By Jonathan Capehart
While others are swearing off a certain former politicianfrom a rather large non-contiguous state in the west, I have vowed to start paying more attention to one Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). She is the ideological twinof the aforereferenced person who was the 2008 vice presidential nominee. And she apparently harbors presidential ambitions that many ascribe to the one whose name has yet to be used.
Bachmann spoke at an Iowans for Tax Relief event over the weekend and she blipped my radar with this musing on the early settlers, who "had different cultures, different backgrounds, different traditions":
How unique in all of the world, that one nation that was the resting point from people groups all across the world. It didn't matter the color of their skin, it didn't matter their language, it didn't matter their economic status.... Once you got here, we were all the same. Isn't that remarkable? It's absolutely remarkable.
Bachmann also earned my raised eyebrow with her musings on slavery -- a "scourge" -- and the founding fathers, who she said "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."
I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly -- men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.
Talking Points Memo corrected Bachmann's history lesson by pointing out that Adams wasn't one of the founders and that he died 15 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Perhaps she was thinking of John Adams, the second president of the United States, who is different from John Quincy Adams, the new nation's sixth president. And let's just forget about that whole three-fifths compromise thing in Article 1, Section 2, paragraph 3 of the Constitution that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of figuring out how many representatives would be apportioned to each state.
Sure, Bachmann noted that "we weren't perfect," but her myopic view of history reminds me of Haley Barbour's recent reminiscences of the Civil Rights era. They say he's thinking of running for president, too. But neither he nor Bachmann will get very far if they don't deal more clearly and honestly with the nation's more troubling past.
By Jonathan Capehart | January 24, 2011; 5:13 PM ET
Michele Bachmann did not say how we got here from eight years of poor leadership, two wars without end, diminsihed Civil liberties. Its like she crawl out from under a rock just to complain about our current President. We all know that Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works started the Tea Party, grasroots, please. She like Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle and Linda McMahon, they are just not right but funny. I especially like the clip of Bachmann saying that the founding fathers abolished slavery, wow, what a liar, not the first or last time that will happen. Does anyone with self-respect real believe her?
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