Did Bachmann Just Trash Sarah Palin For Having Kids And Thinking About Running For POTUS?

By Gary P Jackson

Did Michele Bachmann just go after Sarah Palin for wanting to run for President while still having kids at home? Well maybe not as strongly as this headline suggests:

Video: Michele Bachmann Says Sarah Palin is a Selfish Mom

Bachmann does go down that road, lead by "Christian activist" Ralph Reed at last week's Faith and Freedom Conference:



From Opposing Views: [emphasis mine]

Michele Bachmann says Sarah Palin should wait till her children are grown up before she runs for the presidency - and implies that the former Alaska governor should have held off on any kind of White House campaign while she still had children in the house.

In a video from last week's Faith and Freedom Conference, Bachmann tells conservative Christian activist Ralph Reed, ""We've raised a lot of children, five biological children, 23 foster kids," Bachmann says. "This fall our youngest two will go off to college, so we're coming to the conclusion now of 29 years of parenting, and I think that's one life lesson that you learn. That sometimes you have patience and wait to do certain things in your life."

Reed then says, "There's a time and a season for everything."

Bachmann responds, "There's a time and a season for everything, that's right."

Palin is famous for making her family a large part of her 2008 vice-presidential campaign, even though her daughter Bristol was pregnant while the campaign was going on, and went on to become a single teenage mom. She also had a baby son, Trig, in 2008. Trig was diagnosed with Down's Syndrome before he was born.

This sort of thing is right out of the Ed Rollins playbook. He likes to make attacks personal, as the sort of candidate he usually hooks up with can't compete on ideas or record of achievement.

We've heard so-called "evangelicals" using this line of attack before, that Sarah Palin's place is at home with the kids, back when Mike Huckabee was still thought to be a contender. It came from his supporters. [though never Governor Huckabee himself] It's not for nothing that Ed Rollins was Huckabee's man before working for Bachmann.

Here's what gets me with this. Michele Bachmann has raised five children and twenty-three foster children, twenty-eight kids in all. That's commendable, to say the least, but as Bachmann points out, she's just now seeing the last ones graduate. Bachmann has been in Congress for quite some time. If she followed the same advice she's giving Sarah Palin, shouldn't she have waited until this year to get into politics?

Can you say hypocrite?

One has to ask why is Bachmann going down this road. She continually rants, when challenged, that she and Sarah Palin are "best of friends." Indeed, it was Sarah Palin that brought record crowds to Minnesota to rally for Bachmann and other GOP candidates in 2010.

One of the problems is, despite all of her rhetoric, Michele Bachmann has few actual accomplishments for all of her years in Congress. Oh, she gives a great speech, but so does Barack Obama. Bachmann has not created any major piece of legislation, or led any sort of movement. She's one of 435 people and nothing, other than empty rhetoric separates her from the herd.

On the other hand, as Steve Bannon reminded everyone the other day, Sarah Palin, who was Governor for just a few months shy of three years [she took office in 2006] accomplished more in that time than most executive level politicians do in a lifetime. Fact is, at the time she left office, Sarah Palin had accomplished every goal she had set before she took office, and then some.

This doesn't count her time as Alaska's top oil and gas regulator, or her time as the two-term Mayor of Wasilla.

That brings to light the other problem with Bachmann. She has no executive experience what-so-ever. None. Zip. Nada. Executive experience, while not constitutionally required, is essential for someone to be a good president. It's why Americans tend to elect governors as presidents.

Speaking of which, Alaska's governor is one of the most powerful in the nation. When the state's founders wrote their constitution, they wanted the buck to stop at the governor's desk. Rather than being a figurehead like some governors, Alaska's governor is a true CEO. When you look at the way Alaska has set things up, if being governor is the best "on the job training" to be president, then being Governor of Alaska is graduate school.

So this is what Bachmann and the other GOP candidates face. Sarah Palin is the most accomplished, most qualified, most successful potential presidential candidate in the country.

Look, we expect the primaries to be a knock-down, drag-out fight. That's how the cream will rise to the top. But this underhanded sniping by a third tier candidate, who claims to be "best of friends" with the target of their petty nonsense is simply not acceptable.

My advice to the GOP show ponies and their little stalking horses is simple. If you can't compete on the issues, go home. We are at war for the soul of this nation. We are trying to save the Republic from certain demise. This is not the time for politics as usual.

With her's and her attack dog Rollins' recent attacks on Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann is turning out to be just another Washington establishment politician, and thus .... part of the problem .... not the solution.