwise populated by dreary, white Mormon guys (and Herman Cain). Matt Taibbi has penned an astonishing 5,000 word profile of the Congresswoman from Minnesota in this month's Rolling Stone [2].

In a profile stuffed full of potentially libellous comments -- at one point Taibbi accuses Bachmann of "pathological, relentless, conscienceless lying" -- a bizarre portrait of Bachmann's rise to fame and relative power emerges.

A few highlights include:

The moment when she hides behind a bush during a gay rights rally in 2005:

A photo shows Bachmann, only the top of her Stepford head visible, crouched alone in an extreme catcher's squat behind the Capitol shrubbery. She later insisted she wasn't hiding at all, but resting because her heels hurt.

The moment when Bachmann claims that she was attacked by two lesbains in a toilert.

Depending on whom you believe -- and by that I mean which of Bachmann's own competing versions of the story you believe -- Bachmann either left the meeting to avoid the activists, or excused herself to "use the restroom" only to be "held against her will" there by what may or may not have been a pair of angry lesbians. She reported the incident to the Washington County sheriff: "Sen. Bachman [sic] stated that when she was trying to leave, 2 women blocked her in and told her they wanted to continue talking. Sen. Bachman stated she was afraid and screamed for help. The 2 women let her leave the restroom when she screamed."

Taibbi makes the case - as do I [3] - that Bachmann is a potentially strong candidate, despite her frankly bizarre career so far. Ezra Klein described Bachmann as the candidate Sarah Palin was "supposed to be [4]", and Taibbi agrees, sort of:

Here's the difference between Bachmann and Palin: While Palin is clearly bored by the dreary, laborious aspects of campaigning and seems far more interested in gobbling up the ancillary benefits of reality-show celebrity, Bachmann is ruthlessly goal-oriented, a relentless worker who has the attention span to stay on message at all times. With a little imagination, you can even see a clear path for her to the nomination.

Indeed, he continues, Bachmann has incredible strengths as a politician:

The public has become acquainted with some of Bachmann's other excellent qualities as a politician -- her TV-ready looks, her easy confidence in public speaking, her quick command of a mountainous database of (frequently bogus) facts -- but often overlooked is her greatest quality, the gigantic set of burnished titanium Terminator-testicles swinging under her skirt.

According to Taibbi, then, Bachmann is a lying, gay-obssessed, Bible-nut who has rose to power thanks to chutzpah and a pair of over-sized testicles. She could also easily be the next Republican candidate for President.

Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy -- crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.

Read it [2]. It's long, but it's brilliant.