Michele Bachmann's Gaffe on Gaffe: John Quincy Adams Elevated to Founding Father

COMMENTARY | Sometimes you get the feeling that Michele Bachmann was only paying attention half the time in her American History classes or perhaps has a reading comprehension problem that caused her to retain only a part of the information she perused while studying (or not studying) the history of the United States. Take for instance her latest gaffe while appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," one in which she attempted to rectify another gaffe from earlier in the year. This time she elevated sixth president John Quincy Adams to the role of Founding Father, a role his most distinguished father John Adams actually enjoyed.

Noting her recent troubles with gaffe-manufacturing, George Stephanopoulos gave her a chance to rectify one of her history gaffes. "... For example earlier this year you said that the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence worked tirelessly to end slavery. Now with respect, Congresswoman, that's just not true. Many of them including Jefferson and Washington were actually slave holders and slavery didn't end until the Civil War."

When Bachmann tried to circumvent the question and simply note that America was a great country because it recognized certain wrongs and changed them, saying that people "realize that the government is taking away our freedom." Stephanopoulos pressed, "But that's not what you said. You said that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery."

"Well if you look at one of our Founding Fathers, John Quincy Adams, that's absolutely true," Bachmann replied. "He was a very young boy when he was with his father serving essentially as his father's secretary. He tirelessly worked throughout his life to make sure that we did in fact one day eradicate slavery...."

Stephanopoulos interjected, "He wasn't one of the Founding Fathers -- he was a president, he was a Secretary of State, he was a member of Congress, you're right he did work to end slavery decades later. But so you are standing by this comment that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery?"

Bachmann then tried to salvage her statement. "Well, John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy but he was actively involved."

Records indicate that John Quincy Adams had no military experience, was nine years old when the Declaration of Independence of signed, and was fourteen when the siege of Yorktown concluded (sixteen when the war formally ended in 1783 at the signing of the Treaty of Paris). He was twenty when the first signatures went on the U. S. Constitution. However, although his father was a key figure in the founding of the U. S., John Quincy Adams was not associated, save tangentially, with the founding events of the United States.

As for slavery, the "peculiar institution" would not be abolished until halfway through the American Civil War in 1863, albeit only in the United States (the Confederate states not recognizing any form of decree or law offered by the U. S. at the time). Many of the Founding Fathers were staunchly pro-slavery and worked "tirelessly" to fight its abolition. Although John Quincy Adams was an avowed opponent of slavery, he would not see it abolished in his lifetime. He died in 1848.

It would appear that Rep. Bachmann, who spoke to "Good Morning America" from New Hampshire, the site of another of her more famous historical gaffes, got her Adams family history lessons from dimly remembered plots of the Emmy-winning "John Adams" mini-series and the Steven Spielberg courtroom drama, "Amistad."

As for the gaffe in New Hampshire, it was while addressing a Tea Party rally in March that Bachmann told the gathering of supporters that she was considering running for president. She told them: "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world at Lexington and Concord, and you put a marker in the ground and paid with the blood of your ancestors."

The "shot heard round the world," of course, occurred in neighboring Massachusetts, which, incidentally, was where the Adams' lived.

The John Quincy Adams founding father gaffe was just the latest in a string of misstatements and stumbling falsehoods uttered by the newly declared Republican presidential candidate. In her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, where she would officially launch her bid for the presidency, she invoked the "spirit" of John Wayne, whom she said was from there (he was not). The Washington Times pointed out that John Wayne Gacy, the notorious serial killer of at least 33 young men and known for dressing up like a clown, had spent half a decade in Waterloo before he began killing.

Earlier in the day, she had sparred with Bob Schieffer on "Face The Nation," refusing to answer his questions. But in dodging a question on her veracity, she said President Obama had released "all" of the nation's emergency Strategic Oil Reserve (he did not, releasing only 30 million of 626.6 million barrels). Schieffer finally redirected her to the question about Politifact (the fact-checkers) finding 22 of 23 of her statements containing a measure of falsehood (and 7 being completely untrue).

But she can't say she wasn't warned. In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," anchor Chris Wallace, after bringing up her reputation as a person who made "questionable" comments and was considered a "flake," asked if she understood that she would have to be more careful with her statements now that she was running for president.

She said she did.