You knew it was only a matter of time before this happened, right? Reporters are dashing around Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann’s history like they just got off the plane at Wasilla. They’re rabid. The effort to destroy Michelle Bachmann is on.
There’s talk already about the horror of her husband trying to cure gays. Aaaah!!! There’s talk that she once worked for a professor who advocated a theocracy. Eeeek!!! There’s an old police report Bachmann filed when she felt two lesbians cornered her in a public bathroom. Ick!
Oh yeah, it’s getting ugly.
But as nuts as the media is going to go over Bachmann, going after Bachmann’s foster care seems a bit over the line, doesn’t it? But not to the media.
Michelle Goldberg, writing for the Daily Beast, claims that Bachmann is a big fat liar and she’s waaaaaaay stretching the truth about caring for children as a foster parent. She writes:
Bachmann often says she has “raised” 23 foster children. That may be a bit of a stretch. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Bachmann’s license, which she had for 7 1/2 years, allowed her to care for up to three children at a time. According to Kris Harvieux, a former senior social worker in the foster-care system in Bachmann’s county, some placements were almost certainly short term. “Some of them you have for a week. Some of them you have for three years, some you have for six months,” says Harvieux, who also served as a foster parent herself. “She makes it sound like she got them at birth and raised them to adulthood, but that’s not true.”
When did Bachmann say that she’d got these children at birth and raised them to adulthood? In fact, most people understand how foster care works. And most people understand it’s pretty darn difficult and you’re dealing with children who probably have been through some pretty rough stuff. But no compliments for Bachmann opening her house to troubled kids.
In fact Salon.com wonders if her motivation was altogether different.
(However many she has at a time, foster kids are a good way to make some tax-free cash from the Minnesota government, and they’re not even Bachmann’s sole source of free government cash.)
Yeah, Bachmann was doing the whole foster care thing as a cash grab.
Seriously? What is wrong with these people.
So here’s the question. How soon until some reporter makes a big ol’ splash with some tale from one of these kids? How soon until these reporters start trolling the streets of Minnesota like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang looking for some foster care dirt on Bachmann?
How much you want to bet that in the next month one of these “news sources” will publish some kind of tale of horror about Bachmann from a troubled kid?
Update: Here’s the scene of the Child Catcher that still scares the heck out of me even today. Maybe even more so now.
June 16, 2011 at 3:35 am
There certainly is a double standard for conservative women in politics. Fancy Nancy Pelosi is given a free pass while Michelle Bachmann's motives for bringing children into her home are scritinized.
Yeah, I'm really sure she did it because she was hard up for cash. Stupid.
Oh, and BTW, the child catcher has always freaked me out…and it wasn't until adulthood that I saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the first time.
June 16, 2011 at 4:02 am
I swear this is the reason they really hate Bachmann–it's the kids. It just galls these people that she had five of her own and went on to give food clothing shelter and love to 23 children in the foster care system. She is a walking effrontery to everything they believe in and do. Likewise Sarah Palin. Why the irrational hatred for her? Answer: Trig.
June 16, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Oh great, the child catcher. Thanks a lot. I guess I'll be sleeping with the lights on tonight.
June 16, 2011 at 1:38 pm
The Child Catcher is the personification of the government school system. It is their goal to snatch children from their Christian parents, the younger the bette, and to raise them as slaves of the establishment.
And the worst part is that now parents rush to give their kids to the child snatchers.
June 16, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Having just one foster child, I can guarantee it is not a money maker. Ours was 17 and ate us out of house and home. But we love him anyway. All he was looking for was stability and being with our 6 biologicals, he was given siblings that he never had before. Now he has three children of his own and a very stable home.
The libs can't stand it when we put our money where our mouths are and take care of the born as well as the unborn.
June 16, 2011 at 5:56 pm
CMR should be in FB so I can click 'Like' to the comments. I liked all of them specially Trig.
June 16, 2011 at 10:11 pm
This tearing apart of Michelle Bachmann furthers proves that women are the greatest victims of the feminist movement.
June 16, 2011 at 10:15 pm
For the record: that guy freaked me out. Thanks in advance for the nightmare…
June 17, 2011 at 3:20 pm
When the Truth doesn't work for liberals they change it. History, religion, marriage, schools, etc.
June 18, 2011 at 8:51 am
I'm sorry Republicans – Bachmann has made this a part of her campaign and part of her resume when she shouts at every opportunity – "I gave birth to 5 children and raised 23 foster children". She says it over and over when making her case to run for president. So, yes, it is only fair for the vetting process to verify her claims. Now, chasing down the individual kids is over the line. On the other hand, if some of them come forward with accusations that Ms Bachmann did not "raise" me, "I stayed there a couple of weeks while my hard-working single mom was in the hospital following a car accident", well the media will investigate ( as they should).
What makes me angry when Bachmann says over and over again how wonderful she is for "raising" 23 foster kids is the fact that she DID take taxpayers money to assist her, anywhere from $250,000 to $1,000,000, depending on how long each child lived with her. I certainly have no problem with taxpayer assistance to foster parents, however the hypocrisy that Bachmann demonstrates by portraying any government handouts as evil while accepting up to a $1,000,000 is disgusting. (AND she gets checks for farm subsidies also).
Ms Bachmann will have to answer lots of questions as she is vetted publicly as a candidate for President. Because she has made her foster kids such a part of her ringing endorsement of herself, she's gonna have to provide information on the amount of time she sent with each kid and just how much taxpayer money she accepted. NOW what would be unacceptable is anyone digging up the kids' names or any other personal info. BUT if the kids are adults now and come forward with stories about Ms Bachmann, good or bad, that's gonna be news whether you like it or not.
Don't make this a feminism issue – just ask Newt about his Tiffiney's bill, just ask President Obama about over 50% of the Republican Party calling his mother and grandparents liars by implying they had lied about his birth in Hawaii, just ask McCain about how many houses he owns, just ask Senator Kerry about how his Vietnam military service was slandered by Swift Boat ads, just ask John Edwards about his haircuts, EVERYTHING Ms Bachmann has done or is involved in will be put under a magnifying glass. Has she reviewed video of EVERY single speech her pastor has made for inflammatory remarks? Remember President Obama being smeared with RevWright's radical rhetoric – Pres Obama did not say those words, nor was he even there when it happened. My point is, Ms Bachmann's associations with other people will be examined and she will even have to answer questions about anything THEY have done or said.
If Bachmann looks lie she will be in the running (and right now she does), there will be wave after wave of info being reported about her, good and bad, true and false. She is "fresh meat" , Obama,Romney & Gingrich have been vetted to death (I mean we got pics of Obama in his itty bitty basketball shorts when he wanted to be called "Barry", we know more than we want to about Newt's three wive's and we know Romney is a Mormon whose great grandparents moved to Mexico so they could continue to practice polygamy.)
Michelle, come on, 5 + 23 kids, there has got to be some stories there, it is just a matter of time before they come out. Will she be a whinney poor me crybaby (aka Palin) or stay above the fray?
If there are any skeletons, they will come out and the way Ms Bachmann handles them will be as important as what they are. And which it seems like Sarah Palin is picked on worse than anyone, she is just such an easy target and the way she handles negative information reported about her is the single most important reason she is not seen as presidential material ( well that and the fact she doesn't know how to read, oops – it is just so easy).
June 29, 2011 at 4:35 pm
I agree. Either she's against big gov't or she's not. Yes, the foster care program is a good program and needed, but it is hypocritical to make a career out of arguing against gov't spending and for private charity — then taking gov't funding. Why didn't she do it out of the goodness of her heart? Because it costs money to raise children. But isn't that her argument against everyone gov't program that helps poor people? If she wants them to pay, then she should have to pay too.