Ya gotta love this:
Michele Bachmann spent plenty of time Monday letting everyone know that she was born in Waterloo, Iowa, a small industrial town she credits with instilling within her many of her conservative ideals.
But in one interview surrounding her formal campaign rollout, the Tea Party favorite seems to have gotten a little confused about some of the finer points of the Hawkeye State’s history.
Speaking to Fox News, Bachmann said that she had the same spirit as Waterloo’s own John Wayne. One can only assume that she was referring to the movie star, who was born in Winterset, Iowa, roughly a three-hour drive from Waterloo. The problem, however, is that Waterloo appears to have much closer ties to serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the “killer clown” who had his first criminal conviction there.
Hoh, boy… When they unfreeze the Duke, he’s gonna be ticked.
OK, I was kidding about that. I have only Denis Leary to go by on the Duke being frozen. But I do have a question — didn’t she launch her campaign a couple of weeks ago? She announced it at the debate…
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Will it be her Waterloo?
Naw–it’s just you MSM types playin’ gotcha…
Didn’t Obama state that there were 57 states? This just goes to show you that all career politicians are idiots.
Some can Google but not read the information…might be Wikipedia…nah..just idiocy.
Wow, she is as geographically challenged as Sarah Pain is.
More so, Ralph. More so. Also pop-culture challenged.
Mind you, she was talking about her own home town. I don’t think even Sarah Palin would mess up that much.
Of course, it was a rather loose interpretation of “hometown.” She was born there. She did not grow up there, or live there as an adult.
This sense of “hometown” is a common rhetorical device of politicians, and depending upon one’s personal background, can actually have some legitimacy. (It always sounded really bogus when George H. W. Bush talked about being from Texas, although it was perfectly credible when his son said it.)
I say Bennettsville is my hometown, although many who have lived there their whole lives might be startled that such a stranger, or relative stranger, makes such a claim. I was born there. I spent summers there (it was my mother’s hometown, and my uncle still lives in the home that was my grandparents’ when I was growing up). And I spent one whole year there while my Dad was in Vietnam. That, and Surfside Beach (where my grandparents had a place), were the constants in my youth.
My greatest claim to a hometown now, I suppose, is Columbia. I not only lived in Shandon for about a year (1957), but since moving back in 1987, I have now lived here far, far longer than anywhere else.
And yes, I know some local folks consider living just outside West Columbia in Lexington County not to be Columbia, but they’re wrong. Look at a map of the U.S., or of the world (which is my perspective). We live in Columbia.
But were I running for president, I could also claim — in descending order of legitimacy — the following:
— Jackson, TN (almost 10 years, after college)
— Memphis, TN (for almost four years continuously, then for frequent visits from 1975 until the present day)
— Guayaquil, Ecuador (the longest I lived anywhere in my childhood, almost two and a half years)
— New Orleans (actually, Algiers, across the river from the French Quarter)
— Tampa, FL
— Norfolk, VA (three separate times, but each of them less than a year)
— Wichita, KS (from here on down, it’s less than two years in any one place)
— Charleston, SC (three separate times by the time I was 2 years old)
— Woodbury, NJ
— Kensington, MD (just a couple of months, while my parents were doing language training before we went to Ecuador — but I did attend school there — and it’s where my Dad is from)
Also, while I didn’t technically dwell there, I developed a certain sense of connection to Carlisle, PA, during the several years my daughter was doing ballet training up there. In fact, we maintained a household there, where my wife stayed with my daughter for a year when she was still in high school.
There are probably places I’m forgetting at the moment.
So what, indeed, is a hometown?
The Wikipedia article on Lee Atwater states (d–if someone edited it) that he grew up in Aiken and refers to Aiken as his hometown…later on it says his funeral was held at Trinity Cathedral in his hometown of Columbia. I almost edited it, but then thought about it–I believe it is correct….
@ Steven–do you really believe that Obama said there are 57 states, other than as a mis-speak (57 varieties, say)? and that someone who went to Harvard, etc. is an “idiot”? If so, what is your definition of “idiot”? Does George W. Bush qualify? Sarah Palin?
Not to equate Lee Atwater with Michelle Bachmann.
Necessarily…