Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Some wondered why Rep. Michele Bachmann was wearing a lei in our prom picture from the other night. The Minnesota Independent has the story on it. In a speech on the House floor against the health care reform bill she said:
The American people overwhelmingly reject the government takeover of our health care. Last Friday a couple from Hawaii decided the time was so short they needed to get on a plane, come to Washington, to beg their representative to vote no -- from Hawaii. What sacrifices freedom-loving Americans are making to get their government's attention. And how big our government has gotten. They brought me this beautiful, precious lei and I'm reminded that the one who created this lei also created our freedom. Are we so insensible to the high cost our forebearers paid to purchase our freedom? Tonight, would we foolishly bargain those freedoms away? The American people, our forebearers, generations yet unborn are crying out to us tonight, for us to preserve their freedoms. Vote no on the government takeover of health care.
Here's the irony: Hawaii already has a law requiring businesses to provide health insurance to their employees. Hawaii ranks 4th in the nation in terms of the lowest number of uninsured residents (8.8%). And both legislators from Hawaii voted for the health care reform bill. But one "freedom-loving" couple who got on a plane apparently overrides all of those "freedom-hating" people who support the bill.
Politics
Comments
Wait, the minimum wage lei maker is the person who creates our freedom?
Posted by: Joe | November 10, 2009 9:28 AM
Ah, that makes sense. I had simply assumed she'd overheard someone saying she needed to get laid and misunderstood.
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 10, 2009 9:29 AM
How could we be so insensible to the high cost our forebearers paid? They sacrified for our freeness, and we can't even be thankfulsome.
Posted by: Evan | November 10, 2009 9:31 AM
What's even more hilarious is that she would reference Hawaii, a state we effectively stole from its native inhabitants, during her impassioned plea for "freedom" and the sacrifices of "our forebears". And you know what? I bet this ephemeral old couple were probably anglos who moved there, too.
Posted by: Julian | November 10, 2009 9:36 AM
Let's not miss the double irony of Minnesotans living in Hawaii having the coin to travel back to MN merely to lobby their Representative about insurance reform whilst that state enjoys federal government subsidies on property insurance for floods and other natural disasters, subsidies established by conservatives in the GOP.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 10, 2009 9:42 AM
I really hope that Bachmann's speech was accompanied by someone playing the world's smallest violin.
Posted by: Imrryr | November 10, 2009 9:44 AM
This is not my pet cause and I don't wish to dwell on it, but it is worth pointing out that a lei made by an American earning minimum wage would cost several times as much as the one Michelle Bachmann was most likely making. Minimum wage in America? Try pennies a day in China. That's the only way your getting a dollar-store lei, dude.
Posted by: James Sweet | November 10, 2009 9:46 AM
Is she sure that lei is Hawaiian? It looks like it came from Kenya, to me.
Posted by: Shay | November 10, 2009 9:50 AM
Michelle got lied by a couple from Hawaii. Oooh, kinky!
Posted by: Chilidog | November 10, 2009 9:53 AM
Do Bachmann and Palin have the same speech coach? They read from the same Christian script, anyway.
She means God when she says "the One who created this lei." She then tries to allude to the Declaration of Independence (the "inalienable rights" part).
The next sentence is just plain wrong. "Cost" should be "price," unless it's a Freudian slip and she was thinking of insurance premiums. "Forebearers" should be "forebears," unless she was thinking of the pallbearers carrying the coffins of the folks without decent health care. And is "insensible" really a word?
Meanwhile, someone who flies from Hawai't to D.C. in November to give Bachmann a freaking lei clearly has their priorities askew, and money to burn. Maybe they can afford private insurance, and just don't get what the big deal is.
Posted by: wheatdogg | November 10, 2009 9:55 AM
Less ironic, of course, is that Hawaii was the first state in the nation to offer guaranteed child healthcare...only to drop it seven months later after the program's costs exploded.
Come to think of it, I'm surprised we haven't heard more about Hawaii's debacle throughout this debate.
Posted by: Loren | November 10, 2009 10:02 AM
wheatdogg, I think she meant "furbearers." I thing it was a veiled reference to evolution.
Posted by: Chilidog | November 10, 2009 10:08 AM
You know, when I saw that picture of you with her wearing that, I was going to ask if it was you that leid her, but I decided that was too classless and decided not to comment.
I still think that way.
Posted by: carlsonjok | November 10, 2009 10:29 AM
@James Sweet #7
That's right in alignment with her cause anyway. Bachmann is against the existence of a minimum wage. In fact if she had her way, teens would be paying employers for the privilege of making leis. Seriously:
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 10, 2009 10:30 AM
Hawaii isn't part of America. If it were, Obama would be a legitimate President.
Posted by: JusticeLeague | November 10, 2009 10:31 AM
To be fair, you could say that about any state.
Posted by: catgirl | November 10, 2009 10:54 AM
It's even more absurd. Almost all health insurance in Hawaii is administrated through a state-sanctioned near-monopoly, the Hawaii Medical Services Association. It's the closest thing in the US to socialized health care outside of Mass Health.
Posted by: Dan L. | November 10, 2009 11:04 AM
Right, and this brave freedom-loving couple from Hawaii doesn't want the guvmint coming in and messing around with that. What's so hard to understand?
Oh wait...
Posted by: James Sweet | November 10, 2009 11:07 AM
#7 - Not that it matters any, because what Bachmann said regarding the lei and the people who gave it to her is still incomprehensible, but the lei she was wearing almost certainly cost significantly more than $1. I'd guess closer to $50.
Posted by: erh | November 10, 2009 11:28 AM
Frankly, I'm shocked that Bachmann wasn't utterly repelled by the lei for believing that Hawaiians (both the native ones and Obama, of course) are godless, hula-dancing head-shrinkers.
Posted by: CHV | November 10, 2009 11:53 AM
I remembered a story "waaay back" from 2008 about how orchid leis (like the one made out of orchid petals that Bachmann was wearing) would be in a shortage due to the Thai political problems at the time. As far as I know, orchid leis still use imported orchids. Is the patriotic lei the Bachmann was wearing actually made of outsources materials? If so, then how does that to the "freedoms" and "patriotism" of America? So there's a little geeky irony there...
Also, does anyone else find it odd that Bachmann is using Hawai'i as a good example of American freedoms, especially considering the imperialistic history of how those islands became a territory of the US?
Posted by: Umlud | November 10, 2009 12:22 PM
Imrryr:
Don't you mean ukulele?
Posted by: jpf | November 10, 2009 2:54 PM
Umlud "Also, does anyone else find it odd that Bachmann is using Hawai'i as a good example of American freedoms, especially considering the imperialistic history of how those islands became a territory of the US?"
It's American freedom, not weirdo pagan tiki freedom. Now that Hawaii is American, they too have the freedom to, say, tip over a neighbouring monarchy that refuses to treat, say, American sugar magnates as though they were better than the locals.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | November 10, 2009 3:16 PM
I'm with Shay on this.
Where's the lei's LONG or VAULT BIRTH CERTIFICATE*? How come the lei has spent seventy eleven Gazillion dollars on BLOCKING ACCESS to ITS BIRTH CERTIFICATE?
What is the lei trying to HIDE?!?!!
LET FREEDOM RING! (Just ignore the facts of Hawaiian history, of course. Just squint your eyes real tight and say 'there's no place like the US, there's no place like the US...') - DJ
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*Not that socialistic-fascistic 'CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH' either. It's a Kenyo-Indonesian fraud: this we know, 'cause Oily Titz told us so
Posted by: DingoJack | November 10, 2009 8:43 PM
"And is "insensible" really a word?"
Yes, it is, and it means "imperceptive or inappreciable", as in unnoticeable. I do not think that word means what she thinks it means. She shouldn't be using words without the proper training.
Posted by: momkat | November 10, 2009 8:47 PM
re: insensible
Rep Bachmann is using the tardinary definition - i.e. it means whatever she says it means, no more and no less. Just don't ask her what it means.
Posted by: tonyc | November 10, 2009 10:54 PM
From Dictionary.com:
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Hope that helps decode Bachmann's statement. - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | November 10, 2009 11:24 PM
catgirl: This is true, but Hawaii was literally stolen by ~ a dozen plantation owners. One night they just kidnapped the Queen and asked the U.S. to recognize them as a territory. No argument about right of conquest or such to even be had; we literally stole Hawaii the same way a burglar steals a VCR.
Posted by: Julian | November 10, 2009 11:31 PM
Thanks for the definitions, guys. Even a well-read ESL teacher has some gaps in his vocab. Of course, my gaps are way smaller than Michel-lei B's.
Posted by: wheatdogg | November 11, 2009 3:11 AM
The story of Hawaii's, um, incorporation into the US is in Overthrow.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | November 11, 2009 3:18 AM
I love it when politicians (who generally have to think on their feet) reach for a word and just miss.
It just goes to show how complicated English is: nonsensical is not anything like insensible, despite their closeness in spelling, and the similarity in their etymology*. - DJ
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*I had to look that one up, I don't want anyone to think I meant the study of insects!
Posted by: DingoJack | November 11, 2009 4:14 AM
I'd have thought a lei to be one of the few products that must be produced locally, due to their short lives - they are made of flowers.
Unless it's a plastic lei, of course.
Posted by: Suricou Raven | November 11, 2009 5:15 AM
I'm trying to count the degrees of separation between the prop and the point, and I get:
1) I am wearing a lei.
2) A lei contains plant material.
3) Plants were created by God.
4) Freedom was also given by God.
5) This bill contains government regulations.
6) Government regulations are contrary to freedom.
7) Therefore this bill is contrary to freedom, and therefore to God and His leis.
8) It is therefore right and fitting for all lei-wearers like myself to vote against this bill.
Does this break the record for greatest distance covered in a segue?
(It also occurs to me that she could have made the same point even more powerfully by delivering the speech while wearing a full Carmen Miranda.)
Posted by: Jeffrey Kramer | November 11, 2009 6:51 AM
DingoJack:
Sorry, just had to fix one small glitch:
"insensible /ɪnˈsɛnsəbəl/ [in-sen-suh-buhl]
–adjective
1. incapable of feeling or perceiving; deprived of sensation; unconscious, as a person after a violent blow.
2. without or not subject to a particular feeling or sensation: insensible to shame (See--Republican)..."
Jeffrey Kramer:
"(It also occurs to me that she could have made the same point even more powerfully by delivering the speech while wearing a full Carmen Miranda.)"
Bet that would have pissed off Willard Scott!
Posted by: democommie | November 11, 2009 7:37 AM
Why did God wait until 1776 to create freedoms?
Posted by: Ick of the East | November 11, 2009 9:13 AM