Oh My, Michele!

(Cartoon by Steve Sack and published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune 4/4/13.  Click on image to enlarge and then hustle back.)

It's one thing to have your home town newspaper come done on you for your really stupid and weak fabrications, it's something else when a major national newspaper does it.

...But we were curious about Bachmann’s suggestion that she voted against the 2011 Budget Control Act because she was worried about the impact on poorer segments of the population. ...

We searched high and low for any statements that Bachmann made at the time warning about the “calamities” that would fall on the poor because of budget cuts.

What we found instead were comments by Bachmann complaining that the Budget Control Act did not cut spending enough. She especially decried the fact that the debt ceiling was increased, arguing instead that the government could avoid default simply by making immediate and steep cuts. “We needed real cuts and a fundamental restructuring in the way Washington spends taxpayer dollars to solve the spending crisis we are in,” Bachmann said in a statement after the bill was passed. “Someone has to say NO to more spending. I will.”

While Bachmann made no mention of the impact on poorer Americans, she added: “This deal puts our national security at risk because of the severe cuts to defense that kick in should the President not do his job in the next few months.” ...

During that period, Bachmann also was just one of nine House Republicans who earlier had opposed a Republican alternative plan, known as the “Cut Cap and Balance Act,” which would have immediately reduced spending by $111 billion. In a floor speech, Bachmann said that while she embraced the bill’s principles, “the motion does not go far enough in fundamentally restructuring the way Washington spends taxpayer dollars.”

In other words, Bachmann in her statements and comments at the time wanted to cut spending even more — except for defense spending. The current sequester cuts security and nonsecurity spending by equal amounts, so presumably under Bachmann’s 2011 formula, the cutting of nonsecurity programs that she now says “breaks everyone’s hearts” would have been deeper.    [Emphasis added]

And what did Michele win for this egregious bit of flim-flammery?  A rating of "Four Pinocchios", the highest rating for lies in a fact check.

Once again, Michele has ignored the basic rule of staying alive in politics:  don't lie if there are ways to prove you are lying.  This is getting to be too easy a target.

More popcorn please.