After reporting yesterday on Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) decision to become a Swiss citizen, it’s only fair to note that she’s apparently changed her mind.
On Wednesday she said it was a “non-story” but on Thursday, Michele Bachmann’s office said the congresswoman had written to the Swiss Consulate to withdraw her dual Swiss citizenship, so it must have been some kind of story, right?
From the statement she gave announcing she would go back to one passport, it seems Bachmann was nervous about being perceived as somehow less American: “I took this action because I want to make it perfectly clear: I was born in America and I am a proud American citizen. I am, and always have been, 100 percent committed to our United States Constitution and the United States of America.”
That’s certainly a different tone than she took in a statement Wednesday when the news of Bachmann’s dual Swiss citizenship came out: “This is a non-story. I automatically became a dual citizen of the United States and Switzerland in 1978 when I married my husband, Marcus…. As a family, we just recently updated our documents.”
I’m still not sure what to make of all of this. If she’s been a dual citizen for 34 years, why update the documents and withdraw her Swiss citizenship over the course of a few days? If she became Swiss automatically in 1978, will she have to formally renounce her citizenship and convince Switzerland to stop recognizing her as part of her newly-announced intentions?
And does she now believe others with dual-citizenship are somehow less than “100 percent committed” to the United States? I’ve always found Bachmann to be quite odd, but on-again, off-again dual-citizenship is strange, even for her.
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