Bachmann Palin Overdrive: More Populist Revisionism from GOP Candidates

by Jon Winsor Earlier we wrote about Sarah Palin's populist revision of Paul Revere's ride, and about historians who were troubled by the tea party's creative history writing. Here's another one: Michelle Bachmann claims that "the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence worked tirelessly to end slavery." How could this be when four of the first five presidents owned slaves?Michelle Bachmann resolves this by drafting John Quincy Adams as a founding father: John Quincy Adams is not too credible a founding father, considering he was only eight years old in 1776. But that didn't stop a Bachmann supporter from backdating J. Q. Adams' credentials as a founder on Wikipedia, or radio host Mark Levin from taking up her cause. (Somehow, for Levin, while Washington owned over 200 slaves, he "worked tirelessly to end slavery?")