Today her take on what she said about investigating Congress for anti-Americans remains the same: I never said that. I was misconstrued. It was Chris Matthews' fault; he trapped me, he tricked me into calling for an investigation of Congress.
The St. Cloud Times is a medium sized daily newspaper serving one of the largest cities in the rural area of Bachmann's district. They interviewed her today and she lied her ass off about what happened and whose "fault" it was. You listen to the interview here at this link.
Kos posted a piece today on the front page her pointing out that Bachmann simply does not understand the concept of YouTube--the concept that(continued)
...because a politician can be recorded making a remark on day one, they cannot credibly lie about what they said on day two--because that video of the original statements can now be played at will by any citizen and the politician will immediately exposed as a liar.
Exposed as a liar many times over, since the lying denial can also be routed around the internet. Bachmann is a liar as well as a nut and a bigot.
That's what we've been documenting on the Dump Bachmann blog for years now. The difference now is that she dropped the mask for a few seconds on national TV--you saw that--and she was outed. To see the Chris Matthews followup on his Bachmann interview, Bachmann's damning comments, and Colin Powell's comments on her comments: click on the MSNBC footage here.)
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported today that Bachmann's remarks had reader's keyboards smoking--letter to the editor deploring her behavior are now coming in. But Bachmann is now relying on the local print media to do the spinning for her. So far, they're doing as good a job as she could expect. The two major dailies in St. Paul and Minneapolis kept the story off the front pages of the papers all weekend.
Yesterday a headline story ran in the Minneapolis paper (they simply could not ignore your historic fund raising, they had to at least acknowledge that.) Today there was a headline story in the St. Paul paper--but, as with earlier stories in the Twin Cities papers: it suggests that the reason that people from all over the country suddenly poured money into her opponent' campaign was that she questioned Barack Obama's patriotism. It's true that she did that during the Matthews interview, but what made people reach for their checkbooks was her suggestion that the media investigate anti-Americanism in Congress.
The headline story was entitled "Bachmann Swept Up In Firestorm of Criticism." The web version can be viewed here. But the Pioneer Press also gave her column space today to deny that she had said what you can hear her say on the Hardball interview. They reprinted a piece that she wrote for Politico, which they entitled "Bachmann fires back." In the piece, which covers a quarter of a page, she says that you donors are liberals who would not have voted for her anyway, and says that Chris Matthews distorted her views.
It's been suggested to me that the local reporters are simply following the lead of the AP in deciding to report that 1) grassroots contributions came in because of the Obama remarks and 2) to de-emphasize the McCarthyist call for an investigation of Congress. I don't know if it's the AP re-wording the local spin, or if it's the locals rewording the same spin: but all the print stories have that same spin. The headlines and leads in the local papers do not call attention to fact that Bachmann called for a McCarthy-like investigation of members of Congress.
The ideal headline (and the most accurate headline) that papers could have run is: "Bachmann calls for investigation of anti-Americanism in Congress." No one printed that here, not this weekend when it happened or in the wake of the event. That kind of local damage control for Bachmann is what her Democratic opponent is up against. It is true that Bachmann is wacky, a hater--but the local papers have been keeping her most extreme statements out of their reporting for eight years.
In other news:
James Carville sent out a DCCC fundraising letter with an appeal for contributions from Democrats in the wake of Bachmann's McCarthyism.
The DCCC has already released an ad criticizing Bachmann. The ad focuses on the financial meltdown, her slavish devotion to deregulation of finance prior to the crisis, and the money she's taken from banks and lenders throughout her career. That's big in the Sixth District because she's ignored the home mortgage foreclosure crisis that's been going on there for years.
Minnesota conservative Republicans tried to disassociate themselves from Bachmann's remarks on Hardball. Minnesota's governor is Republican Tim Pawlenty, a former McCain veep contender. John Kline is a Minnesota congressman, a GOP arch-conservative who normally votes with Bachmann. Eric Paulsen is a Minnesota congressional wannabe, challenging Dem contender Ashwin Madia. The Star Tribune reports (at the bottom of another story) that:
Pawlenty, Kline and Paulsen all distanced themselves from Bachmann's remarks in response to reporters' questions.
Said Pawlenty: "I don't think it's fair or appropriate to suggest that Barack Obama is anti-American. If you do a lot of interviews, eventually you are going to say something that you wish you had said differently. It's just the nature of talking all day."
(I don't know about you, but I could talk all day without suggesting an investigation of Congressmen for anti-Americanism. Most politicians are able to do that, too, in fact.)
Last night, a Kossack asked me for action links. If you want her out of there, the best way to do it is to send money to Elwyn Tinklenberg, her strongest opponent. Go here if you want to contribute to helping rid Congress of a lying nut.
http://www.tinklenberg08.com/