Neoporteria – Stick It

So long, Michele Bachmann, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Yesterday, this soon to be former US Representative from Minnesota announced her planned retirement from Congress, at the end of her current term, in 2014. She made this announcement via a nine-minute web video, in which claimed that her decision to retire from Congress was not influenced by any of her looming legal difficulties or that she was afraid that she might not win reelection in 2014. In full disclosure, I did not listen to her video; life is too short for nine-minutes of that sort of drivel. I’m sure that she claimed that she wanted to spend more time with her family, or some such rot.

Less than twenty-four hours after her announcement though, her first trial date was set for next May. By then she ought to be well on the way to transitioning from her current occupation, Congresswoman to her next job as a defendant. This court date is for a civil suit that is being pressed because during her failed 2012 Presidential bid, the Bachmann campaign allegedly stole and then illegally used an email list belonging to an Iowa homeschooling organization. This legal action is just part of the rumbling after effects of a campaign that began so promisingly. Bachmann won the Republican Iowa Straw Poll, the first, albeit unofficial vote of the Presidential election. From there it was all down hill.

Looming on the horizon for Bachmann are a Congressional ethics investigation that is expected to make its report next month and an accompanying FBI investigation. Both probes center on alleged illegal uses of her PAC campaign funds, also in Iowa. Bachmann was probably hoping to transition to a cushy and lucrative Fox News consultancy, but instead she might find herself doing her own pro bono defense work. On your way out of government service Michele, don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.