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June 28, 2011 07:21 PM UTC

Google and Stump Speeches: They Don't Mix

  • 34 Comments
  • 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.

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34 thoughts on “Google and Stump Speeches: They Don’t Mix”

  1. Bachmann’s been making flatly outrageous and insane statements for years, and it seems to have only INCREASED her base credibility and now her “presidential” viability. She’s been doing the Crazy Bigot Mom thing long before Sarah Palin monetized it on Fox News and TLC.

    Unleash the crazy, Michelle! It’s the securest path to the nomination.  

  2. Politifact has gone lib. Known fact.

    This is a great setup for the Dem smear machine, but I do detect a bit of fear from the Dead Guvs/Tim Gill/OFA cabal. The daily Bachmann posts doth protest too much…

    1. Only a fact-checking site that has “gone lib” would be so impolite as to point out the difference between John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy. See how the libs ruin everything?

        2. with her statement that the often slave owning founding fathers fought until slavery was abolished. And the thing about facts like the fact that the founding fathers did very much not abolish slavery is that they aren’t liberal or conservative.  They are… ummm… factual and checkable. Cute story.. founding father George Washington didn’t insist on abolishing slavery but, in his will, did arrange for his slaves to be freed only after Martha’s death which may have made for a few sleepless nights for Martha.  

          To be fair to St. Reagan, though, many of his wackiest and most blatant falsehoods, can be attributed to the early stage dementia he was already so clearly suffering from as far back as his first term. Like when my grandfather was 99 and insisted that he was getting calls from his union to go organize Philadelphia. Bachmann’s excuse seems to be that she believes everything righties forward to each other without bothering to investigate any further.

        2. you can believe that, by some objective measure, Bachmann is brilliant and well informed about the world and Obama is really stupid. Go ahead.  We don’t mind.  It doesn’t, in any way, affect the chances of Bachmann ever being our president.  

    3. Re: Why US engages in petrodollar warfare:

      Petrodollar warfare and the accompanying wars for oil security are a perpetual subsidy for oil. Americans do not pay the real cost for gasoline at the pump.

      They pay the real cost in a weak economy and the waste of resources and lives in perpetual war. It may look on the surface they are gaining something since the cheap gasoline party continues, but long term it’s a losing war.

      The hidden oil subsidies make it nearly impossible to develop or expand alternatives such as ethanol. When a small alternative like ethanol is somewhat successful with the help of subsidies to offset oil’s, it is disparaged as an outrageous waste of tax payer money in a fiscal deficit situation largely caused by wars for oil security.

      Yet oil’s mostly hidden subsidies continue unabated. Politicians, pundits and even some economists use it as a shining example of the free market.

      Alternatives to oil are doomed as long as this continues. Americans become ever more dependent on a depleting resource in the hands of others and the only way to get it is by coercion or force.

      h/t theoildrum

      Your trivial bs is tedious.

  3. No one in mainstream media seems inclined to mention Barack Obama’s horrifying mistake last Thursday when, speaking at Fort Drum,  he said that SFC Jared Monti was “the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously.” Alas, he was mistaken. He awarded the Medal of Honor to Jared Monti posthumously in 2009 and awarded the Medal of Honor in person to SSG Sal Giunta in person in 2011. Obama later apologized for this mistake, but it’s really dismaying that a president who spoke movingly and even eloquently in awarding the Medal of Honor made a mistake of this magnitude.

    http://washingtonexaminer.com/…

    The points here are that A) those who do a lot of public speaking on the stump are bound to get facts & anecdotes wrong on occasion, and B) the press typically gives Obama a pass on these gaffes.  

    Usually, the press will report those things that reinforce their narrative.  It’s like stereotyping for reporters – it makes their jobs easier.  In fact, most of the time it works and there’s no harm done.  But there are times, like this, where it makes the press look hypocritical.

      1. He should have apologized.  Bachmann has since said she misspoke.  Both were the appropriate responses.

        Not sure what your point is.

        Bachman’s slip-up got mentioned in most of the major network newscasts.  Obama’s didn’t – yet his was obviously a much more egregious error.

        1. Where did Bachmann say she mispoke?  When, and to whom, did she apologize?

          We agree that the President did apologize.

          My point likely escapes you because you’re trying so hard to ignore it.

          1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

            As SSG Dan would say, try the google.

            While you struggle to argue that a random pop-culture fact given off the cuff to a reporter is equivalent to a formal POTUS speech at a Medal of Honor ceremony…

            I stand by my argument that her comment got more coverage than his.

            Are you really this obtuse?

            1. …it was a speech at Fort Drum to the members of the 10th Mountain Division, saluting all of their achievements and awards during the GWOT.

              http://blogs.abcnews.com/polit…

              No one was presented a MoH at that Ceremony – those are done at the White House or at Arlington.

              So messing up the name is bad, but he certainly didn’t do it while presenting the medal…

            3. . . . her comment got more coverage than his.

               (Really nice try at clawing back, btw . . . does the GOP give courses in this stuff?)

              I may get called obtuse, but you is it.

              She was there in Waterloo announcing her Presidential candidacy for God sakes, you’d be plenty pissed if the press wasn’t covering her comments.  And that FOX reporter she gave the interview to — totally a “gotcha” set up, huh?

              (But, we do still agree that the President did aplogize.)

        2. making a mistake with military recognition.  What is your point?  That Obama can’t make mistakes but Bachmann can say outrageous lies like the Obama Administration not issuing drilling permits when in fact they did?  The difference is that Obama makes mistakes and Bachmann lies.  Big difference dick wad.

            1. When Obama makes mistakes, he apologizes; when Bachmann lies mis-speaks, history gets rewritten.

              One final note to 20th Maine:  It’s really a damn shame that FOX news doesn’t employ the services of a single f***ing fact checker, on any story, ever — if they did, you and I both know no one would have seen Bachmann’s gaff.  (Yep, that nasty, lazy, weak-minded press — always reinforcing their narrative.)

    2. ..I saw it on a number of the MSM outlets.

      They’ve even cover the resulting apologies:

      President Obama today apologized to the family of a Medal of Honor recipient whom he erroneously said was still alive.

      On Thursday at Fort Drum, the president told troops from the 10th Mountain Division that he previously “had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously.”

      Wrong. Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti was actually killed in Afghanistan on June 21, 2006. In September 2009, President Obama awarded him the Medal of Honor posthumously.

      On his Facebook page this evening, Monti’s father, Paul, posted: “FYI- President Barack Obama telephoned me personally this afternoon to apologize for his error in his speech to the 10th mountain division re: Jared’s medal ceremony. Apology accepted.”

      http://blogs.abcnews.com/polit…

      Pres admitted he screwed up, and apologies were delivered before the next morning.  

    3. fuxsake you really gonna stand up for her  Batshit idiocy?

      Press was all over Obama’s gaffe and he apologized publicly and to the family.

      Bachmann’s gaffe, which was during her announcement for Presidential candidacy no less, is just one of her many factual fuckups.  And when these fuckups are pointed out she rarely ever owns up or backs down.  

      For a follow-up, she mangled history again w/ little Georgie by stating John Q. Adams was a Founding Father.  Given the chance to walk that back she doubled-down on stupidity.  Now her army of Mendacious Michele ‘Morans’ are acting like Palin-putzes and trying to rewrite history to fit her idiocy.

      You go 20th – join right along in support of furthering stupidity & idiocy in today’s GOP.  Seems GW has been supplanted from anchoring the left end of the GOP bell curve.    

  4. Psycho Talk: The 32 Craziest Things GOP Presidential Contender Michele Bachmann Has Said

    Here’s an incomplete guide to Bachmann’s greatest hits:

    2001: In a letter she co-wrote for the Minnesota-based Maple River Education Coalition, Bachmann warns that President Bush’s education policies are leading the nation down the path to communism: “Government is implementing policies that will lead to poverty, not prosperity, by adopting the failed ideas of a state-planned and managed economy similar to that of the former Soviet Union.”

    2003: Bachmann, then a state senator, explains why she doesn’t agree with the theory of evolution: “Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat, which became a donkey, which became a human being? There’s a real lack of evidence from change from actual species to a different type of species. That’s where it’s difficult to prove.” Don’t even get her started on how a bill becomes a law.

    2003: Bachmann sends out a Christmas Card advertising the availability of her youngest son, Lucas: “Chick magnate [sic] needs wife to put him through med school, clean house, pay bills and run his life. Must be willing to gamble against onslaught of socialized medicine diminishing return on investment.”

    The following article first appeared in Mother Jones. For more great content from Mother Jones, sign up for their free email updates here.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the weekend, Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked Michele Bachmann if she was a flake. Below is a compendium of some of her more outlandish remarks. Judge for yourself. Bachmann has officially announced her candidacy for President.

    Now in just her third term in Congress, Michele Bachmann, the leader of the House tea party caucus, has earned a reputation as one of the lower chamber’s leading bomb-throwers, lobbing overheated rhetoric at Democrats and needling establishment Republicans. Her Minnesota colleague, Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison once accused her of “psycho talk”; in an interview with Politico, a Pawlenty aide was just as blunt: “She’s a real pain in the ass.” Former state senator Dean Johnson, who was the Republican minority leader during Bachmann’s stint in St. Paul, has said, “I don’t think I ever served with anybody who I mistrusted more, from either side of the aisle.”

    Ouch. Bachmann also has a tendency to stretch the truth, or simply sidestep it altogether. Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact, recently told Minnesota Public Radio that he has never researched a Bachmann quote and found it to be true (the only major politician for which that’s the case).

    Here’s an incomplete guide to Bachmann’s greatest hits:

    2001: In a letter she co-wrote for the Minnesota-based Maple River Education Coalition, Bachmann warns that President Bush’s education policies are leading the nation down the path to communism: “Government is implementing policies that will lead to poverty, not prosperity, by adopting the failed ideas of a state-planned and managed economy similar to that of the former Soviet Union.”

    2003: Bachmann, then a state senator, explains why she doesn’t agree with the theory of evolution: “Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat, which became a donkey, which became a human being? There’s a real lack of evidence from change from actual species to a different type of species. That’s where it’s difficult to prove.” Don’t even get her started on how a bill becomes a law.

    2003: Bachmann sends out a Christmas Card advertising the availability of her youngest son, Lucas: “Chick magnate [sic] needs wife to put him through med school, clean house, pay bills and run his life. Must be willing to gamble against onslaught of socialized medicine diminishing return on investment.”

    2004: With the country locked in a heated debate over gay marriage, Bachmann finds parallels in the Old Testament: “We’re in a state of crisis where our nation is literally ripping apart at the seams right now, and lawlessness is occurring from one ocean to the other. And we’re seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time, where every man doing that which is right in his own eyes-in other words, anarchy.”

    2004: Songwriter Melissa Etheridge has breast cancer. That’s bad news. But there’s good news too, Bachmann tells the conservative education group EdWatch: maybe the cancer will give her time to reflect on her sinful lifestyle: “Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers. This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.” In the same speech, she alleges that “almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life, either by a male or by a female.”

    http://www.alternet.org/teapar…

    Really, 20th – are you saying this stream of psychobabble insanity is going to attract moderate Repubs and Independents?

    2. My original point was that everyone in this line of business, including Obama, makes these mistakes.

      My second point was that these two comments were made within days of each other, but hers got a lot more attention.  That’s a fact.  The press didn’t bury his comments, but they didn’t lead with it like the Today Show lead with hers today.

      I don’t defend any of Bachmann’s misstatements.  

      1. Mistakes happen. It is how you acknowledge and correct them that differentiates the hacks from the leaders. She (and the teller of how Jingle Bells Revere made a stealth ride) cannot admit they f*&^ed up. They both start talking more crazy talk.  

  5. What is with the deification of John Wayne, the actor, as a great American hero?  He was an actor, folks. He played western and war heroes in movies.  He never did anything particularly heroic in life.  He didn’t fight in any real war. He wasn’t a real combat pilot like, for instance, Jimmy Stewart. He certainly had nothng to do with taming the west. I’m sure Bachmann meant John Wayne the actor, not the psycho clown killer but is that really so great either?  Just shows that, like Reagan and apparently so many others, she has trouble with the line between reel life and real life.  

    1. The crazy lady has been playing up her Iowa cred to the hilt to her “fellow Iowans”.  

      John Wayne is a deity among the tea crowd due to his perceived “manliness” and the fact he represents a by-gone era they all pine for. And with that, his real life short comings are readily over-looked. The true American hero to that crowd.  

      However, any self-respecting Iowan knows two things about Hollywood–one is that Johnny Carson was born in Corning and and the other is John Wayne (Marion Morrison) was born in Winterset, not Waterloo.  To not know this simple fact–and to conflate him with the mass murdering clown (probably a liberal!) betrays her as a squarehead from up North.

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