John Wayne and Michele Bachmann

The media is going crazy trying to make Michele Bachmann look like an idiot. Yesterday, Bachmann said that John Wayne was born in Waterloo, Iowa. She was wrong; Wayne's parents lived there for a long time, but Wayne was born about two hours away from Waterloo. This is not exactly a big deal; indeed, I wonder what percentage of her audience even knew who John Wayne was. the media, however, immediately decided to take a minor flub and turnit into idiocy. The media decided that Bachmann must have been referring to John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer who lived for a short time in Waterloo. Bachmann never mentioned Gacy; the only connection came in the media. Nevertheless, the media was certain that she meant Gacy.

The next kerfuffle came after Bachmann referred to John Quincy Adams as one of the founding fathers. The press descended on that immediately. It was not true they claimed since John Quincy Adams was only 9 when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Bachmann explained that Adams was his father's secretary during much of the Revolution and should be considered one of the founding fathers. She did not mention that John Quincy Adams was secretary to his father in Paris where John Adams was the special envoy to the French Court. During the Revolution, John Quincy Adams went on to become the secretary to the American envoy to the Russian Court. During the adminstration of George Washington, Adams was the minister to Portugal, the Netherlands and Prussia. He followed this with being the Secretary of State, leading the American delegation that negotiated the end of the War of 1812, serving in the Senate and some years later becoming president of the United States. So if John Auincy Adams was in the American diplomatic service during the Revolution and at the time the Constitution was written and if he served in important posts during the administration of George Washington, it is hard to call him something either than a founding father.

The real truth is that there is no accepted definition of founding father. Obviously, those who signed the Declaration of Independence fit the bill, but they are not alone. For example, Patrick Henry is often mentioned as a founding father, but he did not sign the Declaration and he actively opposed the Constitution. All of those men who were the public figures of their day and who supported liberty in one way or another merit the title. In other words, Bachmann is correct.

I wish that the media would devote half as much energy to pointing out some of the bigger whoppers told by President Obama as they have to the Bachmann story. Obama talks about wanting to cut the deficit spending while at the same time actually proposing a budget that increases spending levels. There is hardly a murmur from the press about that. After all, confusion or lying about the budget is something that actually has an impact on the future of the country. All Americans can be affected by this. Instead, the media is devoting itself to phony stories about John Wayne Gacy and nit picking about John Quincy Adams as a way to get Bachmann. Shame on them all.