From the Atlatic: The Swiss Appear Largely Relieved as Bachmann Renounces Her Citizenship
"U.S. Republican Michele Bachmann doesn't want Swiss citizenship anymore," read a headline from Swiss paper Blick on Wednesday. The past week of Michele Bachmann-Swiss citizenship news has been pretty weird even for Americans. But it seems to have been even weirder for the Swiss.
Minnesota Rep. Michele
Bachmann and her family, it was recently revealed, have been claiming
Swiss citizenship through her husband's immigrant parents. Bachmann
became a dual citizen automatically upon marrying her husband in 1978.
It only became a story Tuesday due to what appears to have been
re-registration as part of her children's claim to Swiss citizenship.
After a two-day media frenzy, Bachmann announced Thursday that she was renouncing Swiss citizenship.
The town that the Bachmanns were claiming as their home, it turns out, is a tiny parish called Wigoltingen, population 2200, according to the amused Swiss papers. Amusement -- and bemusement -- appear to be the principal reactions from the Swiss and the Swiss media. "I hardly believe Ms. Bachmann would want to get mixed up with the circus in Bern," a web commenter wrote on a Bachmann story Wednesday, referring to the Swiss Federal Assembly. He offered the joking advice that, if she did participate, the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party would be a good fit. A French-speaking commenter on the Tribune de Genève's site had the same idea: "company for Blocher!" the commenter pointed out, referring to Swiss People's Party Vice President Christoph Blocher.
Michele Bachmann’s short-lived experiment as a Swiss citizen ended
awkwardly this week, when her beloved philosophy of American
exceptionalism came back to bite her in the tushy. It turns out the far
right concluded that her brief bout of dual citizenship made her
anti-American. Remember that this is the congresswoman who skyrocketed
to fame on an accusation that Barack Obama was anti-American. Oh, the irony!
A little background for anyone who tuned out of Bachmann’s adventures
after she dropped out of the presidential race in January. Bachmann’s
husband, Marcus, he of the alleged pray-gays-straight therapeutic philosophy, was born to Swiss immigrants, which made him, the congresswoman, and their children eligible for dual citizenship, Politico reports. In March, according to reporting by Politico and
a Swiss reporter, and seemingly confirmed by a Bachmann spokeswoman,
Marcus, Michele and three of her children decided to add Swiss
citizenship to their American citizenship. (More recently, Bachmann’s
famously disorganized office changed this account,
claiming that she’s actually been a dual citizen since she married
Marcus in 1978, and that it happened “automatically,” as if without her
consent. Whatever.) In any case, news that Bachmann had opted to become a
“Swiss miss,” as Politico delightfully termed her, upset pundits on the right wing, who called her dual citizenship “an insult to both countries,” “political bigamy,” career-ending,” “egregious,” and tantamount to “treason.”
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