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Michele Bachmann Kicks Off Campaign of Inaccuracies in Iowa

By: Sarah JonesJun. 27th, 2011more from Sarah Jones

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Your Iowa clownshow has officially kicked off.

Michele Bachmann, who just yesterday lied on Fox News about benefiting from farm subsidies but has yet to be asked to resign from the House for “lying” to the public, announced her presidential candidacy in Waterloo, Iowa today with a new bundle of coy inaccuracies.

But this is Michele Bachmann running for the GOP nomination. It would be foolish to expect anything resembling sanity. During Bachmann’s two day media blitz, she’s given Sarah Palin a run for Liar of the Year. Speaking of the ready for her closeup star, I thought we’d better get this out of the way before Sarah Palin steps all over Michele Bachmann. Yes, Sarah Palin is coming to Iowa tomorrow (President Obama will also be there) for the premiere of her movie, the “Undefeated”. Weeks ago, I posited that Palin would reappear when Bachmann was in Iowa; the lady does not veer far from the spotlight seeker trail. All hail the queen, etc. Back to Bachmann and that presidential candidacy announcement…..

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

TDB:

“We can’t afford four more years of Barack Obama,” she said, officially kicking off her campaign for the presidency. The Minnesota Republican accused the president of “four years of failed leadership” in foreign policy, the economy, housing, and an “unconstitutional health plan that costs too much and is worth too little.”

Before you ask what might possibly make an Oral Roberts tax lawyer, who doesn’t believe in science and thinks CO2 is a natural byproduct of nature and is a “harmless” gas, better at the economy than a constitutional lawyer, let us ask Ms Bachmann what specific job bills she has presented this year, since jobs are a pretty big factor on the economy.

Oh, that’s nada. She did, however, vote against extending unemployment benefits.

OK, how about housing bills?

Nada. She did vote against the Helping Families Save Their Home Act. Does that count as failing at housing? Your call.

The economy?

She voted against the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. She voted no on regulating the sub-prime mortgage industry. No on auto bail out. No on stimulus for jobs, infrastructure and energy.

How about foreign policy?

Unless you count going on Fox News to denounce the President as presenting a bill, nada. She did, however, suggest that since we are an exceptional nation, we should lower corporate tax rates since ours will be the “highest in the world”. (I especially love the “will be” tactic. Also, what do the rates matter if they aren’t paid due to loopholes?) And she did sign the Hoyer-Cantor letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 327 House members insisting on an unbreakable U.S.-Israel bond.

And how about healthcare reform? Ms Bachmann’s claims on healthcare reform were already debunked widely, yet here she stands, making somewhat vaguer claims but is she being any more truthful? Is she offering anything better? Did she propose any legislation that we might read to get an idea of just what she would do?

Nada. She proposed cuts to veteran’s benefits. Maybe that’s her version of healthcare reform. Go troops. American exceptionalism the Bachmann way: Fight for us, come home, we blow you off.

Ms Bachmann was the first member of congress to call for the repeal of healthcare reform. So, in this sense, she wasted our tax dollars unless she didn’t understand that it was never going to pass the Senate and therefore never going to be repealed in that way. Does she not understand government or is showboating more important than spending our tax dollars and our representatives’ time well?

Regarding healthcare reform, Bachmann said, “….unless we fully repeal Obamacare, a nation that currently enjoys the world’s finest health care might be forced to rely on government-run coverage.” Um, that would be a no and another no:

First, the law doesn’t create a government-run system. Instead, it builds on our current system and adds a lot of new business for private insurers. Second, some studies on the quality of care worldwide have not put the US at the top. A 2010 Commonwealth Fund study ranked the US last among seven countries in health system performance. In other health outcome measures, the US ranks 49th in life expectancy, according to the CIA World Factbook, and plenty of other countries have lower rates of infant mortality.

She says she is going to repeal healthcare reform immediately upon entering office. I assume she means via executive order, unless she has yet to comprehend the limited powers of the executive office. Did she ask the American public if they want healthcare reform repealed? I guess not, since the majority do not. Some want it improved, but that is not the same thing as repealed. Oh, nuance, in which fox hole do you hide?

At this pace of inaccuracies, Bachmann is racing Sarah Palin for liar of the year award. On Face the Nation yesterday, she got called out on her PolitFact rating:

SCHIEFFER: I want to ask you about something else. A lot of your critics say you have been very fast and loose with the truth.

You know, the PolitiFact, which is a website that won a Pulitzer, did an analysis of 23 statements that you made recently. Of these 23, only one they said was completely true. Seven they call “pants on fire” kind of falsehoods. Four were “barely true” and two were “half- true.”

How do you answer that criticism?

Because here’s one of them. You know, you said on the record there had been only one offshore oil drilling permit during the Obama administration. And in fact, at that time, there had been 270. How do you explain that?

BACHMANN: Well, you know, I think that what’s clear more than anything is the fact that President Obama has not been issuing the permits that he should have been issuing on offshore drilling. That’s why we’re in the problems we’re in.

SCHIEFFER: But it has to be more than 300 now. At that time, there had been 200-and-something, and you said there had been only one.

BACHMANN: But, as far as drilling goes, we hadn’t been drilling what we need to. That’s why we just saw this week…

SCHIEFFER: But that’s different, isn’t it?

BACHMANN: Well, that’s why, this week, it’s ironic and sad that the president released all of the oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve because the president doesn’t have an energy policy.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think that was a good move?

BACHMANN: He has a politically correct environmental policy.

SCHIEFFER: Was that a good thing?

BACHMANN: It was a very bad move. It put — it has made the United States more vulnerable. There’s only a limited amount of oil that we have in the Strategic Oil Reserve. It’s there for emergencies.

We do not — the emergency that we have is the fact that the — the President of the United States has failed to give the American people an energy policy.

Here’s the good news that a lot of Americans don’t even realize. We are the number one energy-resource-rich nation in the world, according to the Congressional Research Service. But the president of the United States has unfortunately put American energy resources off- limits. We need to open those up so we can bring down the price of gasoline at
the pump. The president has it exactly wrong when it comes to energy.

SCHIEFFER: Just quickly, though, the original question I asked you is all of these statements that you have made that have later proven to be sort of true or totally false in some cases — what’s your answer when people say that to you? Do you feel you have misled people?

BACHMANN: No, I haven’t misled people at all. I think the question would be asked of President Obama, when you told the American people that, if we borrow $1 trillion from other countries and spend it on a stimulus, that we won’t have unemployment go above 8 percent, and today, as we are sitting here, it’s 9.1 percent and the economy is tanking — that is what’s serious. That’s a very serious statement that the president made.

Did he mislead the American people? Not only did he mislead the American people, he’s caused our economy to go down to depths that we haven’t seen. That’s what’s serious.

SCHIEFFER: Again, I have to say, Congresswoman, I asked you a question and you — to my knowledge, I don’t believe you answered it. But I want to thank you. I know you’re — you’re very excited about what happened out in Iowa and we wish you the best. Hope to see you down the trail.

END

When judging the veracity of Ms Bachmann’s statements, I urge you to bear this in mind:

Republicans insisted that Representative Weiner step down because he “lied” to the public. So, here we have Representative Bachmann distorting our political debate with numerous inaccuracies and flat out lies, which impacts all of us a lot more than sexting between consenting adults and yet, no one bats an eye. In spite of the growing evidence, Bachmann is willfully ignorant due to her extremist beliefs, not stupid. Does that fact make her lies more palatable?

Buckle up. This is going to be a frozen ride of crazy.


Michele Bachmann Kicks Off Campaign of Inaccuracies in Iowa was written by Sarah Jones for PoliticusUSA.
© PoliticusUSA, Jun. 27th, 2011. All Rights Reserved

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