June 28, 2011 07:21 PM UTC

Google and Stump Speeches: They Don't Mix

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• by: Colorado Pols

Los Angeles Times–really. It’s a rule. Double-check these things.

Michele Bachmann delivered her presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, Monday because she was born there, but she inadvertently ended up reminding residents of a dark chapter in their town’s history.

In an interview with Fox News Channel, Bachmann, the Minnesota conservative, pointed out that John Wayne, the actor, was from Waterloo. “That’s the kind of spirit I have, too,” Bachmann said.

Small problem: John Wayne didn’t hail from Waterloo. The former Marion Morrison was born in Winterset, Iowa, more than 100 miles to the south.

The most famous John Wayne from Waterloo is instead John Wayne Gacy, the infamous “killer clown” of Chicago, who was convicted of killing more than 30 young men in the 1970s and stashing their bodies in a crawlspace in his house…

The mistake here is amusing, though by itself not really a big deal. The long-term problem for frontrunner GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is, as the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake segues nicely, this kind of thing happens a lot with her. With important things, too:

This wasn’t the first time Bachmann has made a seemingly big verbal gaffe on the 2012 campaign trail. In a March trip to New Hampshire, she incorrectly stated that the Revolutionary War began in that state in the cities of Lexington and Concord, when its actual origin was in Massachusetts. She soon corrected the mistake by releasing the statement on Facebook.

But the bigger question for Bachmann, as she attempts to run a serious presidential campaign, is whether she can put such verbal missteps behind her, a possibility, according to political strategists who know her and say she is capable of controlling her own message. But the real question is, whether she needs to bother…

In the run-up to her official campaign announcement, Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler reviewed several statements that Bachmann has made – and found her wanting.

Kessler reviewed Bachmann’s statements about President Obama’s Medicare plans, Israel and $105 billion in allegedly hidden money in Obama’s health care bill, and given all three statements four pinocchios – a.k.a. as close to false as you can get without being demonstrably false.

…Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking Web site Politifact has rated 16 things Bachmann has said as either “false” or even worse – “pants on fire,” a sum total that suggests she could well be an opposition researcher’s dream.

On the other hand, as Blake notes fairly, even Ronald Reagan had a few wacky things to say on the campaign trail–and he’s remembered as the father of the modern Republican Party.

So there’s that. Either way, she’s a force to be reckoned with for the time being.