Michele Bachmann has a history of getting history wrong, but this time it’s her metaphor that really offends. Bachmann, a white upper-middle class married Evangelical Lutheran small business owner from the great state of Minnesota, announced to religious conservatives today that “we don’t have to sit in the back of the bus in this election.”
Sitting in the back of the bus is a phrase most-closely associated with the African-American civil rights movement, characterized by an iconic event, known to every junior high school student in America. Rosa Parks, in 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, who was 42 at the time, refused to obey a bus driver’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger, which was the law and custom then.
Via CNN:
“Of any election, this is the one where conservatives don’t have to settle,” Bachmann said at a rally in Orlando organized by the Faith and Freedom Coalition, the group founded by conservative activist Ralph Reed.
“President Obama’s approval numbers are the lowest they’ve ever been, and I am here to tell you, they are going lower further,” she said. “So we don’t have to go to the side, we don’t have to sit on the back of the bus in this election. We need to stand up and be counted and have a candidate who is truly a social conservative who will stand for our issues.”
For Bachmann to co-op that metaphor truly smacks of insensitivity.
The Iowa Straw Poll winner, Michele Bachmann has been under fire since last week for her comments against protecting girls against cancer. In a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, she placed fourth, tying with Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain. Perry earned 31% of the registered voters polled, Romney 24%, and Paul, 13%. Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich each got 5%.
Bachmann has also been attacked for her recent comments claiming that anti-​gay bullying of schoolchildren should not be a federal issue. Bachmann represents a district that has a large incidence of teen suicides, nine since last year.
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