Congresswoman Bachmann insists that she hasn't endorsed Allen Quist (his wife is her district director), but she showed up at a Quist campaign event in Rochester to perform with Texas Rep. Michael Burgess, who was the headliner for a Quist fundraising luncheon just prior to the main event.
Bachmann didn't disappoint, dishing out a whopper that dissed a health system half the world away. Eric Roper called attention to the Sixth CD representative's words on Hot Dish Politics in Criticize health care plans and forget about being treated:
Speaking to a crowd in Rochester yesterday, Rep. Michele Bachmann warned that Democratic health reform proposals could eventually prompt the government to use health care as a tool to limit people's free speech
The Post-Bulletin has a video and story of Bachmann's address to about 200 people.
Here's the Post Bulletin video; the fun begins around :54:
Roper continues:
She explained that a man recently approached her to say that in Japan, which "had the government takeover of health care," the government puts people on "a list" and refuses treatment to those who criticize the health system.
"And so people are afraid. They're afraid to speak back to government," Bachmann said. "They're afraid to say anything. Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point and absolute abject corruption. We're not that kind of country. That's not who we are."
This, she said, is something "people don't know," adding,"a government takeover of health care is the crown jewel of socialism."
Rochester is a long way from Bachmann's suburban Twin Cities district, but she was stumping for Allan Quist, a Republican candidate in the First Congressional District."
Hot Dish could not find evidence to back up the claim that Japan withholds health care from government critics. A recent Washington Post article describing the pros and cons of the Japanese health system makes no mention of it.. . .
Like the legacy press, I couldn't find anything remotely suggesting that this was the case, so I contacted David Gann, an old friend from Springfield MO., who has lived in Japan since 1996 and now teaches in a Japanese university. His response:
Sally Jo, thanx for an entertaining addition to my morning coffee. As you might expect, I have never heard anything remotely close to this Baka("idiot")mann's bizarre claim. I'm afraid it must be added to the endless annals of internet (and other) hoaxes about bizarre Japan is. Add it to the optical illusion of see-through skirts the breast-shaped... See More winter mufflers and all the others viewable at the Snopes site. Like so many others baseless claims about "scary" things happening in Japan, Austria or Siberia--oh wait, Siberia actually IS scary--Bachmann fails to link her claim to any traceable story or incident. If there is any truth to it, it probably amounts to a person who criticized his or her individual doctor and the doctor got angry and suggested he or she go elsewhere. It is true that doctors don't like to be questioned about their treatments--they tend to look down at the general population as cattle unable to comprehend the basics of general science . . . but that is quite a different thing than this Gestapo-story. "Udder" nonsense.
Another argument for science and geography education for all children. Fortunately, Congressman Walz is a sponsor of the TGIF (Teaching Geography is Fundamental) Bill, for which the National Geographic Society Foundation honored him.
"...she showed up at a Quist campaign event in Rochester to perform"
I love your choice of the word perfom. That is exactly what she is doing. Performing. She should be nominated for best actress in the right wing fear mongering category.
Posted by: Dale Moerke | Feb 02, 2010 at 10:58 PM