Back in January, Michele Bachmann, the Republican rep from Minnesota, went off on a tangent about slavery and the founding fathers. You might have read about that somewhere.
In her Fractured Fairy Tales version of American history, the founding fathers “worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States,” which was wrong, and John Quincy Adams (who really did work tirelessly against slavery) was a Founding Father, which was wrong.
When the Founding Fathers were busy founding the country, signing the Declaration of Independence, John Quincy Adams was eight-years-old. You can’t get around that. If you think you can get around that, you are not allowed to participate in any of the celebrations next Monday for you know what.
But Bachmann is trying to get around it. When George Stephanopoulos at ABC pointed out that she was wrong in saying John Q was a Founding Father, she said this:
Doesn’t admit she’s wrong. Doubles down on the crazy.
So what happens next? Her supporters feel if she’s not going to change her mind, the next thing to do is change history. So this happened:
Now it appears that her supporters have altered Wikipedia to make it appear that John Quincy Adams was a Founding Father, even though he was only a child when his father John Adams, America’s second President, signed the Declaration of Independence.
And here’s their handiwork (click for a bigger view):
Now, this shouldn’t bother me, because as some of my past posts have shown, I don’t take Bachmann seriously.
But then I see that others do. In recent polls, she’s now the number two choice for Republicans in the nomination for president and the favorite to win the Iowa caucuses. At this rate, the Republican ticket in 2012 will be Romney/Bachmann. And if the economic situation doesn’t get any better, that ticket will make the race a close one.
There used to be a time in this country when you demanded your leaders be smarter than you were. These days, all bets are off.
Related articles
- Don’t Know Much About History: Epically Wrong Politician Accounts of Yesteryear (swampland.time.com)
- Michele Bachmann (R-Mars) Refuses to Admit She Was Wrong About Founding Fathers (littlegreenfootballs.com)
- John Quincy Adams Wikipedia Page Edited To Describe Him As A ‘Founding Father’ (kaystreet.wordpress.com)