RE: Make The Pros

As is the American way, it looks like Rep. Michelle Bachmann wants to try and clear her name (and stick it to the Dems) after her fateful interview with Chris Matthews (see a clip in my earlier blog). She wrote an article for Politico defending her statements. Here's a bit of what she had to say:

Despite the way the blogs and the Democratic party are spinning it, I never called all liberals anti-American, I never questioned Barack Obama's patriotism, and I never asked for some House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt into my colleagues in Congress.
. . .
It's like a political version of the children's game of telephone. I make a statement in an interview. Chris Matthews distorts it -- as he is paid so well to do. The liberal blogs contort it even more. The speaker of the House and aother Democrat leaders utter absolute lies about what was said in the interview. Then the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee picks it up and runs with it, buying $1 million for negative ads so that they don't have to talk about the issues.

And it's the issues that the voters in Minnesota's 6th District want to talk about. Everywhere I go, people ask about the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, and they want to know why we're saddling taxpayers with generations of debt to opay for risky decisions by Wall Street financiers. There's a clear distinction between my position on this bailout -- I opposed it both times it came before the House -- and that of my opponent, who saysa he would have supported it.

Boy oh boy, this woman is absolutely full of it. Though, in her defense she never actually said that all liberals are anti-American (though one could say that was pretty clearly her opinion on the matter). Also, she did not ask for a new House committee to investigate her colleagues committment or disdain for the US - she said the news media should do it. Would that be the liberal, elitist main stream news media?

What she did say during the interview, and now denies, is that she thinks Barack Obama harbors anti-American sentiments. Taken from the transcript:

MATTHEWS: So you think Barack Obama may have anti-American views?

BACHMANN: Absolutely. I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views.

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that's the same as questioning their patriotism. Now I don't know how Matthews distorted what she said, I don't know what Pelosi and Reid and the rest of them said about it, and I haven't seen the ads that the DCCC is running, so I don't intend to defend them. But for Bachmann to somehow assert that she didn't say what she did say is the height of absurdity.

And someone should fill her in on the fact that McCain also supported that $700 billion bailout she's so against.