Getting the Dirt on Bachmann

Here is a bit from Matt Taibbi dishing out the dirt on Michele Bachmann. From his Rolling Stone blog:

Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign is running exactly according to plan. She kicked off the festivities Monday with one of her all-time Zucker-Brothers-style whoppers, confusing John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy...

...reports surfaced that the therapy clinic belonging to Michele Bachmann’s husband Marcus – whom she married after the couple experienced simultaneous visions from God – has received over $100,000 in Medicaid funds. This is sort of the typical progression of Tea Party politicians; they come out blasting any sort of government “welfare,” and then it comes out later that they themselves a) have collected farm subsidies b) are doctors with a 50% Medicare-supported patient base who also oppose cuts in such doctor payments c) are strident opponents of government health care who themselves are insured by government health care programs (this is nearly universal among TP candidates, but my favorite example is Sharron Angle and her husband). Bachmann, of course, added her own unique twist to the Tea-Party-hypocrisy meme, being an antitax advocate who once worked as an attorney collecting taxes for the IRS.

So this news about Marcus Bachmann collecting state aid is not so surprising, but what is interesting is that he got these state funds and used them for, among other things, counseling gays to abandon their orientation. I hadn’t seen this quote before, but I’m sure it will repeated quite a lot in the upcoming months (emphasis mine):

“We have to understand that barbarians need to be educated, need to be disciplined,” Bachmann said. “And just because someone thinks [they're gay] or feels it doesn’t mean we need to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature.”

We can pretty much count out the gay vote for this candidate, I think.

Lastly, Bachmann in her Stephanopoulos interview unveiled what I think (I haven’t heard it before, at least) was a new take on her “the founding fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery” comment. Her new thing is to say that John Quincy Adams, who was a founding father, worked tirelessly to end slavery. Therefore, apparently, the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery. When Stephanopoulos asked her if she was standing by her original statement, she repeated the Quincy Adams answer. So that’s fantastic – rather than own the mistake, she’s just plowing ahead.

Go to the original article to get the embedded links.