Bachmann Wants to Teach the Constitution to Congress Members

AP:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann says she plans to host classes on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for fellow House members when she returns to Washington.

Bachmann tells Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck that she has "laid the foundation" for constitutional experts to teach the weekly classes.

She says she'll invite new and returning members to attend. She says the lessons will remind them what they stand for and help them resist pressure to do business as usual.

When Bachmann (and her punk preacher pal Bradlee Dean) talk about "constitutionism", they are talking about David Barton's theocratic bowdlerization of the constitution.

Chris Rodda wrote about Bachmann and Barton in a 2009 Huffington Post article called "The Idiocy of Texas and the Threat of David Barton". Rodda mentions Bachmann:

Another example of Barton's grossly exaggerated role in a state's curriculum development involves everyone's favorite nut of a congresswoman, Michele Bachmann. Back in September, when Barton had Bachmann on his radio show -- introducing her as "a rock solid lady," and a "real class act" -- he brought up his previous encounters with her, including this:

As a matter of fact, I worked with her on history standards up in Minnesota -- doing some history legislation, and making sure that they could not censor religious references from history books.

So, what was Barton referring to here? Well, back in 2005, when Bachmann was still a senator in the Minnesota legislature, she and some of her fellow legislative wingnuts had bought -- hook, line, and sinker -- the wildly distorted story and propaganda about California banning the Declaration of Independence in public schools because it mentioned a creator. So, although existing Minnesota history standards already contained the use of the Declaration and other historical documents with religious content, Bachmann co-sponsored a completely unnecessary piece of legislation to "permit" these same documents that were already being used in the state's schools to be used in the state's schools, actually citing the bogus story about California banning the Declaration of Independence as a reason her unnecessary legislation was of the utmost importance. Barton's big role in all this? Well, he appeared before the Minnesota Senate Education Committee in support of Bachmann's legislation. Similar legislation had already been introduced by Minnesota state representative Mark Olson in 2001, and Olson, during a House Education Policy Committee hearing on his bill, had also brought in David Barton.

Of course, without the real explanations of the circumstances surrounding Barton's role in these state history education related proceedings, and relying only on the deceptive way in which Barton describes his involvement, anyone unfamiliar with him would think he sounds like somebody who has lots of legitimate experience in developing history curriculums and is sought out by other states for this expertise.

But, the biggest problem with Barton meddling with our country's textbooks is not his lack of qualifications. It's the fact that he's a big fat liar who will distort, misrepresent, and even fabricate historical events to further his Christian nationalist agenda and political ideology.

Read the entire post... for more about the Religious Right's revision of history go to Chris Rodda's website.

The article mentions that Bachmann appeared on the Wallbuilders Live show. Here in two parts is an excerpt where the host spoke with Michele Bachmann about her theocratic agenda, The entire September 1, 2008 podcast can be found at the Wallbuilders Live podcast archives

Part One:



Part Two:



This picture is from Rep. Mark Olson's campaign literature from 2006 shows Olson and Bachman with David Barton at the MN Legislature: