Are There Bigger Skeletons in the Bachmann Closet?

Michelle Bachmann has spent the better part of the last two months trying to convince everyone that she's not a crazy extremist but rather a mainstream candidate who moderates and independents can embrace in the 2012 presidential election. This despite many outrageous comments over the years about gays, immigrants, abortion, evolution, global warming, President Obama, members of Congress and American history...all the while padding her resume (being an IRS tax collector is not quite the same as being a "federal tax litigation attorney.") and downplaying her and her husband's batshit crazy Christian counseling center which cruelly performs "reparation therapy" on gays in an attempt to turn them straight.

As comedian Marc Maron brilliantly posited last week, "It does seem like their whole marriage is one prolonged experiment in this type of therapy." Maron was echoing the suggestions made earlier in the week by Jon Stewart that Marcus might be, er, how you say, in need of a little reparation therapy himself. Certainly wouldn't be a shocker, as it's always the most vehement anti-gay activists who end up caught with their closeted pants down.

It seems that little ole Marcus just might be to Michelle what Billy Carter was to brother Jimmy (worse even, as Billy's embarrassing antics never prevented Jimmy from becoming Leader of the Free World. Marcus could very well derail Michelle's campaign if his bizarre antics lead to scandal). Last week a radio interview clip from 2010 was released in which Marcus referred to homosexuals as "Barbarians." But he's now pulling a Weiner, claiming that the segment was "doctored." Actually, he claims he was "referring to children" and not gays. Apparently Marcus thinks it's ok to call children Barbarians? What is it about these loony Tea Baggers who, despite audio and video which captures their gaffes and lies, continue to deny, deny, deny as if this evidence didn't exist? It's like the classic Richard Pryor bit about his wife walking in on him in bed with another woman: "Are you gonna believe me or your lyin' eyes!?"

But there's another potential scandal I want fully investigated. And in fact, I want Michelle and Marcus Bachmann to immediately provide the information that would clear them, just as she demanded that President Obama release his long-form birth certificate to prove his U.S. citizenship. Bachmann claims she and Marcus "took 23 foster children into our home, and raised them, and launched them off into the world." This foster parenting took place in Minnesota between 1992-2000, but unfortunately the state destroys all such records after seven years, so nothing Bachmann claims can be proven publicly. Interestingly, while Bachmann claims that the fostering involved unwed mothers, some of the children suffered from eating disorders, and according to George Hendrickson, CEO of PATH Minnesota, the private agency that placed the children with the Bachmanns, none of them were in fact pregnant.

Bachmann herself has refused to provide details about her foster children, and for privacy reasons their names have never been disclosed. But given Bachmann's penchant for exaggeration and truth-stretching, in particular about her resume, don't we have a right to know more about her foster parenting and just how many children this actually involved? Are we to take a face value her claim of twenty-three when she seems to embellish other important details about her past? No, we should demand that the Bachmann's provide the same kind of concrete legal proof as they demanded of Obama. Until then, we should assume that her claim is as bogus as her work as a "tax litigation attorney."

And one more thing: the pastor at her church, Rev. Marcus Birkholz, said Bachmann's "a lady with energy and a heart' whose uncompromising "support for the unborn" is more than just about fighting abortion. "She sees the whole picture. It’s not just bringing a child into the world; that child has to be nurtured and educated."

Really? Bachmann "nurtures and educates" America's children? I'm just curious about a few things. Does the small government that Bachmann and her fellow Tea Party faithful fantasize about drastically cut or eliminate funding for foster parent programs? Education and health care for children? Does her "whole picture" include "nurturing and educating" the children of gays, immigrants, minorities and the poor, who so desperately need government assistance, the kind of assistance Tea Baggers dream of vaporizing from the budget?

Twenty-three kids, huh Michelle? We'll be waiting for the proof.....