Liar, Liar, Panties on fire! Michele Bachmann Is Not a Doctor

[Lunabelle]

Thu Aug. 18, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

On the campaign trail in Iowa, Rep. Michele Bachmann's response to the argument that she lacks the experience to run for president has been to turn the argument on its head. The Minnesota congresswoman rattles off her resume: She was a federal tax litigation attorney; she and her husband started "a successful small company"; she fought the establishment in the state Legislature and Congress.

And one more thing: Lest you think she doesn't have the brains to do battle with Obama, she rattles off her degrees. "I'm not only a lawyer, I have a postdoctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary," she told Fox News' Chris Wallace in June. "I work in serious scholarship."

But there was one résumé item that was missing: a Ph.D. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Bachmann traveled the state as an education activist, she went by "Dr. Michele Bachmann," even though she had never obtained nor sought the advanced degree that's a prerequisite for the title.

From 1998 through 2003, Bachmann was a leading opponent of a Minnesota curriculum standard called the Profile of Learning. She and her allies believed that it was leading Minnesota toward a state-planned economy; if we weren't careful, totalitarianism (or worse) could be just around the corner. "Government is implementing policies that will lead to poverty, not prosperity, by adopting the failed ideas of a state-planned and managed economy similar to that of the former Soviet Union," she explained in a policy paper she cowrote for an anti-Profile nonprofit called the Maple River Education Coalition (MREC). "The system is based upon a utilitarian worldview that measures human value only in terms of productive capability for the 'best interests of the state.'"


http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-not-doctor-phd

[gateley]

1. Wasn't the "federal tax litigation attorney" a lie, too? She held

some other position? Can anyone refresh my memory? Thanks.

[Lunabelle]

2. So many lies, so little time to refute them all

It's ok for a christian to lie if you are doing it in god' name. Sounds like a fundamentalist to me.

[gateley]

3. Ha! You're right! They all mush together there are so many! nt

[thereismore]

4. It's not a crime to kill your son if God tells you to do it. In fact, it looks good on your resume.

See Abraham.

[Lunabelle]

18. An update of the "Dr." controversy.

Update: A reader writes in to argue that "Dr." actually is an appropriate term for a J.D. recipient. As it turns out, there's a a bit of a debate on this point within the legal community—it is a (begrudgingly) accepted practice in some states and not in others. But the fact that it's technically accepted does not mean anyone uses it. Chief among the reasons lawyers don't use "Dr." is that to most of the public, the terms suggests that you're a medical doctor or a Ph.D.—and therefore conveys a false level of expertise. Bachmann selectively used the title when she talking about education policy, a subject she had studied informally but had no advanced degree in.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-not-doctor-phd

[LaurenG]

6. I think she got her law degree from Oral Roberts University and

if I remember correctly that school is not accredited. <--- I could be mistaken so I should look that up.

on edit: In 1986 Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts I don't think it was an accredited school in 1986 but I can't tell for certain.

The O. W. Coburn School of Law opened in 1979. In 1986 the university "shut down its ailing law school and sent its library to Pat Robertson's Bible-based college in Virginia", which subsequently founded the Regent University School of Law.<20>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Roberts_University

[DCKit]

7. "She was a federal tax litigation attorney"... for the IRS.

That alone should blow her Teabagger cred all to hell.

[DirkGently]

5. Eh. If she's got an LLM in tax, one could stretchily say "post doc" in that it's post Juris Doctor,

which is technically what a J.D. (law degree) is.

Haven't heard of too many lawyers calling themselves "Doctor," though.

Whatever her educational background, she doesn't seem to have absorbed much. Didn't she just say Americans are worried about "the rise of the Soviet Union?" :rofl:

Edit: Here's Wikipedia's take:

In general there are two types of LL.M. programs in the United States. The majority are programs designed to expose foreign legal graduates to the American Common Law. The other programs involve post doctoral study of a specialized area of the law such as Admiralty, Tax Law, Banking and Financial Law, Elder Law, Intellectual Property, Aeronautical Law or International Law, and more recently, Environmental Law.Text

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Laws#United_States

Still not buying "Dr. Bachmann," but I assume this is what she'd claim she means.

[JDPriestly]

8. A juris doctor is the degree that every lawyer has.

The LLM is obtained after the juris doctor and is a post-graduate degree. Sorry, but Bachmann is right about this.

[DirkGently]

13. Odd if she actually took the honorific "Dr." though. Lawyers generally don't.

[JDPriestly]

19. Not usually, but maybe that is what lawyers do if they don't pass the bar.

When did she graduate from law school, and when did she pass the bar?

[Jackpine Radical]

9. The JD, typically granted after 3 years of study, is generally viewed

as a sort of glorified Masters Degree. (Purists say the same thing about the MD degree, actually, since it is obtained after 4 years of education & training without the need for making an original contribution to the field of study in the form of a dissertation).

But then I'm not the kind of snob that would ever point these things out.

[DirkGently]

12. Professional doctorates, vs. research doctorates, both.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. Professional doctorates versus higher doctorates.

[DirkGently]

15. ... not that you're a snob about such things ...

:D

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Moi?

[benld74]

10. She HAS a PhD!! A PHD in BATSHIT CRAZY!!!!!

[DirkGently]

17. A B.S.C. In Abnormal Guano Psychology?

:silly:

[GeorgeGist]

11. It's so much better when that the capitalist worldview measures human value ...

in terms of productive capability for the best interests of the stockholders.

[Lara_P]

20. Certifiable

This woman is batsh*t crazy - the hits just keep on coming, and coming, and coming. We. Can't. Take. Much. More.

http://www.ranker.com/list/the-most-ridiculous-michele-bachmann-gaffes-and-mistakes/pilgrimsprogressive