Unlike our reluctant spring, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has roared back on to the national spotlight as speeches to CPAC and her congressional colleagues were fact checked; the findings were not pretty.
How's that playing in her district? Many of the residents rely on the Star Tribune; online, they're seeing headlines like Bachmann CPAC claims leave trail of questions and Rep. Michele Bachmann is back in the headlines.
Those fleeing the Twin Cities daily for Fox News can learn O'Reilly slams 'trivial' Bachmann, as the conservative WND put it.
The St. Cloud Times editorial board writes that Bachmann leaves you wondering:
Political junkies, partisans and the media are abuzz as to whether a closer-than-expected 2012 re-election victory changed the divisive tone and lightning-rod tactics of U.S. Sixth District Rep. Michele Bachmann.
Two events — a national speech Saturday and a St. Paul lobbying appearance Monday — not only reflect how there is no clear answer to that question, but highlight why district voters will remain frustrated if all they want is a hardworking, level-headed House member.
The Saturday speech was vintage Bachmann — heavy on political red meat and light on accuracy. Monday’s lobbying effort for expanding Interstate 94 from Rogers to St. Cloud was about bipartisan service to the western end of the district — a rare focus for her since elected.
CPAC speech
Up until Saturday, there was a growing body of evidence — best symbolized by her post-election low profile in national media — that Bachmann might be taking to heart a message district voters delivered Election Day: Her style isn’t what they want in Washington.
Yes, the Tea Party champion won a fourth term. But it came by only about 4,200 votes in a long-held GOP district redrawn since 2010 to be even more conservative. Plus, she needed a record amount of money and outspent first-time candidate Jim Graves by $9.3 million. Yet she barely won. . . .
Read the rest at the Times. They're hoping that they'll see more of the bread-and-butter Bachmann, but her behavior in the House suggests that's wishful thinking.
Instead, Sixth CD residents will be getting the Michele bloggers love. As the Christian Science Monitor's Peter Grier notes in Obamacare 'kills': Has Michele Bachmann finally gone too far?:
Obamacare “kills.” That’s what Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) of Minnesota said Thursday on the floor of the House. In a fire-breathing speech, the tea party favorite and former GOP presidential hopeful urged her fellow lawmakers to “repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens."
. . . Later, she came back on the floor and added that Medicaid, the big federal/state health entitlement program for lower-income Americans, is a “ghetto." . . .
. . . Bachmann may be trying to distract the political world from the other stuff she’s been saying recently. In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, she charged that Mr. Obama has a “lavish lifestyle” in the White House that includes “five chefs on Air Force One,” as well as two live-in projectionists for the White House movie theater and that “we pay someone to walk the president’s dog."The chefs and projectionists don’t exist. We wouldn’t rule out staffers holding Bo’s leash, but there is no pro pet sitter on the White House payroll. . . .
At CPAC, Bachmann also said that Alzheimer’s disease could be cured if not for government regulations, taxes, and lawyers. She added that 70 percent of every food stamp dollar goes to “bureaucrats."
Politifact.com rated the former claim “pants on fire” false, saying researchers blame the disease itself and lack of research funding for the fact that no cure yet exists.
And the food stamp assertion? Not true either. Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler assigned it “four Pinocchios," his worst rating.
“There really aren’t enough Pinocchios for such misleading use of statistics in a major speech,” he writes.
Welcome back. We've missed you. Please run for United States Senate against Al Franken.
Photo: Rep. Michele Bachmann at CPAC. Jonathan Ernst at Reuters via CSMonitor.
Donate: If you enjoy reading posts like this at Bluestem, consider throwing some coin in the plate at Paypal:
How about the two faces of her "husband"?
Posted by: Kathi Malone | Apr 12, 2013 at 02:07 PM