Chaotic Fringe

OK, I'm going to give an example of how certain politicians can show ignorance and how we, as the public, allow them to get away with it.

The fun whipping post of political ignorance, Michele Bachmann, was recently on the Laura Ingram radio show where she talked about how she felt the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, was trying to turn the government into a 'nanny state' because of her health initiative. Bachmann made sure to use all the buzz words in the interview such as hard left agenda and government is the answer to all problems according to liberals. Now what got Bachmann all in a tizzy was Obama's effort to get mothers to breastfeed their children. The reasoning for this is breastfed children tend to be less overweight than bottle fed children, and this was put through by more flexible work place rules and, this is the part I'm sure that caused such a stir, the IRS determined that breast pumps and other nursing supplies are tax deductible. Now it has been very clearly stated by the First Lady she isn't telling women they have to breastfeed their children, but if they want to the government is making it easier for them to do so, both physically and financially.

Bachmann doesn't see it that way. Like many on the far right she sees conspiracies in every corner and she talked in the interview about the federal program created to promote the breastfeeding initative.

The thing is there is no breastfeeding program or czar. This is part of her “Let's Move” program. Bachmann even offered in the interview that she breastfed all of her children without any government involvement. This again distorts what is actually going on with the program, which is not a government mandate program. All that is being done, as far as government involvement, is allowing for mothers to have more options in breastfeeding and allowing for them to get a tax break for the supplies.

What was interesting was when Bachmann said that if Laura Bush tried to pass legislation like the one Michelle Obama tried to do, the media would be after her.

This is another red herring the right does. They see what they perceive as a wrong done by the left and use an example of the right to prove their theory the media is soft. In this case she argues that Laura Bush didn't have a government agenda to force things on our children, didn't try to create a nanny state.

Now, Laura Ingram isn't going to hit Bachmann with hard questions because, well, she wants the President bashed. In hearing the stuff I heard, I was almost positive Laura Bush had a program promoting reading to kids. In my book, telling kids to eat the right foods and exercise and telling kids to read seems to be in the same category of telling kids good things to do. Parents should know this stuff and should be encouraged to have their kids do the right thing. So I used the oracle called the Internet and looked up Laura Bush on Wikipedia. I read on there when Laura Bush was First Lady of Texas she implemented many initiatives focused on health, education and literacy. Let me have Wikipedia do the talking about what Laura Bush did while Texas' First Lady:

Though during her years in the Governor's Mansion, she did not hold a single formal event, Laura worked for women's and children's causes including health, education, and literacy. She implemented four major initiatives: Take Time For Kids, an awareness campaign to educate parents and caregivers on parenting; family literacy, through cooperation with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, she urged Texas communities to establish family literacy programs; Reach Out and Read, a pediatric reading program; and Ready to Read, an early childhood educational program.

She raised money for public libraries through her establishment of the Texas Book Festival, and established the First Lady's Family Literacy Initiative, which encouraged families to read together. Bush further established "Rainbow Rooms" across the state, in an effort to provide emergency services for neglected or abused children. Through this, she promoted the Adopt-a-Caseworker Program to provide support for Child Protective Services. She used her position to advocate Alzheimer's disease and breast cancer awareness as well.

So Laura Bush, seems to have advocated a lot of programs that, according to the attitudes of the right, any parent concerned about their child should do on their own. Think about it, one program educates parents on parenting. What does that mean? If they gave advice on nutrition, wouldn't that be similar to what Michelle Obama is doing now on a national level? Maybe because it was just Texas the right thinks it's OK, since it's not a national agenda.

Here's something very fascinating I forgot about, on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attack, Laura Bush did this (again this is from Wikipedia):

On the one-year anniversary, she encouraged parents to instead read to their children, and perhaps light a candle in memoriam, saying, "Don't let your children see the images, especially on September 11, when you know it'll probably be on television again and again — the plane hitting the building or the buildings falling.

So you have Laura Bush telling American families, as the First Lady of the United States, what parents should do. Laura Bush time and time again spoke out on issues, especially issues on women's health and AIDS. Also in 2001 she helped establish the National Book Festival, which is now celebrating its 10th year. Part of its funding comes from the government, from the National Endowment for the Humanities in particular.

The point is Bachmann couldn't just come out and say she doesn't like Michelle Obama and that anything she does is evil. No, she had to make it seem she is part of some grand conspiracy of doing things to promote a 'nanny state' and that we should all be careful of this indoctrination. She even had the nerve to bring up Laura Bush, which just memory should have said this was a wrong thing to do but a quick look by anyone would show Laura Bush set up programs and services both in Texas and while in the White House which do the same things Michelle Obama is doing. It is why the right has so many problems because their blind hatred of the black President, and yes I went there, makes them forget the things others have done in the office.