^{With supporters like these, who needs detractors?}

I normally try to be supportive of other women in politics in spite of their party or positions since I was once in politics myself. Like Sarah Palin, I'm a former small town mayor. As far as commonalities with her, the bus stops there. But it's a real juggling act trying to maintain a home, keep your children fed, clothed and supported in all their activities, all while putting yourself up for contiunous public scrutiny and attending a never-ending stream of meetings and events. There should be a certain kind of sisterhood in that.

But Representative Michelle Bachmann's recent statements have taken me back to haunting memories of both Sharron Angle's and Palin’s major gaffes and historical flubs along the campaign trail, and I just have to ask myself... how can these female Tea Party candidates get so far and be such complete idiots?

The Tea Party prides itself in defending the constitution and reveling in the proud history of our country. Tea partiers love to invoke historical precedents and wax nostalgic about historical events. You'd think that they would know their facts, or at the very least, check their facts, before opening their mouths.

Bachmann, on a now famous campaign stop in New Hampshire several months ago, stated that the Revolutionary War began there in the cities of Lexington and Concord. Since the majority of middle school students know this event took place in Massachusetts, her Facebook correction after the fact didn't count. She had already gotten an "F" -  and there aren't any do-overs.

The media's been abuzz the last few days after Bachmann's assertions that our Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end the institution of slavery. Wrong! After being called out on the absurdity her statements, she didn't do anything to correct herself.  She compounded the problem by saying this on Good Morning America yesterday with George Stephanopolous:

"Well, John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy but he was actively involved."

Say what?

Why didn't her campaign staff just google "Founding Fathers or John Quincy Adams" and prep her so she could set the record straight? Or, on second thought, why didn't she just pull a random fifth grader off the street and asked him to clarify the details for her?

 

And it's not just history lessons these Tea Party women manage to mangle. Remember when Sharron Angle said this:

"So that's what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don't know that. What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country. My grandchildren are evidence of that. I'm evidence of that. I've been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly." -- Sharron Angle, speaking to a group of Hispanic high school students, Oct. 15, 2010

Huh?

And how can we ever forget this gem from Sarah Palin in 2008 when asked to name a Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade that she disagreed with:

''Well, let's see. There's — of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but —'' --Sarah Palin in an interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008

These remarks just scratch the surface. There are whole pages and websites devoted to misquotes and missteps from Bachmann, Angle and Palin that clearly demonstate their incompetence. But here's the thing. With Michelle Bachmann now at the top of the pack of potential 2012 GOP candidates, will her Tea Party supporters ever bother to really scrutinize her like the rest of us are doing? Ron Carey, a former aide to Bachmann, wants people to know she is not ready to be president. He wrote this in an Op-Ed in the Des Moines register that just came off the presses today:

"The Bachmann campaign and congressional offices I inherited were wildly out of control... If she is unable, or unwilling, to handle the basic duties of a campaign or congressional office, how could she possibly manage the magnitude of the presidency?"

The Tea Party is much more interested in having an attractive mouthpiece for their extreme views than caring about the accuracy of what their candidate says, or whether that person can handle silly details like running an office, or a country.