TPM tries to be more... journalistic... about it. But what's true is true:
"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter," said Bachmann. "And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."
Here's what I find interesting: Michele Bachmann is so partisan or so stupid (or both) that she thinks she's actually being coy enough not to be called out on this insidious piece of shit.
Gerald Ford was president during the 1976 swine flu outbreak. And Michele was probably as dumb as a fucking bag of rocks at that time, too.
And just to show that The Bachmann Stupid never ends, here's more historical idiocy captured by TPM:
As a matter of fact, the recession that FDR had to deal with wasn't as bad as the recession Coolidge had to deal with in the early 20s. Yet, the prescription that Coolidge put on that -- from history -- is lower taxes, lower regulatory burden, and we saw the "Roaring 20s," where we saw markets and growth in the economy like we'd never seen before in the history of the country. FDR applied just the opposite formula. The Hoot-Smalley Act [sic], which was a tremendous burden on tariff restrictions. And then, of course, trade barriers, and the regulatory burden and tax barriers. That's what we saw happen under FDR that took a recession and blew it into a full-scale depression. The American people suffered for almost ten years under that kind of thinking.
So here's the media note on this dumbass: First off, recognize that she speaks in Palinesque gibberish. "A tremendous burden on tariff restrictions?" What?
Worse still, as TPM's Eric Kleefield correctly points out, the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill -- not "Hoot-Smalley" -- was signed into law by Herbert Hoover (R), not FDR. The lead sponsors of the measure, Sen. Reed Smoot and Rep. Willis Hawley, were both... yes, you guessed it... Republicans.
Idiot, first class.
Imagine having this kind of dipshit as your Vice President.
The media did actually did a pretty decent job of figuring out both that Sarah Palin was an empty-headed clown and finding a way to let everyone know they knew that without saying it outright. It's time for them to Palinize Michele Bachmann. She's a complete dingbat, and is -- like Sarah -- a dangerously crazy as well. And so far, she hasn't had a reason in the world to care about using correct information, or to be ashamed enough not to spew her poisonous nonsense every time she sees a camera.
There are those reading this right now who, doubtless, will complain that I'm already giving her too much attention. But the attention I'm giving her right now is rather different in kind than the attention she gets from the traditional media. And it has a rather different purpose, too.
Exposing Sarah Palin for what she really is was a task bloggers were all too eager to take on. And while we clearly had an assist from the high profile nature of the office she was seeking that made it much easier than it will be with a relative nobody like Bachmann, the project is worth undertaking if it's even a tenth as effective. Sarah Palin is a national joke. Michele Bachmann ought to be. The traditional media knows from its experience with Palin that it can play this game and find a way to let America know what Bachmann is really all about. It's time they thought about doing so
