Lawrence O’Donnell: ‘Michele Bachmann Voters Are Ignorant – Her District Is 92% White’
Lawrence O'Donnell on Monday accused people that voted for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) last November of being “shockingly ignorant,” and said one of the reasons was because her district is 92 percent white. This happened as “The Last Word” host went on an almost seven-minute rant about Bachmann's gaffe this weekend concerning Lexington and Concord being in New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts (video follows with transcript and commentary): LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Time for tonight's “Rewrite.” Okay. This one does have the feel of shooting fish in a barrel, but so does anything involving fact checking Michele Bachmann. In fact, the phrase shooting fish in a barrel could be replaced with fact checking Michele Bachmann, or better put, mistake proving Michele Bachmann, because finding Michele Bachmann’s mistakes is as easy or perhaps easier than shooting fish in a barrel, especially for those of us that aren't exactly handy with guns. And mistakes is a kind word when it comes to Michele Bachmann. Many of the falsehoods she has spouted, such as healthcare death panels, must be lies because she must know, she must know that they are completely untrue. But many of the things she says are truly breathtaking demonstrations of ignorance levels previously unimaginable in a member of Congress or a graduate of an American elementary school. Like when she said recently in prepared text that the Founding Fathers ended slavery, obviously having absolutely no idea that the Founding Fathers deliberately did nothing to end slavery, and that it was, in fact, the 16th President of the United States who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and fought and won a civil war to end slavery. Actually, the ignorance on display here was O'Donnell's. Bachmann didn't say the Founding Fathers ended slavery. She said they – in particular, John Quincy Adams – worked tirelessly to end slavery. As NewsBusters reported on January 27, this is technically correct. Also, to say “the Founding Fathers deliberately did nothing to end slavery” is 100 percent false, for as NewsBusters also reported in January, there was originally an anti-slavery clause in the Declaration of Independence that southern delegates to the First Continental Congress, led by South Carolina's Edward Rutledge, forced the removal of.
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on March 14, 2011. Filed under