What does a con blogger know about Mary Franson that she doesn't know about herself?

At True North yesterday, Mitch Berg wrote in Female Conservative Derangement Syndrome:

It’d be fair to call Mary Franson a little Bachmann-like.  While she’s been the target of an almost Bachmann-like frenzy of dementia from central Minnesota’s leftyblog community ever since she took office, the freshman conservative from Alexandria is most famous for the teapot-tempest that blew up last year about her video noting – from the perspective of someone who’d been there – that welfare treats people “like animals”.  While Franson fairly clearly meant that welfare treats people like livestock or pets, dependent on their owner or master the government, the optics weren’t polished to a fine enough sheen to prevent the left’s noise machine from braying “Franson calls welfare recipients animals”.

We'll get to what Franson actually said about feeding people on food stamps in a bit. But this passage is puzzling:

the freshman conservative from Alexandria is most famous for the teapot-tempest that blew up last year about her video noting – from the perspective of someone who’d been there – that welfare treats people “like animals”.

A reasonable reader would conclude upon reading  "from the perspective of someone who’d been there" that Berg means that Mary Franson had at one time been on "welfare."

Since Franson didn't talk about her own background in the infamous video, that's a frame that calls attention to itself. And it's not too hard to find an example of Franson talking about her economic circumstances.

Indeed, in last month's appearance in a very civil debate on Pioneer Public Television, Franson specifically said that although she had left home before graduating from high school, she resisted letting herself fall "into the trap of dependence:"

First and foremost, I am a mom of three beautiful children. I happen to be lower middle class. . . .

. . .My life has not always been easy. My mom died when I was three weeks old and I was shuffled around until my dad was able to take me in into a permanment situation. Even then, I had many challenges that I had to face, and when I was eighteen years old, I moved out of the house before I even graduated high school.

It would have been very easy for me to get on to the system, enroll in all the various social programs, but I decided I wanted a better future for myself and for my future children, so I made up my mind that no matter what, I was going to succeed.

And that's what happened, I succeeded. Obstacles came in my way and I pursued and I persevered. My successes didn't come easy though but they were well worth it. I pray everyone in this state and in this country to have the same desire to succeed and be self-reliant.

There is pride in never letting yourself fall into the trap of dependence. I want those successes for everyone, but there are those who want to tell you that you need to have the government to help, that you are not capable of achieving the American Dream on your own. Well, I'm here to tell you that you can. You can achieve your dreams.

With public policies that encourage self-reliance, strong families, and individual charities, you can do anything.  I've been a strong advocate for just those sorts of policies. . .

Here's the video; her statement begins around 5:53:

Watch House District 8B on PBS. See more from Meet The Candidates.

The reasonable person who watches the statement or reads the transcript would conclude not that Franson had "been there" on "welfare," but that she never went there.

Perhaps Berg is trying to say what Franson said. If so he should aim for a bit more clarity, lest his readers think that Franson had been there on food stamps or "welfare." He does her no service by contradicting her account of her life story.

Berg should clarify his passage, and apologize to Representative Franson.

That being the case, what did she say in the original video that set people off? She told a "joke" from a widely circulated email that compared the USDA feeding people with food stamps with signs put up by the Park Service (incorrectly said to be a USDA agency) not to feed the animals. Franson then discusses "welfare reforms" that would end dependency but doesn't get into the details or name a bill.

Few on either side of the furor over her remarks looked at the legislation she touted. Bluestem did: it would have limited Minnesota families to three years of TANF benefits, rather than the national five year limit. There are no provisions for job training or education or any other mechanism for that might help a person become self-reliant. Nor does it address the problems of the working poor, elderly, and small children who receive food support.

And she certainly shared nothing on the video that framed the remarks from the perspective of someone who had" been there." At a Tea Party in Browerville this summer, she talks briefly about having to struggle, but doesn't say that she received public assistance. At another Browerville rally in 2010, she shouted out to her grandmother in the audience for making her get a job at 18.

UPDATE: Berg has edited his copy to be a more accurate reflection of Franson's bio, and added a new post that illustrates his ambitions in the defense industry along with a chronic inability to spell Bluestem's editor's last name correctly. In comments here, he remarks that I believe Mary's story would be stronger had she indeed received public assistance. This post makes no such point.  Rather, I asked for clarity from him.

First, he implied that her "joke" came from a perspective that simply isn't explict in the video below. Second, that that perspective  was one of a person who had "been there" with regard to the way the welfare treats people. As she chose not to sign up for benefits, she hasn't been there. It's not her perspective.

Her story to the viewers of Pioneer Public Television of the choices she made is an excellent example of ethos underscoring the logic of the policy she pursues. But lovely and  powerful as this perspective and narrative is rhetorically, it is also completely absent in the video below,  whatever Berg projects onto his own Franson text. [end update]

Here's the full video that caused the furor; her remarks about welfare reform bills and food stamp recipients begins around the 1:50 mark:

Photo: Mary Franson

Related posts: Heartless in the heartland: Representative Mary Franson compares feeding food stamp recipients to feeding wild animals

What set Franson off? A brief look at Daudt's HF2080 (and an action against hunger)

Feeding the meme: Mary Franson, "Box Turtle Ben" and the politics of post-moronic mean

 

Comments

[Jay McHue]

Editor's note: This is the second time this individual played the victim in my comment section, so his mastery of tactics exceeds his understanding of the concept of a "fact."

And it does sound like he chose public assistance for a time, then declined it. Representative Franson states that she picked a different route, declining it altogether. I'd say that he had "been there," having first-hand experience under the system, while Franson experienced struggles. The blogger doesn't say that she had been poor--he says: "the freshman conservative from Alexandria is most famous for the teapot-tempest that blew up last year about her video noting – from the perspective of someone who’d been there – that welfare treats people “like animals”. "

The most straighforward reading of that is that Franson knows that welfare treats people like animals because she's been there.

And there's nothing in the original video that notes that perspective--nor any of her struggle. She simply tells the "joke" that compares feeding people with food stamps with feeding wild animals in parks. That comparison was what people found to be offensive. Indeed, had she actually talked about her own struggles with poverty and overcoming them with hard work, rather than repeating a tasteless joke, her appeal to ethos would have been much stronger, as evidenced in the debate video.

The comment:

I know for a fact that you will NEVER approve this comment, but you WILL still have to read it. My wife and I also "have been there" -- i.e. in the position of being in need of assistance. We were barely scraping by for the first few years of our marriage and after our first two children were born. We actually took minimal assistance via WIC for a time, but we eventually stopped after choosing to claw our way into self-reliance. Welfare certainly was an option on the table for us, but we rejected it. So yes, as I said, we've been there, too. That we didn't choose welfare doesn't mean we weren't there.

[MBerg]

Not trying to flog an agenda, just trying to clarify that Franson tells a different story about where she's been. Had she actually framed her concerns about welfare in terms of her own life story to begin with, I think that appeal to ethos would have been a lot stronger.

I will note your changes in an update in the body of the post.

Comment:

Hey, Sally Jo,

Good editorial catch, there, but that wasn't what I was implying. It was an admittedly sloppy reference to exactly the sort of story you quoted from the PPTV interview.

While you are one of the very few Minnesota leftybloggers whose writing I genuinely respect (much as I disagree with you), the only "reasonable person" who would have inferred as you did would be one who was *really* digging to flog an agenda. Even as sloppy as my statement was.

I fixed my statement. Your turn!

[MBerg]

Sally Jo,

Thanks for the note. My original intent could not have possible been further removed from your conclusion; my bad.

But as to whether Rep. Franson's story would be better had she *been* on assistance? I think the story she tells resonates with an awful lot of us who worked through some nasty times in our own lives. There are a lot of us out there.

Editor's note: I think that her struggles resonate with a lot of people. And as I say in my earlier comment note, I think that story is much more powerful than the tasteless "joke." Hence, the importance of being clear about what that story is. I don't think it's relevant whether the story is better or worse if she had been on public assistance--it's simply not her story and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, her story is the one that should be told accurately.

Anyway, thanks.

[Jay McHue]

Editor's note: Bluestem posts headnotes on comments from time; it's an effective way to counter trolls(especially those who whine that their remarks won't be published) and to deter the practice of some to link only to their comments, without also linking to responses, when they brag about their "gotchas." Thus, headnotes stop a great deal of mischief from the self-chosen heroes of the revolution, whether from the right or the left.

Comments aren't edited. And if Mr. McHue doesn't like the policy, Bluestem recommends that he try trolling elsewhere or to continue to be victimized when he comes here. Anyone with a brain could figure that one out.

The comment:

Wow. What a strange blog you run here. You edit people's comments in order to insert your own opinions in an attempt to discredit the comments before people have a chance to read them and make their own judgments. "Here's a comment that was submitted, but the person is full of crap, so don't believe a word of it." Very, very strange behavior.

And no, she didn't compare people who are on welfare to feeding wild animals. She compared the government getting people dependent on welfare to the government not wanting wild animals to get dependent on being fed. Anyone with a brain or who doesn't have a particular agenda against Rep. Franson can understand that obvious fact.

[Phoenix Woman]

So Mansplaining Mitch showed up, eh? Not only did he try the Mansplain Gambit on Rep. Franson, he tried it on you. Didn't work either time, as we can see.

Oh, well, at least he knows better than to whine and go all passive-aggressive like the other guy, who is apparently ticked off that you're not the pushover he apparently expects all non-righty bloggers to be. Poor thing; shall I summon a waaahhmbulance for him?

Editor's note: Nah, save the waaahmbulance for Allen Quist.

[Jay McHue]

Editor's note: Jay's delusions of grandeur on behalf of Bluestem are indeed flattering. However, his fantods illustrate that trolls have a very difficult time learning that messing with billygoats has consequences. Bluestem anticipates his return to the prairie to guard the bridge time after time.

Wow, Sally Jo. Imagine if newspapers started doing to reader's letters what you do with comments. (Which, despite your protests and claims to the contrary, IS editing them.) Utterly pathetic, but then, you are a leftist. You guys never play fair. What's the matter? Too afraid to leave critical comments unmolested? Too afraid that your readers will dare think and judge for themselves? Probably. Leftists hate it when people think for themselves because when people do that, they quickly become conservative Republicans.