Michelle Bachmann and the Left

Michelle Bachman recently announced that she will not run again. That led several left-leaning columnists to revive all of the misstatements she has made. In doing so, they prove that she is right in stepping down, not because of her own failings but because she can't get fair treatment from the press. This column by Dana Milbank is representative.

Certainly, the media and late-night TV hosts will greatly miss the woman who declared that the American Revolution began in Concord, N.H., instead of Concord, Mass.; that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation; that certain members of Congress are "anti-America"; that John Wayne came from her birthplace of Waterloo, Iowa (she confused him with serial killer John Wayne Gacy); that God created an earthquake and a hurricane to protest federal spending; that the U.S. government is plotting death panels, re-education camps and an IRS database of Americans' medical records; and that the feds could use census data to put people in internment camps.

Whether she was calling President Obama a socialist, misplacing John Quincy Adams in history as a "Founding Father," or wishing Elvis Presley a "happy birthday" on the anniversary of his death, Bachmann frequently furnished evidence for her claim that God had called her to run for president — if only to provide comic relief.

Certainly Bachmann made errors but this list is misleading. The biggest one is John Quincy Adams. In a speech, Bacjmann referred to him as a fore-bearer meaning someone in the past. She did not call him a founding father but someone substituted that term and proceed to ridicule her for confusing Adams with his father.

While it is true that John Wayne was not from Waterloo, Iowa, his parents were. Confusing John Wayne with his parents is a lot different than confusing him with a serial killer.

It should also be pointed out that President Obama was a Marxist in college and it is unclear when his world-view changed (assuming it did). Public statements by some members of Congress do come off as anti-American and she would know more about their private views than most outsiders. The existence of death panels (panels deciding to withhold medical treatment because of expense) will not be known until Obamacare is fully implemented. The same is true for the IRS and medical records.

The real errors on the list - things like confusing Concord, N.H. with Concord, Mass., confusing an account of the MMR vaccine with the HPV vaccine, and the anniversary of Elvis's death with the anniversary of his birth are the type or error made by every politician. Even Obama was unclear about the number of states. Finally, there are her statements of faith which cause consternation to the left.

The point of this is that the left goes to lengths to paint her as an idiot of some kind. Everything she says is taken as ridiculous, even when it is true.