It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.
This week’s fail was brought to you by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). I was hoping I would never have to type that again after she ended her sideshow of a presidential campaign, but the old girl doesn’t quit. I was also hoping I’d never have to mention her husband again. Alas, he’s at the center of this story, so we’re stuck with him today. You know Marcus Bachmann as a purveyor of ethically and medically dubious conversion therapy for homosexuals, but did you also know that he is the son of immigrants from Switzerland? And due to Swiss law at the time of their marriage, Bachmann herself became a Swiss citizen.
Now, that’s not the issue here. I myself fully intend to become a dual citizen after I relocate to the U.S. (Sidebar: I take sample U.S. citizenship tests online for fun, and I could ace the real one with no problem.) But Bachmann, figuring her dual citizenship would become an issue to anyone still paying attention to her, dropped her ties to Switzerland two days after it was revealed that some of her five children wanted it for themselves. Imagine how that conversation went down in the Bachmann home:
Now, kids, your father and I are very proud that you want the connection to his heritage that the two of us have. But Mama is the standard-bearer for the xenophobes of America, and I don’t want to lose that status. So, forget it. And I’ll drop my own Swiss citizenship for extra punch.
Inherent in the above (fake) (as far as I know) quote is the perfect way for her to have explained this: Yes, she had Swiss citizenship, but while she never actually sought it out, she didn’t believe keeping it made her less of an American patriot. Of course, she didn’t. Is it so much of a problem that she married a man whose home country has some quirky citizenship laws? According to her Democratic challenger, Jim Graves (D-MN), it is. And instead of seeing the perfect opportunity to smack him down, Bachmann walked right into either his trap or that of her anti-immigrant base.
But the worst part is this: “Bachmann had drawn flak from critics who noted that Switzerland has universal health care . . .” Are said critics aware that Switzerland has a mix of public and private care and it’s consistently rated one of the top systems in the world? People who know nothing of the world outside America are really drawn to this woman for some reason.
