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Michele Bachmann went on CNN with John King to talk about her possible presidential run and said that her decision was not going to be based on whether Sarah Palin gets in the race. Riiiiiiight. I highly doubt that she'll enter if Palin jumps because they have the same followers. But King then called Bachmann out on all the many false statements she made about Obama. Her response was to say that, well, she reads a whole lot (slap to Palin?), and then blamed the articles she read in the AP for getting all her facts wrong. King told her she shouldn't be blaming factually correct news reports for her mistakes. She admitted that she could use a little messaging discipline. Hey, at least she heard of the AP.
KING: Let's deal with a few things. They should watch you, that's right. You had a conversation with Chris Wallace right after the Libya invasion started, the Libya bombing started, where you said, you know, you heard a report from an ambassador in Tripoli that maybe 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 people had been killed. That number was, of course, not anywhere near reliable. So some people said, well, Michele Bachmann just sees one little report and goes and quotes it on television. Do you have to work on discipline if you're going to run for president?
BACHMANN: I think it's important to have discipline and a message. That's true. And have I been right in -- have I been accurate in everything that I've said? No, that's not true. You can -- you can fact check. But the fact is, I read and I read a lot. And that morning, I had read in a -- a TV -- a report by A.P. And the overall number was correct and it was a number that was given by the ambassador. It wasn't in one particular engagement, but it was the number of people who had been wounded so far. So that was accurate.
You see she reads. However, making sure of the facts comes second.
KING: Another thing people cite is when the president was going to India, there was a report in a publication over there that used this wildly exorbitant number about how much his trip would cost. And you...
BACHMANN: Oh, sure.
KING: -- you, for several days...
BACHMANN: And -- and what I was doing...
KING: -- were talking about that.
BACHMANN: -- again, I was -- I was quoting from "The Financial Times." And so I -- I gave the source that I was quoting from and it was a financial newspaper from India. And so it isn't my job to go and fact check sources that come out in publication. And so I was using that quote. But you're right...
KING: It's your job as a candidate...
BACHMANN: -- when it's -- when it...
KING: -- when people...
KING: -- the left...
BACHMANN: You have a very good point...
Doesn't she have a staff working for her? We know she'll repeat falsehoods or make up insane ideas like the anti-Americans in Congress at the drop of a dime
KING: -- the left----likes to use you as a galvanizer.
BACHMANN: You have -- you have a very good point, though, that I think when you're -- when you're in the presidential realm, I do think that message discipline is required. And I think that that is something that, you know, all of us have areas that we need to do better on and that's certainly one that I'll pay a lot of attention to.
KING: I read a fundraising e-mail under your name just an hour or so ago. It was talking about: "Our president is too busy gallivanting around Europe with his Irish cousins to focus on rebuilding our economy and strengthening our nation." Now, people have a lot of fun in fundraising letters. But a President Bachmann would never take a little personal detour on a very important overseas trip for a G8 summit or sitting down with the prime minister of the United Kingdom?
BACHMANN: Well, of course presidents take trips. But remember, I think if the shoe was on the other foot and if we had a Republican as president and we just saw the devastation in Joplin, Missouri and we see the president of the United States playing ping pong on TV and we see him serving up hamburgers in -- in a day when we aren't dealing with devastation in the heartland of the United States, that would be fine for the president to be out doing those things. I don't fault him for that. And it's actually a -- a small thing in the scheme of things.
The right keeps on trying to find a false equivalency for Bush falling down on the job in NOLA and can't do it, but Michele doesn't mind fundraising off any crazy thought. The fake "$200-million-dollar-a-day trip to India story" was debunked immediately, but it didn't stop her or the Limbaughs from transmitting it as much and as often as they could.
I was kind of shocked that King went at many of her falsehoods directly, but good for him. We need more of this from the media in any campaign against any party. Bachmann is a treasure trove of misinformation and badly spun talking points, so King and his cohorts have a lot of work to do if or when she gets in the race.
