From hysterics:
I first saw Michele in action as a candidate for the Minnesota state senate in mid-2000, speaking to a group of Twin Cities Republican women. She had just knocked off an incumbent Republican squish for the nomination and was working like a dog to win the race. Watching her compelling presentation to the Republican women’s group, I thought I had never seen anyone quite like her. She was smart. She was beautiful. She was conservative. She was ebullient. She had a great personal story. She was a proud mother of five kids and had served as a foster mother of twenty-three more. She was, in other words, someone liberals could really hate.
This is from the same website that brought you this priceless memory:
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
Good times.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
On behalf of social workers everywhere, I apologize to those foster kids. Heaven knows you’ve suffered enough.
? Martin
Comey to lead FBI? Seems like Obama is just fucking with them now.
schrodinger's cat
Crazy for crazy eyes. I wonder whether a Fox News gig is in her future.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
I was hoping she’d run against Franken. He’s a comedian, she’s comedy. Imagine the Saturday Night Live episodes.
cathyx
Just substitute Michelle for Sarah and it could be an exact description, even down to the 5 kids. Although Sarah was too busy to foster children. They do love their conservative women.
Hal
This comment is so spot on. I can’t think of any other reason Liberals would “hate” Bachmann. Because only conservative ideologues whose heads are full of conspiracy theories have children.
pokeyblow
We’ve seen Bush’s painting. Can’t wait to hear one of his string quartets.
MikeJ
I checked freeperland right after the announcement. They were convinced it was because RCCC didn’t pony up for her, even though she outspent her opponent last time 14.5 to 3.5 million.
cathyx
And the part about Bush is prescient. He paints and no one notices him.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Shorter Powerline: “SCHWING!”
pokeyblow
“She was smart.”
Wow… must have been a while ago.
BGinCHI
As Plato said in the Meno: Go Hawks!
Might have been Phaedo.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Cleek’s law needs to be in the lexicon. I wanted to find it the other day so that I could quote it, but was unable to.
cbear
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
I wonder how many went on to become serial killers. There’s some strange psycho-sexual shit going down over at the Bachmann place—and it didn’t just start yesterday.
Just saying.
Baud
@pokeyblow:
Requiem for America.
cathyx
Bush, extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching genius!
All I can do is marvel at that.
piratedan
@pokeyblow: well according to history via MPFC…. “she got better” and was able to enjoy life as a true know-nothing hatred spewing Conservative Icon
Narcissus
Remember when she barely escaped from being swept up in a lesbian orgy in a public bathroom
Good times
GxB
Ah starbursts, get a room already. I know shallowness knows no ideology, but what is it with so many cons and their emphasis on “beauty.” All I seem to hear is “Our conservative wimmins are all that and hawt too, so neah!” They really are stuck at 12 years old aren’t they?
pokeyblow
Now she can spend more romantic time with Marcus.
His cue to start adopting lots more attention-needing kids.
burritoboy
The question is – so what? She didn’t do anything in her eight years in Congress, and didn’t do much of anything in the Minnesota Senate either. The “squish” before her (Laidig) wasn’t any great shakes either – but he was more effective at getting conservative bills passed. It remains bizarre that Michele of the crazy eyes – but who didn’t actually do anything in her job – is somehow more appealing than another Republican, who was perhaps less entertaining but passed plenty of conservative legislation.
Catsy
That Bush quote from Assrocket never gets old. It’s a timeless classic of wingnuttia.
pokeyblow
Twenty-three foster kids for Marcus to play catch with.
Spaghetti Lee
@Hal:
Grr I hate children! I hate their joyful laughter and innocent wonder! I’m a villain from a Roald Dahl book!
SFAW
@GxB:
And only one or two of them has/have an Adam’s apple.
If you know what I mean. And I think you do.
GxB
@pokeyblow: In GWB’s case that would be a jug, jaw harp, kazoo and broomstick bass (the string.)
cathyx
@efgoldman: There is plenty to criticize her about, but I see no reason to mock her for raising foster children. She raised teenaged foster kids to boot. That is only something to commend.
aimai
@cbear: How on earth did either of them have time to foster 23 kids? I mean, seriously, children are not a litter of puppies. Mothering my own biological children is a fucking full time job. People I know who have fostered or adopted from the foster care system spend five times the amount of time, money, and energy I do just managing their children’s case load and psychiatric and health issues. I really am astounded by just how little due diligence the press ever did on this absolutely astounding claim.
Suffern ACE
@? Martin: should be fun. The arrogance of the president to nominate a republican who opposed wiretapping and actually did something about that in real time. And went after Bernie Ebbers too. I wonder if Rand will demand he apologize.
SFAW
@GxB:
How odd to see PC-ness here.
Chyron HR
@aimai:
“On the next Arrested Development, Michele discovers that her twenty-three adopted ‘children’ are, in fact, a litter of puppies.”
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
I wonder if there is anyone even looper than her in her district; if so, will said loon run for the seat?
pokeyblow
I hear Marcus uses the standard internet sites for identifying adoption candidates. rentboy.com, for instance.
schrodinger's cat
Speaking of the crazy, this was my reaction to reading MoU’s column this morning.
? Martin
And it looks like someone from Louisiana, defending their 2nd amendment rights, sent ricin to Bloomberg.
You know, if guns are to protect us from tyranny, why the fuck don’t you get in your truck and just go and shoot him rather than hiding behind the USPS? Oh, right, they’re all fucking cowards.
beltane
@aimai: If she had been a foster-mother to 23 cats they’d be questioning her sanity. And cats are pretty much self-sufficient compared to children. Parenting 28 children is not a full-time job, it is several full-time jobs.
trollhattan
@pokeyblow:
I think yer thinkin’ too small. She’s working on her symphony, which is a marriage of Penderecki, Sun Ra and Wild Man Fisher. (a.k.a. video of any Bachmann speech)
beltane
@pokeyblow: I read somewhere that the Bachmanns only fostered girls. Boys were never placed with them for reasons only known by the state of Minnesota.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@aimai: a lot of those kids, as I recall, were with the Bachmanns for a matter of a few days. Not to take anything away from them, as CathyX says, fostering is a good thing, and I have to say it’s more than I’ve done. But like Paul Ryan letting his boosters imply that he got a job after school to support his widowed maw, a sentimental myth the liberal media was only too happy to adopt as truth, Bachmann let people think she single handedly raised two dozen abandoned kids.
rikyrah
ot: as per yesterday’s thread about MSNBC.
and MSNBC wonders why their ratings are in the toilet?
………………………
Jeff Gauvin
@JeffersonObama
Glenn Greenwald, Sirota, Tavis Smiley,
Pareena, West, Hamsher, Walsh….who’s missing from tonight’s Emoprog
Chris Hayes bash Obama show?
burritoboy
EFGoldmen,
Well, sure, but why does Hindrocket NEED to get that…….emotion (let’s call it) ….. from politicians? There’s no shortage of good-looking women, but a distinct shortage of Republican legislators who can successfully pass bills and do their jobs reliably. Since he’s hardly sleeping with Michele of the Crazy Eyes or Snow Billie himself, why toss a long-time solid producer (Laidig) in exchange for a momentary……emotion? Remember, this guy is a partner at a major law firm – he should be able to delay gratification for a few moments, no?
Woodrowfan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Exactly, she didn’t “raise” 23 foster kids. They gave short-term shelter, usually for a few days, for at-risk teens. it was a good thing to do, but it’s not like she “raised” the kids. She exaggerated what she did for political points.
SFAW
@? Martin:
Excellent suggestion. One can only hope he’d do a practice run on himself, before going after Bloomberg.
(And his last words would be: “What are you laughing for? You’re next!” I know, I know, it’s an old joke.)
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: I am not a big fan of Tavis Smiley, in some ways he comes across as more smug than Charlie Rose, which is quite an achievement. His accent too, seems exaggerated and not real. Except for Walsh I don’t think I have seen any of the other people on TV.
cathyx
@aimai: @efgoldman: Good God people. She fostered teenagers who aren’t in the home for very many years. So it’s easy to foster that many over a number of years if they are only in your house for maybe 2-4 years at a time.
Like I said, there is so much to criticize her about, but fostering children, let alone teenagers, is a very difficult job, and I commend her for doing that. Can’t you put aside your hatred for all that is republican and give her that much to say well done? Efoldman, you even give all the reasons to commend her for doing it, but you end with do we want her influencing the children. Is that really that important to a kid whose other choice is to be in a home that was so bad as to place that child in foster care?
pokeyblow
In my opinion, as an enemy of science and knowledge, she is someone I’d rather had no contact with children, let alone significant influence.
By the same token, I’m sure she feels the same about me, as a godless liberal.
No one here is advocating against taking care of children.
gbear
@cbear:
One of Bachmann’s kids volunteered to serve in AmeriCorps just before Bachmann voted to defund it and said this about it:
It is a very weird dinamic.
Steeplejack
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
Just want to mention that your nym never fails to make me smile. The other one like that is “Susan of the Tech Support,” which sounds like the heroine of a series of Y.A. novels from some alternate version of the 1950s.
The Dangerman
I happen to know Amanda Bynes; I ran that quote by her and she said that’s fucking crazy talk.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Did anyone else catch TRMS? I’m pretty sure I caught clip of Bachman saying FDR caused the Depression.
legion
She was smart. She was beautiful. She was conservative. She was ebullient. She had a great personal story. She was a proud mother of five kids and had served as a foster mother of twenty-three more.
He knows all of this, so many years later, but I bet he couldn’t tell you what any of her positions were five minutes after she walked off the stage. Typical dogma-over-reality movement conservative…
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ll bet it was because polio forced him to stop kicking orphans.
cbear
@aimai: Too true. I sometimes tend to inject my comment(s) with a little sophomoric humor—but my point was either there’s a lot of bullshit going on—or there’s almost certainly some pretty screwed up kids.
West of the Rockies
@SFAW: Oh-oh… cue Mandalay.
Steeplejack
“Did Michele Bachmann ‘Raise’ 23 Foster Kids?”
Somewhat tepid story from CBS News that at least outlines the problem with Bachmann’s claim, but (as usual) I couldn’t find the link to the much longer story I remember that put the lie to her claim.
Shorter: Bachmann takes credit for “raising” kids that she had for as short a time as a few weeks.
West of the Rockies
@legion: Yes, she was the golden girl, the girl the men wanted and the women (and Marcus) wanted to be.
(Actually, I’m kidding about that Marcus bit — I’m just recalling the cyber catfight on an earlier Bachmann thread today.)
muddy
I saw this where Bachmann says that she can’t say how long kids were there due to the privacy concerns of the children.
muddy
@Steeplejack: Great minds.
aimai
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Right, there’s a need for emergency foster care for a few nights for lots of kids–from infants to teenagers. And,especially in the case of infants and toddlers, this is high needs and speciality work. But no one would ever say that a person who takes in kids for a few hours or days, however meritorious, “raised” those kids. And in the case of a full time working woman like Michelle and a full time working man like Marcus I have to ask wha tit means that they did rescue fostering of these kids a few days here and a few days there–that takes even more free time to “be present” to those children in the few hours (often presumably pretty chaotic) between placements/homes/disasters.
Redshirt
Here’s another Republican “Law”:
“The only _______ is my _________”
Fill in the blanks with whatever you like. Abortion, welfare, drug use, divorce, addiction, etc.
This is how, for example, a Michelle Bachman can both take handouts from the State while trying to burn it all down.
smedley the uncertain
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Yes.
LesGS
@West of the Rockies: Or me. I’m not particularly “PC,” but it is wearing to see what seems like an insult of Coutler’s appearance by implying she’s a transwoman. I’m a transman and it sucks to think comparing someone to how I look, because of my trans status, is an insult. And most transfolk, unlike Coulter, are actually pretty nice people.
Chris
@GxB:
I’ll say this for the British Conservative Party, at least they pick their women on something other than looks. (See also the late departed PM).
@aimai:
You beat me to it… I had never heard the “23 children” claim (I haven’t paid much attention to Bachmann) before today, but my bullshit detector went off when I heard that too. Twenty three children? On top of your own? And you weren’t running an orphanage or anything, they were foster children? Yeah. Okay.
Shalimar
@pokeyblow: Considering that Marcus runs a gay-to-straight therapy business, I have always assumed their foster children were all struggling with their sexuality and were chosen as guinea pigs for his theories. Finding stable homes was probably better for them than the alternative, but god, what a mess that would have been.
MaryRC
@aimai: There’s some more information here and here.
Basically it seems that the foster children were girls who were undergoing treatment at a clinic for eating disorders at the University of Minnesota. The Bachmanns gave these girls short-term foster care for periods from a few days or weeks to a year. They were licensed to house 3 children at a time.
I don’t think it’s wrong to point this out. I agree with you, aimai — Bachmann is fond of saying that she “raised” these children and has even implied that all 23 of them were living under her roof at the same time, but she did not “raise” them if they spent only a few weeks or months in her care.
There’s also the implication that foster children are in need of rescue from broken or dysfunctional homes. These girls appear to have been outpatients at the clinic and may very well have had families and homes of their own, just not living near to the clinic.
NickT
I bet you that somewhere in the wilds of Minnesota there are 23 adults looking at each other and saying: “Fuck it, we could have just taken the wolves up on their offer of nutrition and housing.”
lojasmo
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Tom Emmer
lojasmo
@pokeyblow:
Will you shut the fuck up with the constant homophobic bulllshit?
Pretty please?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@burritoboy: is somehow more appealing than another Republican, who was perhaps less entertaining but passed plenty of conservative legislation.
That is the whole point; her opponent did something so inevitably he failed someone’s on the Right’s purity test. Bachmann never did anything so offended no conservative special interest group.
TTT
I first saw Michele in action when she used to send giant monsters against the Power Rangers.
AHHHHH!!!! After 8 years in Congress I’m free! It’s time to work for Fox!