It's a good rule of thumb that where there is one embarrassment, there will be more. For instance, if you scratch beneath the surface of a celebrity breakup, you'll find audio recordings in which the celebrity defends abusiveness and launches into racist tirades. It's why follow-up questions are just good policy in news reporting.

It's not certain who did some digging on state Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, although it seems Brandon Stahl of the Duluth News Tribune broke the story. Chaudhary, as you may remember, created a bit of a stir when he had language inserted into a fish and game bill that regulated fishing on Fish Lake, which struck some as, well, fishy, especially when it turned out he owned a cabin on the lake, and so indirectly benefited. Chaudhary apologized, but the DFL went ahead and revoked its endorsement of him. Chaudhary fought this, but, as Rupa Shenoy of Minnesota Public Radio reports, it didn't do him any good. Endorsement: still revoked.

As it turns out, there are yet more troubles for Chaudhary. According to Stahl, the senator owes back taxes. A lot of back taxes. In 2007, he and his wife failed to pay $100,000 in income taxes; the next year, he neglected to pay $151,000. Chaudhary has an explanation for 2008, involving his wife being forced to exercise some stock options, which "led to a huge tax liability." He has no explantion for the previous year and is "checking with his accountant to learn more."

It's no Mel Gibson tape, but this isn't the sort of thing that makes for a very successful re-election campaign, either.

But then, Michele Bachmann seems to have no trouble getting elected, and she can be perfectly bewildering. Let's take her latest quote: As Joseph Boven of the Minnesota Independent reports, on Friday Bachmann declared at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver that health care reform, along with executive overreach on President Obama's part, had created a "nation of slaves."

We were once a nation of slaves, and it took a Civil War to end that. And there is still slavery in the world. There are, in fact, an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today, greater than any number in human history. Some are beaten and drugged and forced to act as prostitutes; some are pressed into labor without remuneration; some are children, and are handed weapons and forced to go to war. Some of this happens in the United States — here is a PDF of a Department of Justice Report from 2006 that estimates that between 14,000 and 50,000 individuals are trafficked into the United States annually. Note that the Department of Justice does not include "receiving health care" or "not liking what the president is doing" in its definition of slavery.

But, then, if Bachmann gets enough heat for comparing policies she disapproves of with slavery, she may just claim never to have said it. There is precedent. She claimed never to have asked for the media to investigate members of Congress for un-Americanism, saying it was an "urban legend" (here's the video of her making the request). Now she's claiming that her opponent for her seat, Tarryl Clark, is "brazenly and blatantly" lying about her, according to Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent. "I have never once said that BP is not liable or that they shouldn't be 100 percent of what they owe or that the taxpayers should pay a dime," Bachmann complains.

And of course she didn't. What she said was this: "They shouldn't have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest — they've got to be legitimate claims. 'The other thing we have to remember is that Obama loves to make evil whatever company it is that he wants to get more power from. He makes them evil, and what we've got to ask ourselves is: Do we really want to be paying $9 for a gallon of gas? Because that could be the final result of this.' "

Clark's ad makes extensive — and accurate — use of this quote, but at no point does she claim Bachmann said BP is not liable or shouldn't pay. Instead, she suggests that if Michele Bachmann lets BP off the hook, the taxpayers will have to pick up the slack. Now, that's a big "if" — Bachmann has, in fact, said BP should be responsible for paying for the cleanup, but it's a bit different than the claim Bachmann is making, that Clark is lying about what she said. And, in fairness to Clark, Bachmann wants people hurt by the oil spill to do what they traditionally do and go to the courts to make their claims. There is actually historic precedent for this — the Exxon Valdez spill from two decades ago. This was resolved all of two years ago by the Supreme Court, who ordered one-fifth of the damages plaintiffs sued for. So, practically speaking, Bachmann's proposal would takes decades, cost millions of dollars and result in plaintiffs getting a much smaller settlement than they expect. In the meanwhile, the cost to taxpayers for the Exxon Valdez cleanup was $87 million.

So Bachmann may be publicly demanding that BP pay every penny, but she's supporting a process that results in taxpayers picking up the tab. Bachmann says Clark is lying; the facts suggest Clark is merely a student of history.

No further digging happened in a Pioneer Press story on Tom Emmer by Bill Salisbury. Salisbury repeats a stirring anecdote about Emmer's father, whose lumberyard was ailing during the early '80s recession, and who took a photo of the whole family dressed in suits, up to their necks in the family pool. He sent this photo out with the words "The Emmers almost went under last year, but we're coming out with a splash this year."

What does this charming anecdote demonstrate? "Self-reliance is at the core of his laissez-faire political philosophy," Salisbury says. We at the Glean would be curious about how much self-reliance actually was in place here. After all, the big '80s recession was prompted by a Savings and Loan crisis and was resolved by a massive bailout, with the U.S. government eventually forking over about $124.6 billion. The S-and-Ls had backed a lot of home loans, and this bailout kept the housing market afloat, which provided a sizable income for lumber companies. Now, it is possible the chestnut that Emmer shares has nothing at all to do with that, and is, instead, the tale of a hardworking man hoisting himself out of his family pool by his bootstraps without an ounce of assistance from the federal government. A few follow-up questions might have clarified this.

In arts: Local music legend Spider John Koerner is enjoying a release of previously undiscovered material from 1963, the year he and his musical partners, Dave Ray and Tony Glover, recorded their famous "Blues, Rags and Hollers" album. Actually, it's from the very night of the recording, when Koerner went to a Milwaukee radio station to play some live music and get interviewed. According to Chris Roberts of Minnesota Public Radio, Koerner has no memory of the night in question, or the interview, or the recordings. We've all had nights like that, although in the case of us at the Glean, those nights resulted in dimly lit photographs and blackmail threats, and not a collection of vintage 1960s barroom folk blues music.

It was the pages. When they come bearing whiskey and digital cameras, man, run.

Finally, in sports, John Shipley of the Pioneer Press reports that Twins catcher Joe Mauer is on the sidelines for the moment, thanks to a sore shoulder. This is almost as distressing as that spell when he was benched after having badly strained one of his sideburns.