STFU Michele Bachmann |
Mrs. Bachmann, please STFU. |
On the campaign trail in Iowa, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s response to the argument that she lacks the experience to run for president has been to turn the argument on its head. The Minnesota congresswoman rattles off her resume: She was a federal tax litigation attorney; she and her husband started “a successful small company”; she fought the establishment in the state Legislature and Congress.
But there was one résumé item that was missing: a Ph.D. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Bachmann traveled the state as an education activist, she went by “Dr. Michele Bachmann,” even though she had never obtained nor sought the advanced degree that’s a prerequisite for the title.And one more thing: Lest you think she doesn’t have the brains to do battle with Obama, she rattles off her degrees. “I’m not only a lawyer, I have a postdoctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary,” she told Fox News’ Chris Wallace in June. “I work in serious scholarship.”
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This isn’t the only instance of Bachmann exaggerating her résumé. She continues to call herself a “tax attorney” or “tax litigation attorney” even though, according to the state of Minnesota, she is not currently authorized to practice law in the state. In an effort to prove her bipartisan appeal, she has stated that Minnesota Democrats squeezed her out of her old Senate district and put her in a new, liberal-leaning one—but the districts were drawn up by the courts, and her new district actually leaned red.
On occasion, she has also stretched the truth about her foster children (she had 23) to make a political point. In a 2008 interview with Politico, she noted that she was feeling the squeeze from high gas prices because she has such a large family. “Energy will be the big focus right now,” she said. “Every weekend now when I go home, I will go to the grocery store, I’ll buy food for the family. We have five kids and 23 foster kids that we raise. So I go to the grocery store and buy a lot of food.” The catch? She didn’t have any foster children in 2008; her permit to take in foster children had expired in 2000 and she had taken in her last child, a teenage girl, in 1998.
(Source: Mother Jones)
“That’s right — nice decision by S&P to downgrade our credit rating to a AA+,” Bachmann said. “It’s historically significant. It is a serious event for the United States because our country has had a AAA rating since 1917. That rating has never been downgraded. It has endured the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and terrorist attacks on 9/11.
Michele, you realize WWII ended the depression, right? You also realize the depression had no effect on the governments ability to pay their bills, right? Oh wait, that’s right, you can’t read, I wouldn’t expect you to know simple history.
Also, btw, 9/11 has no place in this argument, just thought you should know.
- $4,700 the amount she spent on a stylist source
» Most people don’t make that in a month: For a candidate that is championing lower spending to conserve taxpayer dollars, that seems quite a lot of money to spend on herself. It’s also far more than she spent on stylists than during her Congressional campaign. Appearances may be important when running for president — don’t get us wrong, anything to help her prevent a Nixon moment — but this seems a tad excessive. And it’s an excess not uncommon to Democrats, either — John Edwards famously got $200 haircuts in his pre-scandal days.
(Source: shortformblog)
