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 never said the letter made sense, nor that it was well written! It’s not persuasive in the least, nor is it terribly coherent.
Actually, tho, I don’t think pardons after the fact make sense. If Vennes or anyone else was convicted of a crime and did time, that’s history. I don’t see how a pardon wipes out a person’s history. So, to me it’s all nonsense. A pardon such as Bush granted Libby makes sense. It saved him from doing time, if nothing else.
Clinton pardoned (among others) Susan McDougal. Does that mean she didn’t commit the crime and/or do the time? It won’t be brought up in any job application, or her obituary when that time comes? What benefit is an ex post facto pardon?
But what’s even more useless to me are threads on here, day after day after day, where one candidate’s fans bash another candidate over what is inconsequential. The full GOP roster isn’t even set yet. There are two or more big names still in discussion without declarations. When that roster is set, the candidates and their supporters can put forth cogent arguments to support their candidacy. In the meanwhile, this sort of snipping does no one any good, including the candidate(s) the threads are meant to help.
Sorry, buddy, you of all people should know that how a middle-aged professional expresses herself in writing when making arguments, is very much a steadfast guide as to how that person thinks. I hope you don't turn in crap like this to your own employers, or you have some of your readers thinking: "What a dingbat!"
If that person fails in that very basic skill, then that person, no matter anything about pardons, is probably going to be a pretty lousy risk in a job that requires very high levels of ability in communication. Some risks are difficult to spot -- but here, we have a case of something pretty simple showing an awfully big, glaring risk factor.
Your writing suggests enough about your personality that I’m done with you.
Today, even though whispering campaigns are now done in the open, with spotlights and megaphones, are far less committed by the party faithful, than they were, even as recently as Ike and the Dems spreading rumors that Mamie was a closeted drunk.....which he wasn't.
Jackson was convinced that the war against him and his wife ( they were both accused of adultery and she far worse things than that ! ), caused her death.
Lovely quote, BTW, and one I was unfamiliar with.
If you haven’t yet read Owen Wister’s “The Virginian,” I beg you, do. It is one of the plain loveliest books ever written, a contemporary semi-chronological of the American West. It is authentic and a beautiful work of literary art from 1902.
Wasn't there at least one movie made of that book? The title rings a bell, for some reason or other.
Only an idiot would sign a letter of this nature without reading it.
I read and correct if necessary EVERYTHING I sign at work.
She might have a more important job than I do but I guarantee you she isn't busier and doesn't work harder. Judging from this letter she sure as hell doesn't have the attention to detail I do either.
“So i presume you will be voting for Obama again?”
HELL NO!!!!!
If Bachmann is the nominee, I will vote for her. But in the primary, I will certainly be looking for someone else to be the nominee (but certainly not Romney, Pawlenty Johnson or Paul). I just don’t think Bachmann is everything we thought.
I’m hoping someone else gets in this. Maybe someone from Alaska.
a robo-signer adds the signature.
Then why don't they give themselves a raise? If they are authorized to robo-sign just any old damn crap it would be perfectly legal too.
Actually robo-signers are used for souvenir photos not checks and legal documents. Except perhaps unless an idiot authorizes it.
A letter to a DOJ lawyer is “correspondence,” for which Congressional robo-signers are used hundreds of times a day. It is not a “legal document.”
Nor for that matter are Congressional paychecks issued from the Members’ offices. They are federal employees, and paid through the Dept of the Treasury, almost exclusively now through direct deposit.
It would take a damned lazy person to let someone else issue poorly written crap with their signature on it. Especially something this important.
Damn lazy and stupid.
If your name is on it you own it. Sorry if that is not clear enough.
I hope you read it and come to cherish it, as I have, as as a work of art that's a privilege to possess.
Though I am and always have been an avid reader, this genre isn't one that I am particularly drawn to; however, I may just give it a try, because you say it is so very well written and I do enjoy a well written book.
You know...there was a time when folks waited until the fall before they announced. Obama broke the record in announcing just after the mid-terms in 2006.
I hope that Sarah will get the election cycles back on track.
Too, she’s been vetted, and abused, to the max. Not so Michele. I like her very much, but the media is going to tear her limb from limb.
Please reread my post. I never said any such thing.
I simply said that *I* would hire the most cut throat campaign manager there is.
That’s because I’m not Sarah. ;o)
I don’t eat that much and rarely take vacations too.
However Obama’s constituency wouldn’t vote for me because I don’t hate America, do hate islam and my wife isn’t a racist bitch.
In the context of your post, I have to think that you were saying that Rollins as a cutthroat was the right hire for Bachmann, and that you would do the same in her shoes.
You misunderstood my post.
He is a cut throat, but not the right hire for someone as well known, and as well spoken, as Michele.
But, he would be for me because I would need it all from him. ;o)
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