Posted on 06/24/2011 8:57:48 PM PDT by Brices Crossroads
Michele Bachmann's efforts in 2007-8 to have Drug Dealer and Money Launderer Frank Vennes pardoned for his 1987 convictions have begun to receive some light scrutiny in the media. Some embarrassing details have emerged, including the fact that, while Bachmann was lobbying hard to secure a pardon for him from President Bush, Vennes himself was engaged in a brand new, massive $3.65 billion ponzi scheme, for which he was recently indicted by a Federal Grand Jury. Worse yet, Vennes and his family had donated money to Bachmann--a lot of money--in the 2006 and 2008 campaign cycles, $27,400 to be exact, making Vennes her largest donor by far. The most charitable thing one can say about this affair is that it showed colossally poor judgment on Bachmann's part. The propinquity of the donations and her efforts to secure a pardon could suggest a darker, even improper, motive, if the pardon efforts were proven to be a quid pro quo for the campaign cash. See the link below if you are interested in any more of the sordid details.
What struck me about the Vennes matter was not that Bachmann exercised poor judgment (which she certainly did) or that her lobbying on behalf of Vennes so soon after his huge donations to her were unethical and created at least the appearance of impropriety (which they certainly have). It was none of those things that I found so egregious, because politicians typically engage in such shenanigans on a daily basis, and Michele Bachmann is nothing if not a typical politician. What really struck me about the whole affair, and has been heretofore overlooked, is the letter Bachmann penned on Congressional stationery to the Pardon Attorney at the United States Department of Justice. By all means, read it and draw your own conclusions:
The specter of the lamestream media baying at the moon and salivating over the prospect of a veritable treasure trove of malapropisms within Sarah Palin's 24,000 emails made me wonder about Bachmann's talents as a wordsmith. To pique my curiosity further, the same lamestream media that was so sure it would find multiple "silver bullets" of incoherence within Palin's emails has pronounced Bachmann not only "coherent" and "disciplined" but downright "articulate." (Meghan Daum, LA Times, 6/23/2011) To their chagrin, Palin's emails turned out to be written more competently than most CEOs, scoring an impressive 8.5 on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test on which Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech was an 8.8 and the Gettysburg Address was a 9.1. Indeed Palin's routine emails were more competently composed, according to this measure, than was Barack Obama's State of the Union Address, which came in at 7.7. And Bachmann? Well, I would love to have the Flesch-Kincaid test applied to her letter to the Pardon Attorney, a high ranking Justice Department official appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. How, I wonder, would it score? Let's take a look at it, piece by piece.
Her third sentence is not only awkward, but also an unsupported non sequitur:
"As a U.S. Representative, I am confident of Mr Vennes' successful rehabilitation and that a pardon will be good for the neediest of society."
How, one might wonder, does her status as a U.S. Representative make her "confident" of Mr. Vennes' rehabilitation? Evidently she intended to remind the Pardon Attorney of her office, fearing that perhaps he had not noticed the letter head. After this bit of gratuitous horn blowing, Bachmann stumbles through the remainder of this awkward sentence in two parts, but without the same, parallel grammatical structure:
"I am confident of...and that"
This grammatical error, known as faulty parallelism, is rather more common among elementary school students than Congressmen, especially those who who constantly bray about their two law degrees and their experience as a "tax attorney for the IRS".
The next sentence, if you can call it that, is at once inane and downright painful to read:
"Granting a pardon to Mr. Vennes should be considered because pardons were intended to restore people to society like Mr. Vennes; people who have demonstrated true reformation and for whom mercy is due because the legal system cannot deliver a morally acceptable result."
The first part of it is an incomplete, circular thought, punctuated with a semicolon. The second part is an incomplete sentence. In between she opines that "mercy is due" when in fact mercy is never "due." If mercy were due, it would be justice, not mercy. And she inexplicably charges that the legal system in Vennes' case "cannot deliver a morally acceptable result." Is there some thought behind such a charge? How is it that the legal system failed to deliver a morally acceptable result? Vennes was convicted on his own guilty plea of crimes for which the government had overwhelming evidence. How was his conviction not a "morally acceptable result?" Anyone who would make such a statement does not understand the meaning of the phrase "morally acceptable result." Her use of the English language is as imprecise as her syntax is mangled.
The next sentence is no better:
"Mr Vennes' application shows he is a just recipient of a pardon"
Wrong again, Michele. He is not the just recipient of a pardon, since he had not yet received it (and, happily, he never did). What you meant to say was that he would be the just recipient of a pardon. Michele Bachmann, let me introduce you to the subjunctive mood. You should have met in the fifth grade, but I suppose it's better to meet late than never!
The letter meanders on, a string of words in search of a coherent thought. At points the Congresswoman waxes profound:
"So why does Mr. Vennes need a pardon if he is so successful? So he can help more people than he does."
She goes on to elaborate on the utility of a pardon for Mr Vennes and how a pardon will free him "to help so many more":
"Mr Vennes still encounters the barriers of his past and especially in the area of finance loan documents."
Indeed, those pesky prior money laundering convictions sure do get in the way of your ability to borrow money from banks for the needy (or for other worthy purposes like...ponzi schemes?). It raises the question, however: Does Bachmann believe it licit to go into debt in order to fund charitable activities? She notes in the third paragraph that, in just the previous three years, Vennes has directed over 10.7 million dollars to the "neediest in our society" (not to mention the $27,400 he steered into her campaign coffers). It does not appear that he was in dire need of loans for charitable activities or much of anything else.
The letter finally ends with this sentence:
"Knowing that pardons have been decreasingly granted , I am asking that courage be mustered to do justice for Mr. Vennes."
Decreasingly granted? This sounds like the syntax of a third grader. How about: "While I understand that pardons overall have declined of late..." There are any number of concise ways to express this thought. Bachmann chose none of them. I have seen many letters from Congressmen and Senators, and this one, which incidentally addresses a very important subject, is by far the least articulate of any of them.
If Sarah Palin penned such a ferociously illiterate missive, it would be on the front page of the New York Times as Exhibit A for her incompetence and incoherence. Yet Michele Bachmann, now the darling of CNN, the L.A. Times, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post and Chris Matthews of MSNBC, is called both "coherent" and "articulate," in spite of this stark evidence to the contrary. Ask yourselves why these two are treated differently.
After reading her mangled syntax, poor word usage and incoherent ramblings, I shudder at the thought of the Congresswoman from Minnesota turned loose upon an Inaugural Address. Fortunately, the chances of that are even slimmer than Mr. Vennes' current pardon possibilities.
I don't think that Bachmann is corrupt. I think that she received the campaign money and then she subconsciously rationalized the pardon request.
Was the pardon request a good thing? No.
Is she corrupt? No.
Did she show bad judgement? Yes.
This isn't 2008 anymore, this will be 2012, and that is President Obama by the way, with a full term under his belt.
Has Bachmann passed any legislation during her time in the state Senate or the US Congress, any?
Your characterization sounds about right.
I would like her to address it and dismiss it, though. Either she does, or people do a "fill in the blanks", which is almost always worse than any reasonable explanation.
An "I thought he had turned himself around. It's in my nature to see the best in my fellow man. I wanted him to succeed, as I think everyone deserves an opportunity to succeed on their own merits." would work for most people.
"I would not do now what I did then, knowing what I know now, but I think that erring on the side of charity and forgiveness is not bad ", would also work.
Hiring Rollins may not be wise, but it’s hardly a scandal.
As despicable as I find Rollins and especially the comments he
made about Gov. Palin (for which I believe he apologized), the fact remains that he is very well connected in IA and was able to pull off the win there for Huckabee. A win in IA is critical to Bachmann.
IA may not matter much to Romney, who would look more to NH. but it is absolutely critical to Bachmann. IA and NH may not be so important to Gov Palin as they are to some of the others, especially if there’s a split between IA and NH, as there often is. SC then becomes important and is a state that would favor Gov Palin, while she might have some problems in IA and NH, given Bachmann’s and Romney’s roots and/or close affiliations with those states. Gov Palin would have to place well in IA and NH, but doesn’t have to win either.
.
She’s not the “frontrunner” in any poll to date and it’s very early days.
BUMP!
Of course it is a scandal, you are here at freerepublic, you know that the conservative base exploded at that outrage.
I have noted on several threads how Rollins ends up being described as the political genius that is just too talented to be fired, or not hired in the first place.
Rollins and Bachmann made a massive, strategic, and more importantly, a moral mistake, with the base.
I’ve always loved your posts but, tonight with this thread, I’m ashamed of you.
I’ve always loved your posts, too.
However, were I to run for office, I would find the most cut throat campaign manager there is to run it for me.
I don’t like what Rollins said about Sarah, but there is something going on that I don’t understand.
Sarah always said that she wouldn’t run if there was a true conservative in the race.
As I said, there is something going on that doesn’t compute with me.
Sarah is waiting for fall...as she should.
You know that Palin could not hire the most cutthroat campaign manger there is, it is impossible for her to do that.
Palin is a leader through and through, there will never be confusion about who is leading her campaign.
Bachmann failed on both of those counts, so far, there is not an equal to Palin in the race.
And the info about the charities ... my hackles go up around people who are so ostentatious about helping "the neediest."
What "lies"?
It would be a "lie" if the letter scanned is a forgery, made up, fake.
Otherwise, it is an entirely appropriate comparision between Bachmann and Palin's 24,000 emails. I've read bits and pieces of Palin's emails, tweets, and facebook posts here and there, and as a writer myself, appreciate and recognize Palin's skill in clear and concise written communication.
If you think acknowleding the obviously poor writing in this correspondence sample by Bachmann is the same as a "smear tactic," you're out to lunch.
Regards,
Romney, Huntsman and Paul are not viable alternatives to Obama. Palin, Bachman, Cain, Santorum and virtually every other strong Conservative is.
I would vote for anybody over Obama. However while we have a choice lets not let some poorly worded document that was more than likely written by a staffer and signed by auto-pen get in the way of a possible Ass kicker who has no trouble calling Obama out on his incredible failures and articulating a distinct alternative.
Regardless of who the Republicans put up this is going to be a referendum on Obama’s first term, as all incumbency elections are. Let's work to have a strong Conservative as the standard bearer and all will be well.
She put her name to it!
I routinely blue-pencil printed government forms that I have to sign.
Regards,
Well, I enjoyed your article. I find nothing to disagree with in it and I appreciate your effort.
Very well expressed! I would like to add my commendation.
Regards,
Talk about willfully blind. Try something: Read the letter.
So Bachamann has never accomplished anything in the state Senate, or the Congress?
She must have some legislation that carries her name.
What is it?
Maybe with Larry’s help .......
I just don’t think he is equipped for it. I am sure he is a catcher anyway!
I'll bet you that nothing that badly written was ever signed by Ronald Reagan. Or even Dubya, for that matter. This is not about grammar. This is about being Ready for Prime Time.
There is ZILCH that is "sleazebag" about shining the light of truth on a politician.
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