Bachmann exits, stage right.

Soon we won't have Bachmann to kick around anymore.

That is bad news for political cartoonists, Democratic strategists and late-night talk-show humorists.

But Bachmann's departure from public office is good news for the country.

Bachmann exits Congress, stage right, from the Republican theatre of the absurd.

That will remove one virulently divisive character from a growing cast of Congressional malcontents, conspiracy theorists, social outcasts, ignoramuses, paranoids, fearmongers and low-brow clowns.

This Bachmann breed of politicians reflects a similar breed of voters. And they disproportionately populate Congress.

They perpetuate themselves with a circular formula. They foment a climate of fear and paranoia and, come election time, tap into a vast reservoir of voter anger fueled by that fear and paranoia, and they prophesy more of the same if voters fail to elect people who share their anger, fear and paranoia.

Some of her acrid rhetoric comes from a guileless naivete'. Some from rank bigotry. Some of her nastiness comes from an infected religiosity, and some from defiance of basic science and the basic facts of life.

In her farewell interview with the StarTribune this weekend she made a rapid-fire succession of pronouncements.

She said, "I am not a nasty person. I make reasoned arguments. I recognize I am not a dirty fighter. I don't think I have an enemy here."

That is the direct quote: "I am not a nasty person."

But she worked tirelessly to deny loving gay couples the sacrament of marriage, sought to cut funding for the school lunch program, advocated drastic budget cuts to the sick, elderly and poor. Supported tax increases on the poor. Supported Bush/Cheney's torture tactics. Lobbied President Obama to "bomb Iran"--at this year's White House Christmas Party.

Even her supporters know this is a whopper, given her long list of bizarre statements about Creationism, assertions that the nation's Constitution is modeled on the Ten Commandments, belief in her husband's pray-the-gay-away counseling business and God's allowing the East Coast's Hurricane Irene to occur as a condemnation of Democratic policies.

"I'm not a dirty fighter."

Of course she is a dirty fighter—she has God on her side and we don't. No fair.

"I don't have an enemy here."

Maybe in the bubble she lives in. But she saw enemies around every corner. She refused to participate in the decennial Census, because she feared the data would be used to round up enemies and put them in internment camps. She accused Obama of wanting "re-education camps" for young people.

She said the Democratic financial reform legislation to prevent another market meltdown is Mussolini-style Fascism. The tax code is "a weapon of mass destruction" and health care "the crown jewel of Socialism" that will also create a network of "sex clinics."

In my favorite Bachmann non sequitur, she described Planned Parenthood as "the LensCrafters of big abortion." Finally. We agree on something. I think.

Bachmann holds a firm belief in Divine intervention as an instrument of both calm and calamity. She said, "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another Democratic President, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming Ebola on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

It is interesting.