NEWTON, Iowa -- With a well-established track record for raising eyebrows on the stump, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota on Wednesday said she thinks President Obama should be impeached.
After visiting a coffee shop in this small Iowa town, Bachmann was asked by a man in the crowd, "When will we impeach him and get him out of the way?" The candidate replied, "Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I agree, I agree. Some people are really upset."
That's from a CBS report. Now: do you call that a "gaffe" or is that "a political position of record?"
I say it's the latter. But as we all know from reading the legit press coverage day after day, the traditional media have embraced a policy of characterizing various different kinds of Bachmann statements as "gaffes."
Some times her statements really are "gaffes" (embarrassing mistakes of fact, misspeaking.) Examples of that include getting the location of the Battles of Lexington and Concord wrong, confusing the home of movie legend John Wayne with the home of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, etc.
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At other times, it seems clear that her statements are lies: statements made in an attempt to deceive her audience. (See Bachmann's record at Politifact.) An example of a Bachmann lie, is her attempt to convince the public that Obamacare is the federal government takeover of health care. That's not a "gaffe," that's use of lying as political strategy. There's countless examples of Bachmann lying. We know these statements are lies (intended to deceive) when they're exposed as false, but Bachmann makes no attempt to correct them or apologize for them.
Nonetheless, when the press writes up these incidents, they regularly lump all of them together as "Bachmann gaffes." It's a dangerous press policy, because the press sends a signal to other politicians: "If you lie as a matter of policy, we won't call you out on that publicly. We'll characterize what we know to be a lie as a "gaffe." We'll also characterize a controversial position on an important issue as a "gaffe"--if that position embarrasses you politically."
In this instance, we have a context for characterizing Bachmann's support for Obama impeachment. Shortly after the President was elected, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann accused Barack Obama of "practicing tyranny."
(She did that during a broadcast of the Sean Hannity program.) She regularly accused the President of running a "gangster government" and of practicing unconstitutional authority. This week she thanked a conservative for opining that he'd rather vote for Charles Manson than Barack Obama.
So it seems pretty clear that this latest public statement was not a "gaffe" (a mistake.) If you add up all the various Bachmann statements about the president and his actions in the White House, it's pretty clear that Michele Bachmann agrees that Barack Obama should be impeached.
She's never had the necessary political courage to stress that position publicly. It would take great political courage to call for impeachment, but identifying that as one of her core positions would cost her. So even if she feels "it's the right thing to do": that critical position on this presidency will stay on the back-burner, at least until she feels a popular groundswell of support for it.
But it's almost a certainty (in light of past remarks and this most recent one) that she'd back impeachment.
But only if she thought she could get away with backing impeachment; if she thought it wouldn't cost her politically. It's opportunism and conservative demagogy and catering to the ultraright at the expense of responsible leadership.
Again.
LINK:
http://www.cbsnews.com/...