Oh yeah, and also … Michele Bachmann (R-Mars) came out of storage this week and launched a McCarthy-like crusade against a nonexistent Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the upper echelons of the US government, targeting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin in particular.

This crackpot anti-Muslim conspiracy theory has been circulating among the so-called “counter-jihad” nitwits for years; it’s unclear why Bachmann suddenly latched onto it (for publicity, ya think?), but here’s a look at one of the primary sources: Frank Gaffney’s Latest Boogeyman Inspired Bachmann’s Witch Hunt.

Senator John McCain deserves congratulations for his remarks on the Senate floor yesterday defending Huma Abedin — top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — against charges that she is part of a “Muslim brotherhood conspiracy,” as claimed by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

But even as McCain condemned the attacks on Abedin, he defended the think tank — the Center for Security Policy — whose tinfoil-hatted research forms the basis of those attacks, and CSP’s president, Frank Gaffney, whom McCain described as “a longtime friend.” As Adam Serwer noted yesterday, “It’s Gaffney’s scurrilous reasoning masquerading as policy expertise that lead to Bachmann’s smearing of Abedin in the first place.”