Truthers and Birthers … and now Tenthers

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:01:00 +0000

Michele Bachmann likes to call herself a "constitutional conservative." As her campaign wears on, she owes the country a clearer understanding of precisely what this means. Now comes Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the new leader in the Republican nomination race polls, with a record of similar publicly uttered impulses that seems to want to use the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to repeal most of the 20th century.

It's not really new for "tenthers" like Bachmann and Perry to enlist the 10th Amendment as an argument against programs they dislike, although their tentherist utterances exceed similar impulses by yesterday's righties.

Don't get your hopes up, but wouldn't it be great if this campaign, especially the Bachmann and Perry campaigns, led the country to face the fundamental question of tentherism?

For those of you coming late to the discussion, the Tenth Amendment, written by James Madison to fulfill a bargain even though he thought it unnecessary, states:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The words you’ll never hear Michele Bachmann say: “I was wrong”

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:54:00 +0000

In early 2007, I got a tip that led me to something pretty strange -- well, somewhere between delusional or apocalyptic, really -- that Rep. Michele Bachmann had said, on tape and beyond dispute about an important national security matter, in a podcast interview with a St. Cloud reporter.

Why talk about it now? Well, as the presidential field winnows down to just one Minnesotan, and Bachmann is routinely described as a top-tier contender for the nomination, inquiring minds who haven't witnessed Bachmann's gravity-defying act from as close-up for as long as we Minnesotans have need our help in understanding just what the heck is up with her.

I covered Bachmann extensively from the year of her first congressional race until she stopped returning my calls, perhaps because of the story I'm about to recount. But the tale offers a detailed case study of one of Bachmann's signature traits. It's her pattern of saying things she can't back up and wiggling through the ensuing questions without ever acknowledging the falsehood or explaining how she came to say it in the first place.

Salon.com > Eric Black

Truthers and Birthers … and now Tenthers

The words you’ll never hear Michele Bachmann say: “I was wrong”